Long busy weekend 2 - Housewarming and Belfast

Friday night in Dublin, you have got a visitor from Germany - what can you do? Have a housewarming party. It was about time. Although the trip to IKEA my flat needs is still to come, I could not wait any longer to invite my dear co-workers and all the other lovely people I have met so far for a nice evening at my place. And it was actually very nice, and definitely very long for someone who had already booked tickets for the early train to Belfast the next morning. I definitely had fun!

Sure, the next morning came earlier than I thought, but I managed to get up, somehow drag myself to the DART and afterwards to the train and - surprisingly enough - by the time we reached the Northern Irish border, I was up and running an prepared for adding another country and capital to my list, because I had never been to Belfast before.

First positive impression: There is a free bus from the train station to the city center (although within walking distance). Second positive impression, there are many old an beautiful buildings in Belfast, as well as a state-of-the-art shopping center we visited first because we hadn't had any breakfast and it was already past noon. The prostpect of a nice steak at T.G.I.F.s was just too alluring to miss.

Wide awake and full we were ready to take a city tour. Fun fact I learned:
The Titanic was build in Belfast along with her sistership the Olympic in 1912. And at the moment, Belfast is building a huge museum and entertainment center to use the fame of the ship for touristic purposes.

Going on a shopping tour afterwards, I learned another interesting thing: Although Northern Ireland uses the Pound Sterling, they have good interesting banknotes of their own. Apart from the Bank-of-England-ones four or five banks are allowed to issue banknotes. And they all look differengt! So when I withdrew money from the ATM I thought I was a victim of some fraudster (see pictures).

We finished our trip with supposedly the best Fish n' Chips I have ever had and I knew I would come back to Belfast soon - and not just because of IKEA and the good exchange rates. ;-)

Speech balloons for the pictures:

1) Evening in Belfast 1
2) Well and you think the Euro doesn't simplify things?
3) Part of the "International Wall"
4) Branding is substantial!
5) Can I issue my own banknotes as well? ;-)
6) Evening in Belfast 2

Long busy weekend 1 - Kaiser Chiefs at the O2

It is monday night and the first opportunity for me to take a very deep breath, think about an amazing weekend behind me and start to share what I have seen, done and heard in the last days.

On Thursday Thorsten, a felow alumni from my exam year at university, arrived and sure enough I already had a good programme for the night. I had booked two tickets for the Kaiser Chiefs about a week after I arrived in Dublin, determined to decide who to take with my on short notice. Thorsten happened to be lucky, when he decided to come to Dublin about a week ago.

So directly after work we hurried to get there by 18.30 because in my German brain a concert starting 18.30 means being there at 18.30 ;-). Which of course was stupid, but at least we had time to see the two opening bands. One of which was worth seeing at least.

The first band "Danananakroyd" played old school hardcore punk. Well, let's say it was interesting. They had two drummers - mostly to allow them to take turns in standing up from the drumset and jumping around like crazy. The guitar riffs weren't bad, but the two singers - or rather shouters were just awful.

Opening band number two was pretty good. The "Black Kids" consisted of two women behind keyboards and an androgynous guitarist. They played a mixture of rock, funk an seventies disco - at least from my interpretation. Hear for yourself on http://www.myspace.com/blackkidsrock. What I learned from them is that women can look aesthetic when they dance even though they are standing behind a keyboard and singing in high-pitched voices.

Then came the band we had been waiting for. To be honest I have mostly been waiting for one song to go crazy on it. I am not to sure if it was a good idea to have seats booked. In the moment they finally played "Ruby" I would have loved to be in the crowd. So two songs before they left the stage I finally convinced Thorsten to come down with me and jump up and down shouting meaningless bits of lyrics that might not even belong to the song they were playing at the moment. So it was fun! I have seen better concerts. And if Franz Ferdinand would not have been sold out, I might have gone there, but the Kaiser Chiefs were worth their money and we had a good night out!

Roadtrip to the Cliffs

So I have been in Dublin for over a month now, but I have never left the city ever since. So when a colleague of mine asked me to join her and some Egyptian friends for a roadtrip this Saturday, I finally saw my chance to get a change of scenes and agreed.

Inspite of a very long Friday night out starting with an outrageous Singstar-combat - and those of you who know me better will know that everything that has something to do with singing is totally my kind of activity - and a really nice and endless housewarming party afterwards, I managed to get up early on Staurday morning.

After taking some detours in the absence of a SatNav, Tarek, our lovely Egyptian driver finally managed to pick us up and get us out of Dublin. The second act of getting to Galway on the motorway was easy. But then, there are these murderous Irish roads that are narrow as alleys. I had to think of my father driving a motorhome here. Respect, Dad! Yana, my team colleaugue, who was the co-pilot for the first part managed to freak Tarek out a few times by shouting out warnings that carried a certain amount of pure fear in it.

If it weren't for those streets we could have watched the Irish countryside for ages. Even if it is still winter, the lovely green meadows with sheep on them and some scattered ruins of old watchtowers or abandoned farmhouses are just so close to the cliché of the Green Island that one could think it came directly from a promotional video.

