Schlagwort: Weather

Carpe Diem

…not carpe just half the fucking diem!

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.

Please, take the time to enjoy these photographs:

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. 🙂

Galileo Galileo

Galileo Figaro!

Arriving at Dublin Airport around 7.20pm on Friday, George and I went to Avis to pick up our car. After my VISA was declined, we had to book an insurance packet with Avis directly which cost us 12€ per day on top of what I had already paid in advance. It’s still very cheap to get a car for the weekend and after that minor setback, we were off to the guys in Derry. The drive up there was nice and after around 20 minutes on the road, sitting on the right side of the car, shifting with the left hand and driving on the left side becomes quite natural. The only thing that bothered me up until the end was the indicator being on the left side of the steering wheel which made it virtually impossible to use while shifting gears in a roundabout for example. When we arrived in Derry we had a small birthday party for George with Budweiser and Cake.

The next morning started off with a nice breakfast after which Joel came to Tobi and Paul’s place and then we were off to meet Max on a parking lot near to where his girlfriend was staying. Paul was kind enough to burn his road trip CDs for both our cars so after a few minutes our cars both looked kind of like this.

It took a little getting used to driving with another car behind me so when I came upon a place I thought was beautiful and well worth taking a couple of pictures, I pulled over with Paul rushing past me. Granted, I was kind of quick in my decision making and didn’t really have the time to indicate my desire to pull over so I wasn’t surprised that Paul didn’t make it. I was actually glad because I myself barely managed to come to a stop before the pocket ended. After that, it went rather smoothly. I tried watching out a little more and we reached every place safe and sound. We even came across a nice place where I had the chance to transform my Renault Mégane into a Dodge Ram. Well, sort of… 😉

The first stop of this journey was Mount Errigal in County Donegal. The Saturday sun blessed us with an amazing view as well as a nice tan/burn. We climbed 688 meters all the way to the tippy top which took us roughly two and a half to three hours and about an hour for the way down. I had to change my t-shirt and the others had to change their shoes and pants because the bottom of the Mountain was quite boggy. We started toward Galway at around 2pm and got there at 7.30pm. We spent the night at a nice little B&B run by Larry Bogan who’s a very nice man. Before going to bed, we decided to go into city center to eat something and maybe also have a pint of Guinness. It turned out to be quite hard to find a place that everybody could agree on and so we ended up in a diner eating burgers and drinking milkshakes. We were all pretty beat after climbing that mountain and driving down to Galway so we went home after that dinner.

The next morning, Larry made pancakes for us and we had toast and fruit as well. We left his B&B at around 9am, walking on the beach of Galway Bay for a bit, taking pictures and collecting a few shells; well, I did that anyway. After that we were off to the Slieve League Cliffs which are not as famous as the Cliffs of Moher but reach almost 3 times higher. The look down to the Atlantic waves smashing against the walls of the mountain was entrancing and so was the drive up and down the narrow roads there, going up and down, left and right.

Since Paul had to return his car before the rental place closed, we had to make our way back rather quickly and also get gas before returning the car. We managed it all fine, got back to Tobi and Paul’s place and had a little time to relax before we made our way into the city to have something to eat and drink. Since their favorite restaurant was closed, we ended up getting bat wings coated in cornflakes and dipped in scalding hot fat. The Hillbilly’s Family Meal comes with 6 pieces of chicken, 4 helpings of fries and a 1l soda. I went to bed at half past twelve and got up at 8 to have a final breakfast in Derry, before leaving for Dublin via the Giant’s Causeway and the Causeway Coastal Route.

The Giant’s Causeway was beautiful, the rope bridge tiny – from up where we looked at it – and the Causeway Coastal Route was amazing, breathtaking and fast. I had a blast riding that road like a dolphin rides the waves of the ocean.

George and I stopped at a restaurant which made the famous ‘golden seagull’ its emblem and took off ‘flying’ down the M1 Motorway towards Dublin. Now, when I say flying, I don’t literally mean flying like but I was going almost 180km/h at one point though the overall speed limit is 120 if not lower. But what can I say; it’s frustrating, having a fast car that isn’t allowed to go fast.

