4 movies in 4 weeks. Yep, even I am surprised about that. I guess I’ve been more often in cinemas here in Belfast than the last two years back at home in Germany. I think this is because I don’t have a car here or a PC that is capable to run good games and it’s still to cold to go to a lake. But now back to my work project. ASP.NET is actually a pretty interesing framework because of the MVC (model, view and controller) design. The programming language that is used is C#, which is quite similar to Java, at least in terms of the logic. The benefiting difference is that you can use some SQL commands in the C# environment. I have the feeling that I make good progress in understanding the framework, even if I have some problems sometimes, because I can’t use the normal HTML attributes everywhere so easily.
Yesterday and today we had a lot of work to do. Again there were many PCs to move but since we had to check that the whole equipment is in the same constellation like before we only were able to pick up 2 at once. Tuesday is like in Dublin cinema day too. The price is 3 Pound for each film and they are showing the newest blockbusters. Eric, Leo and me went to „The Edge of Tomorrow“, it was an impressive movie in my opinion and definitly worth the watch. Tomorrow we need to move fully packed lockers, which will also take a lot of time as we have to move the stuff which is in there seperatly. If this is done, I think it will be a bit quieter at all. I’m looking forward for the weekend because I’ve planned to visit the Belfast Zoo (which is near the Cave Hill) or the museum, so if you are interested in the experiences look out for my entry.
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.
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.
That is why on Sunday, I got up at 8.45am, had breakfast and at 9.20am left the house to go (as in walk) to Howth. Google says that I walked around 32km that day but it’s not as accurate and it was more than that because I also did quite a lot of back and forth around the paths there. I did 47634 steps which brought me to a total of 136467 steps and my team of 7 people to 643791 for the week.
I actually awoke to the sound of rain which kind of put my mood down but I was still hell-bent on doing this walk. The rain only lasted a few minutes and then the sun tried her best to dry up the streets and sidewalks. It wasn’t dry but quite warm when I left the house and started towards Artane Castle to buy water and a snack at Tesco.
I continued down the road a few minutes later and turned left at the T-junction, walking towards the Artane roundabout. I wound my way through the streets of Dublin this way and soon came to Dublin Road which is kind of a coastal road leading to the Howth peninsula. It started to drizzle even before I came to that road but as I turned onto it, the wind from the sea was so strong that the tiny raindrops „fell“ horizontally and felt like needles, piercing the right side of my face. I kept walking and soon felt like this was some kind of punishment I had to withstand to be worthy of the sight that would be at the end of this road. The rain kept on lashing me for quite a while and only stopped when I reached Sutton which is located right at the entry of the peninsula. Of course, the rain started again a few minutes later and continued all the way until I reached the end of Howth harbor and the public restrooms. I was so unbelievably happy to see those restrooms.
I thought about having lunch in one of the restaurants but I don’t really care for seafood that much and considering the prices displayed on the menues, I stopped caring about “real” food altogether. I grabbed the small bag filled with nuts and raisins that I bought at Tesco earlier and took a couple of hands full. 200g of this mix really fill you up even though the taste isn’t as satisfying as that a nice steak with French fries would deliver, accompanied by a nice Guinness. Anyway, it kept me going and so I walked around the peninsula, came by the lighthouse, the beach and walked all the way back towards my home. Those last kilometers were really difficult and I had to sit down a few times just to rest my feet. My ankles and even my hips started to hurt before I finally arrived home. I had the dinner that was waiting for me in the oven, took a shower and went to bed, happy that I had used the day the way I did.
Just a reminder: These photographs are resized to conserve space so if you would like to see any particular photograph in its original size and quality, please contact me when I’m back in Germany. 🙂
On Friday afternoon, Eamonn offered to take me to Galway on Saturday and maybe on Sunday to go up Croagh Patrick with him. Unfortunately he cancelled but offered to take me to Glendalough on Saturday instead.
Around 1.30pm, I met him and his wife Angela in the parking lot of Tesco and off we went in their car. We took the M50 that, much like the A10 for Berlin, runs around the city of Dublin. It is a tolled road but it is the quickest way from one side of the city to the other.
We drove through the Wicklow Mountains and stopped occasionally when there was something to see. There were definitely a lot of things to see as you will notice in the gallery below. In Roundwood, a small town along the way, we stopped for lunch and I had a burger with rocket, the famous green stuff that apparently everybody loves… personally, I think of it more like Reinald Grebe who put it something like “the weed that comes from abroad, is a lucky one”. Rocket is just a fancy dandelion and it doesn’t taste even remotely good. Fortunately, the beef and the onions were able to cover up the taste of it. The fries were awesome as well and I was absolutely satisfied when I had the cup of tea afterwards. The food was Eamonn’s treat which I found very generous of him.
We went on to Glendalough which is a glacial valley in Wicklow. There are different difficulty paths that run through the whole valley, along lakes or up mountainsides. It’s a very beautiful place to be and up on the mountains that enclose the valley, the air is serene and filled only with the many voices of nature. I took a lot of pictures that you can see in the gallery below but unfortunately none of them were able to catch the real beauty of the place. I’m starting to believe that no picture will ever achieve that. *sigh*
View Towards Dublin
National Park
Water
More Water
Deer
Glendalough Valley
Glendalough
Waterfall
Glendalough Valley
The Path
Sun Piercing the Scenery
Glendalough Monastery
Tower Plaque
Tower Entrance
When I came home that day, Anne and her Family were having a BBQ so I joined them for dinner and later had 3 Guinness with Eamonn (Anne’s husband). It was a very nice evening and it went on for hours. I went to bed around 12.30am and set my alarm for 9am. Come back tomorrow to learn what I did on Sunday and why I had to get up so early.
