Tag: 11. Mai 2014

First free weekend in Belfast

Hi everyone!

Like it was said in the title that was our first free weekend we had in Belfast but it wasnt that spectacular like you could imagine. Most of the time we were sitting at home and were watching the british television. I for myself love british television shows like „Doctor Who“ or „Sherlock“ are really awesome shows with a lot of drama and thrill. today however we decided to go out and have a little BBQ. The weather was like always not the best but we got that going for us. The hardest thing at the BBQ was to get it started because a the wet air the fire extinguished really quick but after some time we finally made it and the meat was well done like it has to be. Now we are justing in our flat and relax ourleves because tomorrow is our first day of work.

 

The last few days

I used the last few days to get to know Belfast a bit more.
Yesterday we went to the city while the first of 21 stages of the big cycle race Giro d’Italia was going down.
The streets were filled with people and it was like whole Belfast came out to see and to cheer the competitors.
Many stores were decorated in pink and the windows were full of pink cyclists. Since a few days there was a big stage
where you had the chance to see an entertainment program full of music, talks and other attractions.
After viewing the end of the race (with the German „Marcel Kittel“ as winner) Martin, Leo and me decided to go to the big Metro Tesco
in the city center. It was hard to find a way through the masses of the people but with a lot of scramble and some time we were able to reach before it closed.
After buying some groceries and taking a cab back home we had a nice evening with a few people we met in front of our flat.
They were musicians and went for an aftershow party to the club opposite to our home.
Tomorrow Eric, Max and me will have our first work day at Concentrix and we look forward to have a good and productive time there.
The company lately announced that they will create around 1.000 new jobs in Belfast so I think there is a plenty of work to do.

The Irish Food

Hello everyone,

the food in Ireland is very expensive and the fast food is not the same like it is in germany.
So it takes a lot of time to get used to it.
For Example the „Döner“ is completly different to the „Döner“ from germany but it is an experience.
They meat which is used is lam.
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and the living costs are very high.
You´ll have to decide what you can buy and what is useless, but in the supermarkets there are a lot of offers so you can for example buy 2 for the price of one.
In the appartements there are modern kitchens so we are saving some money by cooking some of our favorite dishes from home.

Giants Causeway and a few more stops

Today Nick, Maria and I decided to do a little bit of sightseeing and bought a tour to Dunluce Castle, Giants Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede and our last stop was a nice little beach.
Our tour started at 9am, the bus picked us up at our language school, afterwards we went on and picked up a few more guys before we headed to the Dunluce Castle.
It took as about an hour and a half to reach our first stop Dunluce Castle. The weather at that point was very bad, it was raining during our drive to the castle and our stay there.
We stayed at the castle for about 20 minutes before we had to leave.

After we all gathered at the bus we headed towards Giants Causeway. It took us another 30 minutes to reach it. We stayed there for about 1hour 45minutes. Luckily the weather got better and it stopped to rain, besides a few minutes of rain every now and then. Even the sun came out and it stayed like that for the rest of our tour. The view is just amazing.

Our next stop was Carrick-a-Rede, it took us maybe 20minutes to reach it. Our driver dropped us out and told us that we got 1hr 15minutes before we have to leave. So we made our way to the bridge it took us 30 minutes from the parking lot to the bridge itself. The view during our walk to the bridge just amazing the weather was perfect, only a few clouds and sunshine.


Our last stop was the beach where we spend another 20 minutes which we (Nick, Maria and I) used to get some lunch and just relaxing from our journey. We made our way back to Belfast along the coastline which took us approximately 2hr.

A Warm Welcome

The first couple of days passed by and I am more and more adapting to my environment which took some time especially if you are used to really high german food standards and cheap prices. Here in Northern Ireland the clocks really tick differently, not only are the people really unique but there is something about Belfast which is completely new to me. But one thing after another:

We had to call the police after just one day being here because there were some random strangers we could not identify who were throwing stones at the window and managed to break one. After talking to the cops on the phone we could hear them arriving just a couple of minutes later. We had a really informative chat with them in which they told us, that this would be their 600th something case just today (and it was still the early afternoon). This truly was an odd way of greeting your new neighbours and of course the the police couldn’t do anything about it so we just called our landlord and our agency telling them about the situation. Our landlord told us that he will send somebody to fix it and we went on spending some good times around the city and forgetting about the incident.