Dienstag, 30. August 2016

Last Week in Belfast

Heya!
The last two weeks have been awesome as always.
We went to the movie theater twice, the first time we saw Suicide Squad which I definitely can recommend. Tuesday is the cheapest day here in Belfast to go to the cinema, it's only 3.50£! And it was in 3D as well, so I was really blown by the price. The second movie was the new Jason Bourne film. Nice action film as well as every other Jason Bourne movie in the collection.
On Friday Hermes, Ismael (our two Spanish housemates), Patrice and I were playing beer pong. We didn't have a ping pong ball and had to improvise a little bit, so we took a bottle lid to throw it in the cups, it was sooo much fun. Afterwards Hermes and I decided to join a friend at a club. She told us to run there, because they don't let people in after a certain time. I was a little bit ahead of Hermes and went in first. Right after I went in Hermes arrived at the club, but they didn't let him in, because the club was "too full"... I was literally laughing my ass off! The next couple of days he was joking around with that and told everyone I must have payed the security guy to not let him in.
Yesterday on Sunday we finally went to Giants Causeway as a hole group. We went outside the house at 8.45 in the morning, picked up everyone else and went directly to the Giants Causeway office where the bus departs. The first stop was a castle, where we took a couple of pictures, but in my eyes it really was nothing special. The next stop was at a restaurant for our lunch break, which I think nobody could really enjoy after a guy in the back of the bus walked out first with a hoodie filled up with vomit. Right after eating we went to a whisky brewery and got a free shot.. very nice!
Afterwards we finally went to Giants Causeway. There we were able to see a coast full of basalt pillars which were created through the rapid cooling of lava. It looked absolutely amazing. From the Giants Causeway we went on to a famous bridge that was originally built over 400 years ago and went over it. The view from that point was absolutely indescribably beautiful. We all had an absolute blast being there. We arrived home at about 8.30 in the evening and I was completely exhausted. Never the less we still had to go out with Leon and Johanna (the guys from Hamburg) because it was their farewell. So we went over to their place, had dinner and a couple of beers and afterwards everyone who went to Giants Causeway went home... except me. They wanted to go to a bar with nice Irish live music, so I felt like I had to join them. Of cause I came home way too late and felt even more exhausted.
But what can I do, right? It's the last week here in Belfast and I have to make the best out of every single day from now on.

Dienstag, 16. August 2016

Update!

Okay, okay, where do I start? I know I was supposed to update this blog more frequently, but I didn't. Those things always happen to me, I guess I'm just a lazy person.
But it's fine, let's get right in to it!

So first of all, after a couple of weeks here, do I like Belfast? I think the right answer would be no. Because I love it! First of all I was a little bit afraid traveling to a foreign country I have never been to before. But what can I say, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
The people here are so nice and handsome, everyone is willing to help you if you have any problems and all in all it's just a great place to be.
So far I still haven't been to a lot of sights, but what I have seen is awesome. Victoria Square is a great place to go shopping and on top of it there is a dome from which I could see most of the city centre. Giants Causeway is also a great place to go to, cause you get to see a coast full of cooled down lava, which looks amazing!
Places I still want to visit are the Titanic museum and of cause I have to do the GoT Tour.

Another question is probably how work is going.. And that is one of the biggest aspects why I haven't updated my blog recently I guess. I was always waiting for something special to happen, but as it turns out work here is almost the same than work at home. Just like I do it in the company back in Germany, over here in Belfast at INTO Queens I take care of any issues appearing that have anything to do with computers. Most likely there are very tiny problems like "The printer doesn't print!" or "I can't login!" and so on. So work over here contains a lot of First Level Support which isn't too bad I guess. To be honest I don't really care about what exactly I do, as long as I am able to speak to people in English, cause this is simply the biggest reason I'm doing this internship.
But sometimes I also have to do other things than just the regular First Level Support.
For example I also have to take care of preparations for new arriving students, which happens quite often here at INTO Queens.
At the second weekend here in Belfast I had to work Saturday and Sunday at the Belfast City Airport to take care of arriving students. I went there with the cab with one of my colleagues at 8 in the morning, which was horrible, because I had a massive hangover from the other day. But hey.. sitting in a cafe at the airport waiting for Students isn't the worst thing to do. And of cause I was able to take off 2 days after working at the weekend.

Speaking of hangovers... Probably most of my time here in Belfast I spend with friends. So for example, there is a very nice group of Spanish people, who are also participants of Intern Europe. The group consists of Hermes and Ismael, who both live with me and Patrice, then there are Esther, Alberto, Diego and of cause Fernando, who is probably one of the funniest guys I have ever met. Spending time with them is soooo much fun! Then there was also the polish couple David and Ania, sadly they already left, BUT I promised them I'll come over to Poland very soon after going back to Germany. Last but not least, there are also some Germans over here in Belfast. We spend quite a lot of time with 2 guys from Intern Europe and one of them is German, too.
So what exactly do I do with all those friends of mine in a country that is well known for drinking? Well, I guess you could just follow your imagination and you might be able to find an answer for this tough question.

Oh I almost forgot to mention that I finally get to improve my cooking skills over here, since most of the restaurants around our house are either horribly expensive or... just horrible. Most of the times I just cook chicken, cause it's easily and quickly made. But I also like making Burgers, Noodles and various things baked with cheese on top, just because cheese on top is always awesome! If you want to see a couple more details, I think Patrice has uploaded some of the pictures in his blog, which i'm gonna link here:
https://ps-belfast.blogspot.co.uk/

I guess for now there is nothing else to say, so stay tuned for the next blog update..
C ya!

Mittwoch, 13. Juli 2016

First Days in Belfast

On Friday the 8th of July Patrice and I started our journey. We flew from Berlin SFX to DUB airport. The flight took about 2 hours and 30 minutes and the time passed really quick. Afterwards we took a bus to get from Dublin to Belfast, which took another 2 hours. As we arrived in Belfast we were received by a girl from Intern Europe. She told us everything we had to know about the house rules and all that kind of stuff.
The both of us took our time on Sunday and Saturday to explore our neighborhood. So we walked around for hours and bought stuff we needed. We also met the both Spanish guys living with us in the same house and the 10 Austrian girls living in the house next to us. Everyone seemed to be really nice and we had a good weekend. 
The first meeting with Intern Europe took place on Monday the 11th which by the way was also my birthday. They told us a couple more things about rules, things we should keep in mind and gave us contact information for different scenarios. 
Right after the meeting Patrice and I walked around to search the Queens University of Belfast, which is also my working place for the next couple of weeks. We took a couple of fotos of the building and went inside to see a bit more of it.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we had another 2 days off work, so we didn't really do anything special. We went shopping again and hang around with the people we met here.