Giving the car back at the airport was easy enough since there was no damage done to the car, the tank was full and we even threw out the garbage. We made our way into the city by bus and when I came home, I put my clothes in the washer, went to Tesco to get some cash as well as deodorant and had dinner and a pint of Guinness with Eamonn, my host dad. After that I took a shower, shaved and went to bed.

In short: whoever said that driving 250 miles is hard, is not well informed because after driving roughly 1331 kilometers this weekend, I think 250 mi are a piece of cake. 😉

Cheers,
Angelo

Ireland Is Ridiculous

…ly beautiful!

Seriously, this country must be photoshopped. I took a lot of pictures this weekend, none of which will actually be able to show any of the beauty of this place. You cannot capture this on film, canvas or keep it in your memory for long. I am very sad because that last part becomes so brutally clear to me now.

My alarm went off at 5am on Saturday. I washed up, put my hiking boots on and started walking towards city center at 5.50am. It was raining that day and I took out my umbrella to try and keep my backpack dry. I wasn’t very successful and in the end, all my stuff was wet – not dripping wet but wet nonetheless.

The bus left Dublin city center around 7.25am and we arrived in Westport just shortly before 11.30am. We had a guided tour through Westport and an hour for lunch afterwards, where we bought food and drinks for the evening. We then left for Croagh Patrick, the mountain that Saint Patrick allegedly sat around on for quite some time, quite a while ago. The hike to the first level already had me completely drenched but not from rain but from sweat. It was very beautiful up there and I would have loved to go all the way to the top but that would’ve taken at least another hour and a half and we didn’t have that much time. When we were back at the bottom and left Croagh Patrick, our goal was to reach Kylemore Abbey at 5.30pm to have a 20min tour through the Abbey. We didn’t quite make it but still had the tour with another guide, after which we visited the garden and the little chapel.

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When we arrived at the Sleepzone hostel, the view was absolutely stunning. The hostel itself is located at the Killary Harbour, a fjord connected to the North Atlantic. And again I’m devastated when I think about how much beauty was simply lost when I look at my pictures now.

I had a couple of beers after dinner and went to bed at 3am in the morning. My alarm woke me up at 7am and I washed up and went to see if the sunrise looked as amazing as the sunset of the day before. My expectations were greatly outdone by what I saw and I was certain that my eyes weren’t worthy of the sight that sat before me. I’m not ashamed to say that it brought tears to my eyes and I will always remember this moment though the images will fade from my mind eventually.

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Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. ~Edgar Allan Poe

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.

022 Dublin Staff Relay

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

Workout

I returned The Notebook to Travelling Languages yesterday after work and used the opportunity to ask about our trip to Connemara this weekend. I’m really looking forward to it but I guess everyone knows that by now. I have also made plans for the weekends in June. Nothing’s written in stone but I want to go to Howth and Greystones/Bray because the views are supposed to be great and I can hop on to the DART for both so it’s not going to be too expensive.

So I was telling you about buying my hiking boots. Naturally, you have to break them in before they get comfortable. Well, I am trying to do that since yesterday and seeing as I only have today and tomorrow to kind of soften the leather a bit, I actually don’t believe I will achieve much until I need them this weekend. However, I had a nice long walk yesterday because the bus that was supposed to be at the station in “2 minutes” finally arrived after about 30 minutes of waiting for “2 minutes”.
Of course, it didn’t stop to let anybody on because it was full. Now, the good thing about the real time information of the Dublin Bus is that… ummm… it is that… phew… umm… okay, there is actually zero, zip, nada, zilch… *taking a breath* …bupkis, diddily squat, nothing good about this crappy display. Those things are lying through their LEDs and they are devoid of any emotion so they can’t even feel bad or good about it. They are lying and they just don’t care!

