Yesterday was my first day at Kedington NI a company that offers ICT solutions like
structured cabling, VOIP, intelligent lighting and UPS.
I started my work at 8:30am, I was greeted by a nice guy called Mark.
He showed me my workplace and told me to sit down for a few minutes, until Hans arrives who would take care of me for today.
A couple of minutes later Hans arrived, showed me around and introduced me to the few people that were here today.
All of my co-worker that I met so far are very nice and kind.
On monday Hans introduced me to his tasks, he is the Managment Accountant, he takes care about all the finances here at KNI.
I haven’t got much informations about my tasks so far but I’ve met Lawrence today who gave me a few more informations about my tasks.
Steven another co-worker gave me a brief overview on intelligent lighting what it means, what you can do and how much money you can save.
Tomorrow I’m going with Lawrence to a costumer, to collect some data about the intelligent lighting that they put up there.
Autor: René Kopper
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.
Crumlin Road Gaol
Yesterday, after we finished school we went to a local prison called „Crumlin Road Gaol“ which is closed since 1996.Our tour started in front of our language school we walked for about 30-40 minutes through belfast before we reached the prison itself. Jane who is responsible for the social actitivies at our school organized this trip and also showed us the way to the prison.
After we arrived at the prison each of us bought a ticket (7£ each students price) and waited for our tour guide.
The tour started at the entrance where every prisoner arrives, afterwards we walked halfway trough the tunnel, that connects the prison with the old court house sadly we weren’t able to go in the old court house due to its bad conditions. We continued our journey at the main entrance that connects all 4 cell blocks, which were able to hold 500 prisoners, at peak there were 1400 prisoners in the prison. We moved on through cell block C where we could see all different kinds of cells starting at a normal cell that was designed for one prisoner(Child/Adult) (Yeah they also put childs in the prison, the youngest kid was about 7). In 1860 they introduced a new law preventing prisoners under 14 to serve their full sentence in a adult prison, but childs could still be sent to the prison for a short amout of time to ’scare them straight‘. Our second to last stop was the condemned cell where the condemned lived together with 2 guards 24/7. He also lived right next to the execution room but he was totally unaware of it since he was 24/7 in his cell. If you’re sentenced to death it happened by hanging. The procedure wasn’t longer than 3 minutes but the body remained there for 45-60 minutes before they pulled it down and put it into a coffin. The bodys (17 in total) were buried in a unmarked grave within the prison walls. Our last stop was the prison wall the place where they buried all the bodys you’re still able to see 2 stones engraved with the initials of two prisoners that were hanged.
Grocery shopping and a little bit of sightseeing
Today we went to the Belfast City Centre to pickup a prepaid Sim card, so we can call each other without paying anything. We chose O² as a provider since our colleagues from Dublin also got it so we can call/text them for free. Afterwards we did a little bit of ‘sightseeing’, although we basically just walked trough the town to see what Belfast has to offer and hell its a lot, even though its a rather small city compared to Berlin. You can find everything within a few meters, multiple places to eat, pubs and grocery stores.
Afterwards we did some grocery shopping to get the basics we need for at least a few days. The closest grocery store is a tesco express, it’s a 5-10 minute walk but its only a small version of tesco so you can’t get everything there you want. On Tuesday we’re going to a normal Tesco to buy more supplies for our stay.