Autor: Leonardo Renn

To all of you reading this in preparation for their trip here to Belfast: You are going to have a great time here if you prepare yourself with some money in the pocket, a good book to read when the rain is forcing you to stay home and are open to meet new people and willing to chat to strangers you never met before. Most of the time people here are incredibly nice and you will have a lot of fun if you accept their way of living here and dont start questioning everything they do as they are part of one unique country which is certainly very different to other countries in Europe.

Of course the first time settling down will be a little weird but after a couple of days you will start to realize how to handle strangers on the street who often start randomly talking to you. Thats because they somehow see that you are not from Belfast and are interested in how and why you came here. A suggestion: do start telling your story and you will always either get an interesting story of their life back or even make a new friend which will make your time here in Belfast even better.

In the afternoon we spent most of the time yesterday cleaning up every inch of the apartment which at the start was very frustrating but then we turned on some music and it started to be a little more entertaining especially if everyone is doing it at the same time and no one has to feel like the cleaning lady of the house. We received a check list from intern europe which is also useful to make sure nothing is forgotten but one point made me think about people in the past living in our apartments: „Throw away every poster on the walls“. Who is stupid enough to bring or buy posters and hang them on the walls? Seems like they had bad experiences in the past but this time I suppose they got lucky as our apartment is in a perfect shape and we feel no guilt about leaving the apartment to the next visitors arriving next week.

My last week here at SpeechStorm started as the week before ended: testing, testing and MORE testing! Everyone is really working hard to get everything up and running so we can maintain our release date for the upcoming patch. Somehow I already feel sad to leave this company as I am entering a phase where my productive work is already a part of the plan and I think I could contribute a lot more in the future. So I am working my ass off to help as much as I can in my last couple of days in Belfast.

Well time went by quickly and I woke up on Saturday morning with plans to really wander around Belfast and soak every impression in me I could get and it ended with my typical route around the city with stops at my favourite restaurants and bars. This time I was alone which was a different experience compared to wander around as a group of germans. I talked to a lot of people and I even met somebody from Italy who is living at the same town of my grandma which was an incredible coincidence. We talked about our experiences here and our future plans. As I am heading to my family after the internship I well meet him again back in Italy and who knows maybe we are even related… You never know!

When Germany played against Portugal we were invited by intern europe to join them watching it on their HD TV including their staff and some other students from Portugal. You can imagine that after the first couple of goals the atmosphere was kind of weird as every german in the room was full of joy and cheering but on the other hand there were some devastated folks aswell. Intern europe provided us with beer and chips which pushed the atmosphere even more in the right direction. After the match and in the break I hat some nice conversations with some of the opposite fraction who at the time of the break thought they still have a chance… Well we know how that ended!

In this week I mostly tested the work I have been providing for our next Build which is going to hit in the next week. By doing this I also found out how the development of patches is handled which was incredibly interesting to see. Everyone is working hard to get the last things done as most of the company is gone for holiday the upcoming week. I am very satisfied with my work and I am also receiving good feedback which is boosting my confidence a lot.

Since I was a kid I always cheered for Italy when its World Cup time (good memories to 2006 still come to my mind especially now!) so when England encountered my second nationality I was for than happy to enjoy it in Northern Ire… ENGLAND. We went to a local pub where we also had some fun playing table soccer before the game started and I was so happy that this time everyone from our AFIB group was there not excluding anyone. The game itself was intense and thrilling but even more after England did manage to score their first goal. After seeing Italy winning I have to say I wasn’t sure to make my way back home unharmed but luckily I had my bodyguards surrounding me which was definitely helpfull 🙂

My work at SpeechStorm was really interesting this week as I had to implement things I learned from our call last week into the program core. A coworker wrote some tests for it so I could directly see if the output would equal my scripting input. I had some fun with it as CPR also includes text-to-speech in several languages and I could not only see my mistakes but also hear them. It was still tough to work through the grammar and coding it into the program but I had a lot of support while doing that.

We started our trip by driving along the coast and enjoying the beauty of the north coast and after seeing the tip of Scotland we headed south always trying to stay as close to the coast as possible. We passed London Derry but did change our road after hearing about Ballycroy National Park which only added around 100 miles more and was really worth it. When we reached Galway we booked a hotel for the night and called it a day as our next day was going to be even more exhausting. We payed little more than 30 Euros for a decent room which was close to the coast and granted us a incredible view the next morning. Dublin was obviously a big headliner on our road but still we spent most of our time seeing incredible places and landscapes. Compared to our last road trip including a friend of mine of Berlin and Tim I can tell you that driving around in peace without the „boys stuff“ is incredibly relaxing and I was reborn when we arrived at Dublin sitting down in a nice pub having just one beer for the sake of driving. I didn’t see that much of Dublin itself when we arrived at the Airport more than one month ago but after driving around in it and doing some sightseeing I kind of got the feeling that I wasn’t unlucky spending my time in Belfast – still Dublin is beautiful doe! As my girlfriend didn’t feel like driving in Ireland I just needed a coffee when arriving in Belfast to get my energy back including a dinner at TGI Fridays to get ready for the „gipsy lounge“. The club itself was ridiculous in comparison to german standards but we still had a great time as we also met our spanish friends from upstairs.

I was lucky enough to pick up my girlfriend on friday evening to show her around Belfast and tell her about all the exciting experiences I made so far. We are planning to make another road trip this weekend and I am really happy that I am used to drive around in Northern Ireland and can differentiate which parts of the North Coast are interesting to see and add some more stops on the way. As I am writing this post we are having a typical british breakfast with scrambled eggs and bacon all as a side dish with a huge beagle next to it. The weather is beautiful and I couldn’t be happier to hit the road again… this time as a pair of two!