So after waiting roughly another 10 minutes only to have the second bus pass me by without stopping either, I decided to eff this ess and walk home.
This is the route I took: https://goo.gl/maps/g2sqR

It turned out to be a nice “walkout”, my heart racing not only from the exertion but also from the rage boiling inside me. That rage ebbed off while the exhaustion grew and after another hour, I arrived home to three Spanish girls trying to cook what I assumed was to be an omelet. Ann was watching them as they were following the recipe of one of the girls’ grandmother. Now, it was actually only potatoes and eggs in the pan but I was told that it’s “not easy”. I settled with expressing my agreement and underlining that with the widely known fact that the fewer ingredients a dish has, the harder it is to prepare… just think of preparing tea – that’s a science in itself. 😉

This morning it dawned on me that I had left my hoodies at work and since I didn’t want to wear my coat, I came to work wearing my leather jacket. I ♥ my leather jacket! It will come in handy today because the Dublin Staff Relay is happening after work and it is supposed to rain in the afternoon and while I hope that our tent will be enough to protect us from the downpour, it sure is nice to have an extra layer of protection. But let’s just hope for the best!

Cheers,
Angelo

Edit: I just wanted to check the weather again and it first showed me the forecast for Germany. You guys have 31°C while I have 13°C and rain. Now, I knew what I was getting into but there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to be even just a little disappointed right now.

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

Bloodstains and The Last Unicorn

Friday came and went, much like today except that today is Sunday and there’s no work on Sunday. After work I went home, had dinner and got ready for a night at The Karma Stone. The Bar is owned by a cousin to George’s host family and Ryan, his host brother is the barkeeper there and he gave George, Jonas and I a ride home.

I had a few pints of Budweiser and a water to end the night but I still had a little headache the next morning. After breakfast the headache was gone, however and I went to get ready for my trip to Dún Laoghaire on this beautiful day. I took the train from Tara Station only a few minutes before 12 and I don’t actually know when I arrived at Sandycove, which is actually one stop past Dún Laoghaire DART Station.

I made my way down to Marine Parade/Marine Ave. and turned right, where I spotted a nice little place to set up the camera and take a few pictures. Unfortunately, I don’t understand the way my camera is processing the panorama pictures because towards the end, there’s always a small piece missing from the picture and this peace is just gray. There also doesn’t seem to be any kind of focusing involved so the pictures turned out quite crappy and I won’t bother uploading them. I took a few pictures with normal settings, though and I’m going to paste them at the bottom of this post. My Mobile seems to be much smarter and the panoramic pictures turn out quite good, so you will 2 of those down in the gallery as well.

10 minutes later, I put away the camera and tripod and made my way down to the water. I was pretty much alone down there so I took the opportunity to listen to the sea on one side and Passenger on the other. I sat down a couple of times, just enjoying the sun, the water splashing against the old steps of the quay and the music. I used the „silence“ to let my mind drift to a place it hadn’t been in a while. My thoughts stayed there as I made my way further towards the East Pier of Dún Laoghaire. I walked pretty slow, letting all kinds of people walk past me. Old people, enjoying the fresh air and just going for a walk around the place they might have known for years; young people, satisfying the desire to fill their minds with pictures, moments and experiences of any kind; and the people that were just looking for a spot to read their books, be by themselves, get rid of the things that put them down or just get tanned.

The walk towards and along the East Pier is brimming with memories, carved deep into the stone. Literally! People have carved their initials into the stone, made their confessions of love somewhat eternal or have erected monuments to honor the dead. It takes quite a while to reach the old battery right at the end of the pier but I didn’t walk fast and the pier is a mile long, after all. I had an apple on my way back and thought about walking home. it was only 2 o’clock and the walk would have taken not more than 4 hours. However, I didn’t make it past the third DART Station on my way home before deciding to break it off and just take the train and bus home. I was spent and so I also decided against going to the Docklands Festival as was my plan this morning.

I had chicken and rice for dinner, took a shower, put cream on my face and neck because the sun had left its mark on my skin and went to lie on my bed for quite a while, reflecting on the day. I have to admit that I was actually disappointed. I don’t really know what I had expected from this walk but whatever I had hoped to gain or lose, I obviously failed.