In the end, after taking only a few detours, we arrived at the famous Cliffs of Moher, one of the main scenic tourist attractions in Ireland. But even if the place is well known, this does not mean that there are any signs leading you there. Only some ten kilometers before our destination we saw the first hint of not being in a totally wrong place.

The Cliffs of Moher itself were definitely worth the visit! With a maximum height of 214 meters above the Atlantic Ocean the Cliffs offer a stunning view. Steep rock rising high above the azure sea with its white spray and topped with green that makes the spectacular scenery picture-perfect. But see for yourself in my snapshots. Although the weather was not perfect, at least there was no rain and the sunrays out of the clouds contributed to the beauty of the place.

On the way back we stopped in Galway to have tea at another Egyptian expats house. He is working as a surgeon and will have his second daughter next month. It was a nice stopover with some Egyptian football on TV, a Shisha in the corner and nice conversation about life in Ireland and the marketing strategy of Pepsi (Tarek works in their marketing department). When we got back home it was late night and after having slept three hours the last night and about thirty minutes in the car I was really happy to see my cosy bed and get ready for the next interesting days to come.

Free space! Come and see Ireland!

Here's a great offer for all the nice people out there who have never seen Dublin or just want to go back to the Craic.

From next Wednesday, I have got three to four bed spaces in my flat available! Anouar is going to Egypt for a month so there is plenty of space here!

Your accomodation includes a nice flatmate with mediocre cooking skills. Good evening entertainment is provided, but daytime has to be filled self-suficiently during the week. On weekends, occasional trips to the countryside with a shared rental car or public transport are possible.

And now the best thing about it: It doesn't cost you any money. The only thing you have to bring with you is:

a) some booze (because it is very "cheap" here)
b) basic housekeeping skills (which means: tidy up after yourself!)
c) a good mood!
d) presents e.g. German food etc. welcome. ;-)

If you are intersted please apply directly to the owner of this blog. ;-)
All applications will be taken into consideration!

Living it international

OK, ich weiß, ich habe jetzt einen Monat nichts mehr geschrieben, aber ich habe mir fest vorgenommen, euch wieder einmal etwas öfter mit meinen Schreibkünsten zu beglücken. Das Problem ist nicht, dass ich zu wenig erlebe, das Problem ist eher, das Ganze nach den Kriterien "öffentlichkeitstauglich", "jugendfrei" und "schreibenswert" zu selektieren. But let's give it a try!

What do I love most about Dublin and my new life? The international taste! I have just cooked for my Maroccan flatmate Anouar and me and we have been talking French for the whole day.

Mon francais n'est pas bien. J'ai oublié tous mon vocabulaire et mon grammaire est terrible. Vous pouvez voire ca dans cette deux phrases. Mais je vais practiquer et je suis très sure que je peux ma reprendre.

(Deutsch: Mein Französisch ist nicht gut. Ich haben vergessen vieles und meine Grammatik sein schrecklich. Sie können sehen das in diesen Sätzen zwei. Aber ich werden üben und sein sicher das ich mich können verbessern.) :-)

Last Friday I was out with my Turkish friend Mutlu. He's really nice and we try to speak as much Turkish as possible. At least, my Turkish is better than my French (which is not that hard).

Biz beraber bir diskotege gittik. Türkce konusmak aslinda cok praktik bir sey cünkü insanlar hakkinda konusabilisin ve hic kimse anlamayacak. Ve Irlanda kizlar bazen biraz garip, bu demek ke karalamak cok eglenceli.

(Deutsch: Wir waren zusammen in einer Disko. Türkisch zu sprechen ist eigentlich recht praktisch, da man über die Menschen sprechen kann und es keiner versteht. Und in Irland sind die Mädchen manchmal etwas komisch, sodass man viel zu lästern hat.)

For example: Why does the rule "The chubbier the girl, the shorter the skirt" apply here? And why is everybody drinking so much? Maybe the Irish (!!!) street comedian we saw was right when he said: "Why do the Irish drink so much? Because they are so ugly that it's the only way for them to reproduce!"

But I don't want to generalize to much. This does not apply to every Irish (wo)man. Some of them are really nice and good looking. But I guess those dont fancy going out to much and stay at home. ;-)

Also last week I tried to have a conversation in Spanish with Lorena, one of my Spanish colleaugues. To be honest, my Spanish is literally nonexistent. I remember attending a voluntary Spanish course at school for one year...What I don't remember is.... ummm... Spanish.

Hola. Que tal? Me ilamo Christof. Soy alemán. Como te ilamas?

And of course I remember the names of certain food from hundreds of restaurant menus. So I can even talk to my Italian colleaugues. But "Il conto per favore" won't get you very far unless you are in a restaurant.

So it is lovely to have colleaugues from all over EMEA (Europe Middle East Africa) around. All young, all nice, all bright, all fun to talk to. So you can never speak enough languages. Remember that when you think about skipping your next Spanish class. ;-)

وفي المرة القادمة سوف أسعى بعضها بالعربية.
وداعا,
كريستوف

(Deutsch: Nächstes Mal probier ichs dann auch mit Arabisch.
Tschüß,
Christof)