ATIE

Well now it’s already six weeks since I returned from Ireland and actually I’m used to life here in Austria again. By now also the first week of the new semester (my 6^th one at the FH Joanneum in Kapfenberg) here in Austria is over.

Well this is definitely going to be the last post on this weblog. The work on my new website should be finished soon. For the time being I link my new weblog here. So I hope you will continue reading my updates there.

So that was it for me for this blog. I want to thank everybody who kept reading the stories about my adventures in Ireland for the past few months (although I neglected this blog for quite some). In addition to that I also thank all the people who gave me feedback personally or by writing comments here on the blog. Of course I also want to say thank you to all the great people with who I had such a good time over there in Ireland. Without you it would have never been that great.

I will always remember the time we had and I will always remember Dublin. I’m going to be back.

Bye bye ATIE - Welcome to IVIED

Thomas

Well now it’s time to look at the Erasmus semester in conclusion and well to write about this here. I have to say that I never regretted my decision to go on this semester and I can say that these were the best consecutive 4 ½ months of my life with all those great people. I miss you all, my friends.
So now, I had the idea to sum up the Erasmus time by writing the following lists. To some of them I also added some descriptions but I don’t guarantee the completeness of any of these.
But don’t be afraid, this is not gonna be the last post here on this weblog and there is something to come in the photo gallery as well. And yes I am already working on something new at the moment. So stay tuned, as the saying goes.

I will always remember the time in Ireland

By the way, now we finally got snow here in Austria. In my hometown of Fürstenfeld it’s just a few centimetres but I am already happy about this bit. But still, I miss Ireland somehow.

So here’s the lists:

Pubs/clubs/bars I’ve been to, sorted by the (estimated) number of times I’ve been there:

