Schlagwort: Food

dinner with celtrino

Yesterday our office went to show cooking in the city center. After we finished work at 17:30 we all went to a place that does wedding party’s and show cooking. It’s like a open hall with a big open kitchen in one of the corners and huge round tables. So first watched him preparing and cooking the four-course meal and then we ate it. Obliviously the second part was the better one. The quality of the food was astonishing. I took photos of the dishes but forgot to do one on the first dish. It was mushrooms on toast and a mushroom soup.

Dublin Staff Relay and Where To Find Me

Thursday was a very nice day. I’ve started playing around with one of the servers here that is not in the productive environment of SD and set up a couple of virtual machines. It’s nice to see, that I haven’t forgotten everything that I’ve learned in the Windows seminar in my first year. I was able to set up an active directory, DHCP and DNS and was fumbling around with users, groups and respective policies.

At around half past four in the afternoon I set out with Linda and Genevieve towards Phoenix Park and the Dublin Staff Relay. The drive there was crazy because the traffic was unbelievably bad and there was one particular funny/exciting moment, when Linda drove up the bus lane all the way to the next intersection and when we were waiting there to cross the road, sirens came out of nowhere. We both thought that we were busted but when an ambulance came around the corner, we laughed delightedly at the daring maneuver and that we got away with it. However, we were still pretty short on time so Genevieve jumped out of the car and ran for our tent with the runner’s numbers and we tried to find a parking spot somewhere. After a couple back-and-forths, Linda found a spot on an adjacent field that was accessible from the road. We carried drinks and food towards the tents, looked for ours for about 10 minutes and set everything up, when we finally arrived. We were surprised to see, that we were actually sharing a tent with quite a lot of other companies like Mitsubishi and Europcar.

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I didn’t really see a lot of the running but that was fine as I got to talk to the people instead. We had a couple of beers in the tent and most of us went to the pub afterwards. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones to have that idea and the pub was crowded, so we had to stand around with drinks in hands. It was a very nice evening and I talked to pretty much everybody that came to the run. I have to remember to buy the next round when we go out again because I was freeloading 3 drinks and I don’t want that to pop into people’s minds when they think about me. 😉

I was given a ride home by another colleague and went to bed at around 12 o’clock. Needless to say, this morning was far from being a good morning. I stayed in bed as long as I could and actually even longer than I should have, had breakfast, filled my water bottle and left after already having missed the first bus. Fortunately, I was still quite early and the office stayed quiet till well after 9am.

I’m also going to go home early today because I have to wash my clothes for next week as I will leave Dublin tomorrow morning for Connemara. I’m very excited about that as you must know! J

Seeing as I will get a visit next month, I will follow end this post with a short description of where to find System Dynamics.

The River Liffey cuts Dublin into 2 parts. Close to the harbor mouth, the „recently“ built Samuel Beckett Bridge spans from Sir John Rogerson’s Quay over to the North Wall Quay. The first thing you notice about the bridge is the shape it has. The Beckett Bridge looks like a harp and is easily distinguishable from any other bridge in Dublin.

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When you get closer to it, no matter on which side of the Liffey, you will see that O2 has an office building right next to the bridge. On the bottom right of that building, there is a passage that leads you to Whitacker Court and if you turn left the door into the building will be on your left hand side. It’s of no use to describe the rest because you won’t get past that door unless the woman down there buzzes you in. I found out that she is not really the door opener for the building but belongs to another company in the building and she also seems to leave that front desk fairly often.

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Cheers,
Angelo

Getting Ready

Monday was kind of a slow day. I was still stuffed from Sunday evening because Eamonn (my host dad) made potatoes and potatoes and beans and a few more potatoes and fish and soup. He also talked me into having a pint of Guinness with him and later when I complimented him on the food, he slipped me another pint. I had a really bad night that night because my stomach was aching in almost every possible position that I tried to sleep in (and there aren’t really that many sleeping positions). I did have breakfast, although I didn’t think I could fit anything in that morning. Work was good, as I put a couple of cables in place, to replace some of the old patching and worked on the documentation of the whole thing some more. I got offered a server to install a couple of VMs to try whatever I liked and I love the opportunity to try that out some time this week.