After the Comic Con we decided to drive back to the city and go to a few shops again. Martin was interested into the Nintendo GameCube which was actually sold at a pawnbroker called CashConverters. Before we went there Eric, Joel and Nick were interested in visiting a store called Forbidden Planet which was something like a mixture of all convention stands we of the Comic Con and sells everything what is related to the drawn art. The shop was overran, I think because of the event earlier the day and after looking around a few minutes Martin and I decided to go ahead of the others to CashConverters. On the way to there we found a similiar shop which was way larger and we looked after games that we know from the past. Since we found some of them but nothing which interested us any further we left it and we’re heading back the original destination. Martin bought a black version of the console and a game and after meeting up with the others we went to Iceland to buy some groceries. When we got back home we made some burgers in the evening and had a good time. The Sunday was mostly eventless and after having a relaxed day it’s now bed time for me.
On Friday Joel came to visit us in Belfast, because there was a convention to take place from the 7th to the 8th June of 2014. He arrived around 17pm here, and after a quiet Friday evening where we cooked some pasta and looked some films we (Nick, Eric, Martin, Joel and me) got up at about 10 pm in the morning to get ready for the event. After having a nice breakfast we took a cab to the Kings Hall which led us trough some nice neighbourhoods around Belfast which I‘ haven’t seen before. Around the Lisburn Road there is a big mansion district where a lot of really impressive houses are located. While we we’re driving to the venue the weather already started to getting worse. There was a huge load of rain coming to the earth and it didn’t seem to clear up so soon. As we arrived we we’re shocked about how many people lined up to get into the Comic Con. It was a queue which was about 300 meters long and we first had to walk to the end of it. As expected the weather seemed to side against us, so instead of getting better the rain steadily hold on while we were waiting to get in. We were curious about how long it would take to reach the entry and already got used to the idea that it could easily take 2 hours to get in, but as the people were moving in batches it happened to be slightly earlier. After about a hour we finally where in the batch that was getting access to the area.
The entry fee was 8 pounds which is okay in my opinion for a big event. After we’ve passed the gates a huge wave of humid heat was streaming towards us, which was at first really heavy but after spending a few minutes in the building you got used to it. It also had the advantage that the clothing was drying fast which was completely sodden after the rainfall. The convention itself wasn’t what like I’ve expected it to be. On each stand there was a lot of merchandise for sell, mostly more expensive then you can buy it elsewhere but anyway a lot of stuff huddled up. Me as I’ve never been a fan of animes and mangas and most comics at all (probably because I’ve never been interested enough yet to get deeper into it) was a bit disappointed, but anyway I’ve bought a few souveniers which aren’t related to comics in particular. Eric explained me afterwards that there’s a difference between a convention and a fair where more stuff is free available and new products are announced, while conventions usually are for selling stuff and meeting up like-minded persons. I now can say that I wouldn’t visit it anymore, but for more interested persons, it’s a nice thing for sure and it was an experience on its own that had to be made.
My work week was as usual a mixture of moving equipment around and reassembling PCs. On Monday we had to move Thin-Clients from one branch to another but because the cables were needed elsewhere we couldn’t get them to work at all. Eric, Max and me are moving more and more between the 3 buildings, so we often need to walk around the city ourselves, which is great because Belfast is at least in the inner city an interesting place to be during the work hours. For example we’ve seen a few Google Street View cars on the roads or in front of the court there were interviews taken with the local news reporters which were broadcasted to BBC. There are quite a lot of ways to go to the Riverhouse building and we usually take the one which is going along a small pedestrian area where a lot of Cafés and restaurants are located, including the big Victoria Square Shopping Centre which is a nice place for having lunch. On Wednesday Mr. Bavar, Mrs. Neumann and Mrs. Teichmann came along our firm to talk to us about the work experience and the internship in general. They were accompanied by Ruth from Intern Europe and Mrs. Brady from Concentrix whom had a nice talk with them. After exchanging a few words and taking some pictures they had to go again because of the tight shedule they had for the day. On that day the CCNA NetRiders also took place, where some of us had participated. On Thursday and Friday we had to assemble fans for the buildings and fix up office chairs. We we’re around in different contractor areas which gave us again an impression who the things are working there in the company. All in all it was quite a nice week and I’m looking forward for the remaining time in Belfast.
at this weekend Eric, Joel, Nick, Tim and me visited the Comic Con in Belfast.
The Comic Con was in the King`s Hall in Belfast and there were a lot of people and we had to wait over an hour to buy our ticket.
Eric, Joel and Nick are very excited but Tim and me found it not very well.
I think that we doesn’t watch enough comic and mangas but it was a expericiene.
The best thing what I found was the car from the movie Back to the Future.
Eric, Joel and Nick want to spend more time at the Comic Con but Tim and me wanted to leave.
This weekend a Comic Con took place here in Belfast. And of course, we were there to check out this event and to make pictures of some hand made cosplay costumes. Actually it was a quite small hall, but we still had to wait over an hour in the line to get into. After we finally made it into we walked around a bit to see everything. I was looking for some mangas the whole time, but unfortunately I couldn’t find even one booth which sells some. But I guess at least it was a success for Eric, because he found a lot of Bronie stuff and met some supporters of the Bronie cult. After that we took a taxi to the city center, where we visited the Forbidden Planet another comic and merchandise store, where I got a fabric banner of Shizuo, a character of the anime Durarara!!, which will get a second season soon. Back at home we made burgers for dinner again and let the evening fade away in a relaxing atmosphere with watching some movies and stuff.
