Autor: George Wolff

Advice Nr.4

Hey everyone,

only two days left. So I will use the last hours to give you another advice.
The most important thing for a journey is your suitcase. If you forget some necessary items, you could get into trouble. Therefore I made a list with some items you should take with you or that could be useful. Before you start your journey you should create your own list. 😉

Compile a list!

– Information sheets from the OSZ IMT (Agreement)
– Laptop
– Mobile phone
– USB flash drive
– Email accounts and passwords (you should know them) 😉
– Important telephone numbers and email addresses
– Camera with enough memory
– External hard drive
– ID card
– Credit card
– Driver license (If you want to rent a car)
– Webcam
– Health insurance card
– Addresses from your family and friends
– A bit hardcash (banknotes and coins for the bus)
– Rainjacket
– Waterproof shoes
– Umbrella
– Shirt and tie
– Belt
– cosmetics
– Charger for your electronic devices
– Socket adapter
– German power strip (you will only need one socket adapter)
– Do not forget your clothes 😉

With these items you cannot do anything wrong.
Have a nice trip!

Yours George

Advice Nr.3

Hey everyone,

time for a new advice. 🙂 We all know that communication is a big part of our life. How can you keep in touch with someone?

Buy a phonecard!

It can be very expensive for you, if you take a phone call or use the mobile internet with a phonecard from your home country. Therefore I advice you to buy a prepaid card (in the new country). If you travel in a group it is useful, that all people of you buy a prepaid card from the same provider. You have a big range which provider you could choose. The most of them have a nice offer for travellers. You can book a lot of options. As an example a flat rate for any phone calls in Ireland combined with 200mb of mobile internet and 30 minutes to phone in your home country (that was the constellation that I chossed). I do not want to make any promotion, because of this I am telling you that you only need (the common run) 20€ for a month.

Be careful!

Your flat rate for any phone calls will only work in your own country! If you are living in the „Republic of Ireland“ you are not able to use your phone card in „Northern ireland“. There are both independent countrys! The same applies to people who living in „Northern Ireland“.

Use your credit sparingly! It is useful to have enough credits in the case of an emergency.

Area codes:

The area code for the „Republic of Ireland“ is 00(+) 353
The area code for „Northern Ireland“ is 00(+) 44
The area code for „Germany“ is 00(+) 49

Yours George

Advice Nr.2

Hey everyone,

today is Tuesday and there are only 4 days left here in Ireland – Dublin. Time for a new advice. 🙂

Get a credit card!

I know some of you already own one, two or maybe more, but for those people who do not thought about it…should. Even if you do not need the credit card in your home country, it could be very useful in others. Many credit institutions allocate them for free. The big advantage is, that you mostly (it depends on your credit institution) do not pay any transaction fees and It is also very easy to pay with them. Besides most of the shops accept them. Before you go to another country, inform your credit institution that you will make a journey. Otherwise it could happen that they lock your credit card for caution’s sake and it become useless. 😉

Be careful!

If you want to buy something with your credit card, you do not need to key in your PIN number. Mostly it suffices that you sign the receipt. As much more you should look that you do not lose your credit card. Other people could buy something with it without your PIN.
Just in case safe the emergency number from your credit institution in your mobile phone.

Yours George

Advice Nr.1

Hey everyone,

there are only five days left and I am looking forward to see my family in Berlin. I will try to give you some information about Dublin, that could be useful for the „AFIB-successor“ next year.

Get a „leapcard“!
Taking the Dublin bus will be very expensive for you if you do not own one. Besides you will need coins to buy a busticket. They will not take any kind of banknotes and you do not get any change!
The Dublin bus system is not completed nowadays. There are a few zones in the city which affect the price of a regular bus ticket (per direction). In the end you will mostly pay 2,35€ except you only drive one or two stations…and you will notice that this will be very expensive if you need the bus to reach your workplace.

leapcard.