Today, I switched some of the ports and so far nobody complained. I guess I will take that as quiet confirmation of my good work because nobody affected was actually aware that I have changed things. I also had to “fix” a printer earlier today. The Lady at the front desk changed the toner and after that the printer got hung up on the idea that it would be cool to process the job using the manual tray. There was no paper in that tray, naturally. So I did what the printer asked me (or anyone who would be willing to listen) to do: push the “OK”-button to use another tray. I did that and the printer was happy to oblige and print to the end of all days or at least till it runs out of toner again.

People here are getting ready for the Dublin Staff Relay on Thursday which I will attend to help with the organization because I can’t really run 5k in much faster than 45 minutes and I believe that’s just not going to cut it. I still like the fact that I’m being invited to all those company events. The staff here tries to maintain an internal social network which is an awesome idea because as I explained some time ago, most of the people working for System Dynamics don’t really get to see each other when they’re on-site with the clients.

After work today I went to O’Connell Street to one of the many camping/outdoor shops there and bought a pair of hiking boots, for ~70€, for my tour to Connemara this weekend and also the upcoming company hiking event I will attend in the first week of July. I’m very excited about this weekend and I hope that the weather will turn out nice so I can take lots of pictures of Ireland’s wildest region for you guys… Or no pictures and just enjoy the hell out of it 😉 we’ll see 😛

Take care
Angelo

Midweek Mashup

A mashup in a way, because I need to tell you about the last couple of days and I’m going to cram as much of it in here as possible. And also because I’m quite artistic and I enjoy writing in a rather uncommon fashion.

So let’s see… there once was a day called Sunnandæg in Old English which soon turned into sunedai and is known to us simply as Sunday. Now, as legend has it, there was this young man who was sent to Ireland to hone his skills and experience the beauty of this not so far away country… far away country… ar away country… way country… ountry…

I woke up quite early which was for one, because of the alcohol I had consumed the night before and secondly, because I was ahead of everybody else by one hour. So after washing up, recapturing the day before and coming to terms with the fact that I had just spent my first night in Ireland, I went into the kitchen to eat breakfast. After breakfast I tried reaching George, answered a couple of the other messages I had received during the night and… bravely sat around while the world turned without my help.

A little later I was on my way to George who had gotten back to me and agreed to venture into the city. The sky, though cloudy and ripe with rain, looked amazing. One would think that the sky looks the same everywhere but I now believe that is not the case.

HouseOfCustoms

George and I went to the nearest Spar-shop, which his host dad had kindly pointed us in the direction of, and bought two leap cards for the bus. We each topped off the cards with 15€ and went to the nearest station. After asking a young woman, who tried her best to ignore the persistent bastard I am, we found out that every bus would go to the city centre from this point so we took the next bus and got off at O’Connell Street.

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After walking around the city centre, eating lunch and buying our O2 SIMs, we met up with Toni and headed to the Temple Bar to get a few drinks. As it turns out, Temple Bar is a major rip-off (/salute Major Rip-Off) as we paid almost 6€ for a pint of Guinness/Kilkenny and another 6,30€ for a shot of Jameson. It was a nice experience though and at least we get to brag with having had a drink there. We went home after that and I had dinner and went to bed.

Monday was a bank holiday in all of Ireland and I tried sleeping in, which did not work at all. I was up at around 7am, got dressed, had breakfast and then went back to my room and onto my bed to write another blog entry and a few postcards. I watched a movie, enjoyed a couple of YouTube videos and took a nap. It was quite the lazy day until George picked me up at around 16:30 and we went to see what Tesco had to offer and how Lidl would try to compete. I bought my favorite brand of facial tissue because I felt a cold crawling its way into my life here. The day ended as boring as it had started and so after having dinner, I went to bed.