Today began like yesterday ended. I washed up after lying in bed for a couple of hours, unable to rest and caught up with The Big Bang Theory. Now I’m sitting/lying here because I can’t seem to find a comfortable position in this bed. I can’t sit up against the wall because my bed just slides over the floor when I put too much pressure against it. I’m going to see what Ann’s husband has prepared for dinner in an hour or so. I might watch a movie later tonight because I have finished reading The Notebook and I don’t really feel like playing anything. Tomorrow is a work day after all.

Enjoy the pictures,
Angelo

Networking

Welcome to another episode of The IT Crowd. That’s how I felt anyway when I was standing in the server room of System Dynamics. I was hoping for someone to make it simple and just hand me the Internet. The room itself is actually quite cool… on one side of it because that’s where the cooling system is. It’s an interesting setup because there is no real cold aisle but it’s all just one room and two air-conditioning systems facing each other on one side, blowing the freezing air onto you as you follow the cables from patch panels to the switch and vice versa. There are 5 racks in the room that are housing several switches, 3 of which are stacked Cisco C3750s that are supposed to be the core of the network because they – again – are supposed to have taken the place of older Cisco switches which are still in the setup for some reason. I guess I could make that my project to get rid of those and maybe tidy up the whole thing. I might need more than 7 weeks by the looks of it, though. Seeing as I don’t work on the weekends or do night shifts, it might be even impossible to achieve any of this at all without causing any downtime.

It pretty much goes without saying, that I have spent the last couple of days only documenting what is in that room because the last documentation is a few years old and there are quite a number of things that have changed or haven’t been documented in the first place. I am now trying to match the ports on the patch panels to the ports in the floor so I can add a few more details to the documentary like the desk numbers and people sitting there. It might be a waste of time, though, because as I have mentioned in an earlier post, there are only about 25-30 out of some 200 people in the office at any given time and I might never even get to see some of them.

I am hoping to see more of my colleagues in the following weeks though, as I have signed up for a few events like the Dublin Staff Relay as a supporter and a hiking tour in the Wicklow Mountains National Park where I hope to be able to enjoy the scenery while hiking some 7km. There is also going to be a BBQ next month that I am invited to and this is going to be on the ship that you can see in my last blog entry, the Jeanie Johnston.

Seeing as I wrote quite a lot the last time and people told me, that they haven’t even started reading this blog, I’m going to keep it rather short this time as to not let it stack up too high and give those stragglers a fighting chance to keep up.

Just a quick heads up on upcoming topics: George informed me that we will go to a bar on Friday where I will have a few drinks, maybe even Guinness 😉 and the weather is supposed to be awesome this weekend so I’m thinking about going to Dún Laoghaire and walk down the quay. There’s also the Docklands Summer Festival around the Grand Canal Dock area so I might check that out as well.

Cheers,
Angelo

System Dynamics Group Ltd

Sunday was spent in and on my bed. I did go out to buy a bag of Tesco’s finest Nuts & Raisins and a bottle of water for work but other than that I was in my room all day. I mostly read The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks because I have to give it back to Travelling Languages and I’d rather do that sooner than later.

Monday apparently was everybody’s first day of work. Interestingly enough, it was my first day at System Dynamics Group Ltd. Now, I had a general idea of the whereabouts of the company but decided to be there early to find out the exact location and be able to show off my German punctuality. I actually only planned on about a half hour window but when I went off the bus at Tara Station and boldly checked the time on my phone, it showed a very generous 75 minutes left until the appointment at 9:30 am. Not impressed by that much time but by this beautiful morning, I decided to go for a walk along the quay itself and to take pictures like a real tourist would do.

After walking around and taking pictures like a professional person of Asian ancestry, I used my phone to zero in on my target, the Whitaker Court. A last check up on my looks and I was ready to plunge into the adventure that was to be my first day.