You can buy a leadcard in most of the „Spar“ shops for 5€. After that you can top off your leap card with a random amount of money. If you take the bus and pay with your leapcard you will mostly pay 1,95€ to reach your destination (per direction). After your internship you can give your „leapcard“ back to a shop. After that you will get back your 5€…or you keep it as a souvenir 😉

This link could be useful:  https://www.dublinbus.ie/Fares–Tickets/Fare-Information/Fares/

Yours George

Barbecue and PUBlic viewing

Hey everyone,

the weekend was very nice and passed quickly. We used the fine weather and the good atmosphere for a nice barbecue. At Saturday midday I met Joel and his girlfriend in the city centre and showed them a little bit of Dublin. After that we went home and had a delicious barbecue with a lot of family members and friends of the Brady’s. In the late evening we all went to the „Cat and Cage“. We watched the last match of the World Cup and had a few beer.

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Today I, Jonas, Paul, his sister and her husband went to Carlingford. We had a nice walk and lunch in the alleys and enjoyed the nice weather.

Yours George

Live every day to its fullest

Hey everyone,

only ten days left but I live every day to its fullest. Yesterday the Brady’s(Hostfamily) and I went to „Nando’s“. It is a South African dining restaurant and they are specializes in chicken dishes. I eat ten chicken wings, a bowl of chips and drink 3 glasses of water, because the chicken wings were very spicy. Also so chips were spicy but delicious. After that we all eat ice cream and had a nice conversation at home.

Today the weather was awesome. We had twenty-three degree and I enjoyed it much.
Ryan asked me if I like to play soccer in the afternoon with him and some older men.
I agreed and right now I take my clothes and get ready for the match.
That feels like a typical summer…

Yours George

Soccer Soccer and more Soccer

Hey everyone,

today was a beautiful day. After my worktime I bought a few things for dinner, because I promised Paul that me and Jonas will do the dinner for today…german dinner of course.For the dinner I bought spareribs, potatos and onions. After that we went home to watch the Wolrd Cup game Germany versus Portugal. What a nice game i thought..4:0 for Germany. A very good start.

After the game was finished Jonas and me prepared the dinner. Dillons friend was visited us so we were six people. Afterwards the guys and I played soccer in the garden. Unfortunately the ball flew two times over the wall in the neighbours garden, but that has not stopped us..replacement ball 😉

Tomorrow we will go to a restaurant and eat Dublins famous chickenwings and watch other World Cup games. I am looking forward to it.

Yours George

Sunbathing and Soccer

Hello everyone,

the weekend passed very quick. I and my hostfamily watched the „Soccer World Cup 2014“ games and we speculated which team will be the winner. We decided the best team should be the winner..except England. Unfortunately there is no Irish team in the groups.
I also realized that a lot of Irish people go to the betting office and challenge their luck.

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Actually we planned to go to the Irish east coast, but we deferred out trip to next Sunday because Ryan and Dillon worked the whole weekend. For that resaon we stayed at home and enjoyed the wonderful weather with drinks, snacks, music and more soccer games.

Along these lines..Cheers!

Weekend plans

Hey everyone,

the last days were very nice. At Work there arrived three new students from Portugal. We all work together and I am trying to help them anytime. Their english is not so good and it is very difficult to explain them something. I hope I can help them to enhance their english and technique skills.

The last two days we had nice weather in Dublin and Paul and I made some plans for the weekend. On Sunday we will drive to the east coast next to Northern Ireland and take a walk at the seaside and some lunch. I also want to meet some friends at the weekend. Hopefully the weather will be as good as today.

Yours George

Tuesday is cinema day

I got up in the morning and the sun shines right in my face and I though:

well it seems today will be a nice day.

After I reached my workplace the corrugated iron on the roof made some unusual noise. In the next moment I looked out of the window and saw a lot of hailstones.

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I thought it is June and not December..typical Irish Summer

Tuesday is cinema day in Dublin.
In the afternoon Angelo and I went to the cinema next to „The Spire“ and saw
„X-Men: Day of Future Past“. I didn’t saw the movies before and still it was a very nice film.
After that we took a walk instead of the bus and enjoyed the evening sun.