Tesco

We had our first day of school on Tuesday and it was… okay. I know most of the things our teacher is teaching and the rest I don’t care about. It’s not boring per se but it’s also not a lot of fun. I try and help the other students as much as possible and give explanations where they are needed. Since Monday was off, we had an afternoon-session which ended at 5pm. For lunch, Toni, George and I had a Burrito right around the corner from school and were granted a discount of 1€ with the ISIC.

Later that day I bought flip-flops and a pair of sweatpants at Penneys because I didn’t bring any, not seeing the need that was now painfully clear to me. Dinner consisted of a Quiche and a nice, hot soup. My cold was in full swing and the night was terrible but at least I had Vaseline to keep my lips and nose smooth and keep the irritation at bay.
You, who so bravely read every word and giggled over every little joke, probably want to know how this story continues… Well, you’ll just have to tune in again on Sunday. 😉

..not enough time on a single day

On my second day in Dublin Angelo and I explored the city. At first we tried to figure out the public transportation via bus, which was more diffucult than we expected it to be. We drove to the city centre were we saw „The Spire“.

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From there we walked to the ministery district were we had a great view at „The Custom House“ and „The Ulster Bank“.

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Standing on a small bridge that crosses the „River Liffey“ we were planning the rest of our day. Since we were really hungry we decided to go to the „Temple Bar“ district and order some delicious italien food.

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After that, we picked up Toni and went to the famous „The Temple Bar“ in Temple Bar.The drinks were good but the prices not, but it was worth it.

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I would have loved to see more of Dublin, but there was not enough time on a single day.

A Very Warm Welcome

To say it was cloudy when we arrived at Dublin Airport would be quite the understatement. However, the carpet looked beautiful from above and kept us warm from below. I don’t know what the temperature was but I had to open all 3 of my jackets on our way to the bus.

After hunting down our luggage we made our way outside where Damien, our driver from INTERNSPLUS, waited. He gave us our welcome pack including an Irish sim (which I’m not going to use) and instructions for the first week in school. We have to attend classes at a language school near the Trinity College in the city and since Monday is a bank holiday, we have to stay the whole day on Tuesday. Wednesday through Friday it’s supposed to be 4 hours from 9am to 1pm so there’s time to see the city afterwards. There is also going to be a welcome meeting on Wednesday after class.

I was the first one to get off the bus and Damien brought me to the front door of 31 Elm Mount Heights where Ann O’Connor is now harboring me. She showed me to the room where I put down my bag and backpack and took off my jackets. I went down to have a cup of tea and a sandwich in the kitchen. I talked to Ann for quite some time and asked her about the things I would have to keep in mind while staying with her and her husband. She told me that there is also a guy from Saudi Arabia and a guy from Switzerland in the house and that she has been a host for about 2 years now. She mostly has full time students here and I’m the first one to have a work experience.

After my second cup of tea Ann told me that she had to run some errands, gave me the key to her Wi-Fi and I went up to unpack. My room had obviously belonged to some girl before because she kindly left her hair all over the wooden floor. I got rid of the hairs and started unpacking.

Later that evening Ann’s daughter and two of her sons where supposed to join us for dinner. I sat in the kitchen while she prepared lamb chops with potatoes and assorted vegetables and an apple pie. We talked a lot which I really enjoyed.

The evening was great and the food awesome. I stayed up until long after 2am that night, talking to Ann, her son Patrick, his wife Denise (who both kindly invited me to their house warming party and Denise’s Birthday) and the rest of the family. Patrick told me about the national sport Hurling and said that the championship is about to start. He offered to take me to a game one time and I’m looking forward to it.

Patrick also offered me a chance to have a Guinness and after having three Heineken already I felt reluctant to refuse the offer. So after 2 Guinness, a couple of jokes and singing Dubliners songs, Patrick and Denise where the last to leave the party and I went to bed after they had left.

I felt very welcome that day and considering it was only the first day and they had just met me, I’m looking forward to the days to come.