When I went into the building, I spoke to the nice lady that kindly buzzed me through the door and told her who I was. She didn’t really care and sent me up to the first floor where I was greeted by yet another door that was locked. I huffed and puffed but I couldn’t blow down that wooden door. Turns out, I’m not such a big bad wolf after all. Anyways, another nice lady let me through that door and I told her my story. She seemed genuinely interested and called Eamonn McGinley after having me sit down in one of the two chairs opposite her desk. Eamonn came to the front desk only a few seconds later and introduced himself as Eamonn McGinley. I would have done the same but I quickly realized that he probably wouldn’t believe that my name was Eamonn McGinle, too. I settled on telling him the truth about me and together we went into the office which is basically almost the whole 1st floor of the building. We first went to his desk, where I put down my stuff and after a few words he realized, we might be better off utilizing one of the smaller conference rooms. We sat down and he showed me a printed version of a PowerPoint presentation that was supposed to introduce the company.

I have read most of the information from that presentation online and didn’t understand a lot of it because I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t more to this company than the website suggested. What I gathered is: System Dynamics Group Ltd develops and sells programs as well as selling licenses and providing experts for hire. It’s an interesting scheme because System Dynamics consists of about 200 people of which only a maximum of 25 – 30 people are present in the office at any given time.

Eamonn told me about how he came to this company and what he did before working as an IT Administrator at System Dynamics and in turn I told him about myself, the way the apprenticeship works in Germany and what I hoped to achieve in the internship. That last part was actually only addressed because he asked me about it and I told him honestly that I didn’t know an answer to his question and that I only hope to gain experience in any kind of work he could provide me with. He wasn’t sure what to give me at first so he showed me around the office a bit, introduced me to a couple of my new colleagues and let me set up my desk and computer.

The setup of the office is quite nice because the desks are big enough to comfortably sit at and the rows are facing each other so you could have up to eight people in a kind of a group together. The only problem about that is the division into these… mini-departments which means that even though you could talk about different projects and kind of work on them in an open discussion, it just doesn’t make sense because none of the people I, for example, am facing has anything to do with the IT in this company. They’re still nice people, though and have welcomed me very kindly.

Around 1ish, Eamonn took me for a walk around the neighborhood and showed me all the places where I could buy food in case I ever got filthy rich overnight. He then treated me to a nice sandwich and a cup of tea while we talked some more about how this whole internship program works. After our lunch break we went back to the office where I used the next 3 hours to try to figure out how I’m going to document the mess that is supposed to be System Dynamics’ network infrastructure.

Later that day, the Ladies Schulte-Clarke and Langnickel from the OSZ IMT wanted to meet to hear about our experience so far. We met right after work and went to the Stag’s Head, a pub near the Trinity College. While having a couple of Budweisers, they interviewed us about what we’re doing at work, how we’re accommodated and if we had any suggestions on what to improve. One thing you have to keep in mind in Ireland is to never lose track of time. We did exactly that and while most of the guys went earlier, Toni, George, Jonas and I stayed till well after 11pm. We ended up having to take a taxi and I walked another half hour after that because I had no money left to get a ride home.

After having not more than 5 hours of sleep and a morning with one of the best hangovers, I quickly got ready for work, took some Ibuprofen and left. I spent pretty much all Tuesday with configuring a Laptop for one of my colleagues. There was a lot of crappy HP and Microsoft software on it that I had to get rid of and after I’d done that, I had to install the software that he would really need.

System Dynamics is an IBM partner so they use a lot of IBM software as well as hardware although they’re trying to get rid of some of that. This is also a problem that you have to face when you try to understand SD’s network but that is a story for another day… 😉

And. Here. We. Go!

Well not quite… It’s only Saturday evening and I need to tell you about what happened the last couple of days.

On Wednesday, we met Margaret for the first time. She seems nice enough and is – as far as I can tell – quite committed to making our stay here as enjoyable an experience as can be. I found out where I was supposed to be working, had it not been for a change in personnel in the Beaumont Hospital, which is only about 10 minutes from where I am staying now. They cancelled because, with the changes going on, they wouldn’t have the time to take care of me properly. Margaret however, told me not to worry because she was expecting to hear from another company that very evening. I was not concerned in the least because I was kind of looking forward to another couple of days of vacation. 😉

Thor’s day, was in fact so uneventful that I don’t even remember what I did except for uploading the report I had written on Wednesday but hadn’t have the energy to fill with pictures, yet. Ah! I bought a little container of Nivea Night Cream that was supposed to help with healing my lips and nose because I had actually rubbed them raw with the tissues and the Vaseline only made it worse. The cream helped a great deal although the first couple of times it burned like a sonovabitch but I guess they couldn’t just print:” Don’t apply on raw flesh; hurts like a sonovabitch!” on the container…

Yesterday was our last day of school here in Ireland though we’ll be learning a great deal in the weeks to come. When are you ever done learning, right?! We had a little exam and saw Due Date afterwards. It’s a movie with Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) and Zach Galifianakis (Hangover) who plays a character that nobody could ever stand. It was a lot of fun and I actually didn’t remember this movie being that funny.
After being presented with a certificate for the completion of the course, Toni, George and I went to eat a burrito. We had about an hour after lunch, to get to the Guinness Storehouse and Margaret’s office which is right around the corner of the aforementioned. We decided to walk instead of taking the bus, which turned out to be a good idea because for one, it was a nice and sunny day and the other, we walked by Christ Church Cathedral. Now, I’m not religious but I do appreciate nice architecture and the Head of the Church kind of does, too.

CCCathedral

CCC looks really cool with all its really interesting features that come from the repeated reconstruction and probably also adding of specific features, popular at certain times. Margaret later told us, that visitors are actually allowed into the crypt beneath the Cathedral and that is something I am definitely going to check out.
When we arrived at Margaret’s office, she gave us a small tour through the building which actually holds a huge variety of different start-ups and a lot of IT-based businesses. She also handed me the information concerning my work placement but I will write about that later [probably next week ;)].

The tour at the Guinness Storehouse was self-guided which was cool because you could set your own pace. While the process of brewing a Guinness is much like that of brewing any other beer (e.g. Kilkenny, Berliner Pilsner, Becks, Heineken, etc.), George, Toni and I had the opportunity to participate in a course, teaching us how to taste a Guinness the way it is intended.

GuinnessTasting

We went on upwards to the Sky Bar after finishing the class with honors. Well maybe not honors but at least we had a small Guinness before now getting a bigger one. The view from Sky Bar is great. If it hadn’t been as crowded, I would have taken the time to read all the information provided on the glass all around the bar but we just barely managed to find a spot to take a few pictures before leaving there and finishing our pints in the middle of the room.

GuinnessBeard

The Sky Bar being the end of the tour, we decided to go home and not linger on too long. I came home to a salad with eggs, ham and cheese and a cup of tea with Ann. We talked about a variety of different topics ranging from the way her house used to look 25 years ago when they first moved here to the disgraceful murder of a young woman in Galway who was stabbed by a 27 year old man, yesterday. Ann’s daughter Deirdre came by later to do Ann’s hair and I took that as a cue to go to my room. Before going to bed I booked a trip with Travelling Languages (our school here in Dublin) for the 24th and 25th of May for 145€ to Connemara. It’s supposed to play further into my language learning experience here and I’m looking forward to it.

I met George today at around 12 o’clock. We wanted to go to O’Connell Street to buy shirts and a tie for him at Penneys as well as postcards and stamps. I was looking to buy shoes that would withstand the Connemara weather but all they had at Penneys were flip-flops. We had lunch at Papa John’s, a pizza place, for 8€ each including a soda from the infamous Coca-Cola brand. It was a lot of fun, waiting for the little doohickey to vibrate so you know your order is ready. When I was walking home a couple of hours ago, it started to rain again, naturally. But as Roger Miller put it:” Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.” I’ll let you be the judges to which kind of person I am in this case.

Rain

Have a good night!

PS: This post scriptum is actually only here so I can brag about having over 1000 words in one of my posts. I hope you’ll understand. It was a lot of fun! 😉