• Molloy’s (The Foxes Covert)
  Main Street, Tallaght
  This was just the pub around the corner for us where we went when we just wanted to go for one or two pints (or sometimes more). It’s just a typical Irish pub and when we entered we normally lowered the average age there by quite a few years. It was often our last chance to enter some pub out in Tallaght, because they never have bouncers at the entrance.
• The Mezz
  Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin
  A club/venue in the centre of Temple Bar playing mostly (Indie) Rock music and having (mostly unknown Irish) live bands playing every Friday and Saturday night. Usually very crowded because it’s free to enter.
• Blu Bar
  Blessington Road/The Square, Tallaght
  A bar in one of the numerous new buildings right next to The Square shopping centre in Tallaght. In the afternoons they serve food and often have sports screenings. Well yes, we had our X-Mas party there.
• Metro
  Old Blessington Road, Tallaght
  That’s a nice place (bar/café) also serving food right on the ground floor of Tramway Court (so it was just two floors beneath my flat). When they opened in early December they had bouncers at the door who wouldn’t let us in a few times because of our shoes. But after about two weeks they weren’t there any more and Metro became a place for us to just go for a pint or sometimes also for lunch/dinner. And sometimes they even had free Bud Light for everybody.
• Trinity College Pavilion
  Trinity College, Dublin
  That’s a place right on the campus of Trinity College next to the sports grounds. They sell cheap beer in cans (4for8) every Friday night until 11pm. But they also have normal beer and other drinks. The pavilion itself is very small, so you have to stay outside most of the time and sit on the stairs which isn’t funny any more form October onwards.
• O’Neill’s
  Suffolk Street, Dublin
  Nice pub near Trinity College/Grafton Street opposite the tourist information church. They have a wide selection of very good traditional Irish food. And it’s one of the few places where you can get Murphy’s beer.
• Turk’s Head
  Essex Gate/Parliament Street, Temple Bar, Dublin
  Nightclub at the west end of Temple Bar. In the front it’s like a normal Café/Bar with rather good music. But in the back and in the basement it’s a night club with rather commercial dance music just as everywhere.
• Zanzibar
  Ormond Quay Lower, Dublin
  Zanzibar is a nightclub on the north side of the river Liffey near Ha’penny Bridge and the inside is styled oriental all over. The music is absolutely dance music and on Saturday night you have to pay five Euro admission. By the way we really had two very good nights out there on my two last days of my Erasmus stay.
• Eamon Doran’s
  Temple Bar, Dublin
  Eamon Doran’s is a place in Temple Bar where the music is OK. In the basement it’s also a venue for concerts. We once saw/heard The Back Doors (a Doors cover band) there. By the way: it’s free to enter but the prices of for the drinks increase every hour as the night proceeds.
• Fitzsimon’s
  Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, Dublin
  Another club in Temple Bar with the same commercial dance music as in a lot of places and with free entry. But no really reason to go there.
• Hogan’s
  South Great George’s Street, Dublin
  This is really a good place in South Great Georges Street just a few minutes to walk off Dame Street. I’ve been there just two times in September but it was really good, especially the Sábado club in the basement one Saturday.
• O’Sheas
  Talbot Street/Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin
  A typical Irish pub which was just a few metres away from the hostel I stayed in for the first week when I came to Dublin. The strange thing there was that they actually pulled down shutters in at the bar, after the last order.
• Bad Bob’s
  East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin
  A big nightclub on three floors in the centre of Temple Bar. It’s a tenner admission but I once had a real good night there.
• The Temple Bar
  Temple Bar, Dublin
  I think everybody who ever comes to Dublin has to go there at least once. And so did I.
• Grumpy’s
  @ The Plaza, Tallaght
  Pub on the ground floor of the Plaza hotel in Tallaght. Well I didn’t count the times we wanted to get in there but the stupid bouncer had once again another excuse for not letting us in. Once it was the “sports” shoes, once he said that they were almost closing and so on…
• Abberley Court Hotel
  High Street, Tallaght
  Just another pub in Tallaght, nothing special.
• The Oliver St. John Gogarty
  Fleet Street, Temple Bar, Dublin
  Typical Irish pub in Temple Bar with the same music as everywhere. The only time I’ve been there it was so overcrowded that you could hardly move.
• Messrs. Maguire
  Burgh Quay, Dublin
  Just one more club/pub in the city centre next to O’Connell Bridge.
• T. P. Smith’s
  Abbey Street, Dublin
  A typical Irish pub in Abbey Street near Jervis shopping centre. Just went there once for a pint after shopping. It’s one of the few places where you can get Kilkenny beer.
• An Bróg
  Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork
  Actually the place with the best music I’ve ever been to in the whole Erasmus time. Right in the city centre of Cork they played real good Indie Rock music the whole night. I like this place and will always remember what happened there. “In the morning you know you won’t remember a thing…”
• Bridge House
  Bedford Street, Belfast
  Apparently one of the very few places to go out in the city centre of Belfast near the city hall. It was somehow strange to be allowed to smoke inside and to pay your drinks in pounds.
• King’s Head
  High Street, Galway
  Just in the centre of Galway in one of the streets in the pedestrian zone. It has got two floors and really is a nice place with live bands playing there regularly (apparently).
• Dragon Inn
  Main Street/Old Blessington Road, Tallaght
  Another pub around the corner but not as nice as Molloy’s although they had an Irish live band playing the one time I’ve been there.
• D|Two
  Harcourt Street, Dublin
  A nightclub in Harcourt Road, a few minutes’ walk south of St. Stevens Green. On the ground floor it’s rather a lounge and in the basement it’s a nightclub with dance floor and everything. Free to enter until 11pm, a tenner afterwards.
• Sinnott’s
  @ St. Stevens Green Shopping Centre, Dublin
  Well it’s in the basement beneath St. Stevens Green shopping centre and it’s a mix between a pub and a discotheque but nothing special once again.

Beers I drank (sorted by alphabet):

• Bud Light
• Budweiser
• Carlsberg
• Coors Light
  Too much light, one of the worst beers I ever drank
• Corona
• Dutch Gold
  Just a cheep one
• Galahad
  The cheapest Aldi beer
• Guinness
  Well what shall I say?
• Kilkenny
  A red beer
• Miller
  My favourite one
• Murphy’s
  Looks like Guinness but tastes slightly different
• Smithwick’s
  Another red beer
• St. Etienne
  Another Aldi Beer
• Stella Artois
  Belgian from Leuven
• Tennent’s
• Tiger
  Chinese beer
• Tuborg

Trips we made (sorted by date):

• Dún Laoghaire (16/09/2006)
• Glandalough & Wicklow (07/10/2006)
• Malahide (04/11/2006)
• Cork & Kinsale (11-12/11/2006)
• Galway & The Cliffs of Moher (26-27/11/2006)
• Belfast & Giant’s Causeway (9-10/12/2006)

Modules I did at the ITT Dublin (sorted by alphabet):

• Advanced Database
• Distributed Applications And Networking
• English As A Foreign Language
• Internet Based Systems
• Object Oriented Systems Design 1
• Software Development 5

Buses/Trams to take me to the city centre:

• Bus 49
• Bus 65
• Bus 77
• Luas Red Line

Buses/Trams to take me back from the city centre:

• Bus 49
• Bus 65
• Bus 77 (incl. 77N)
• Luas Red Line

Now unfortunately it’s really over: The good time with all the nice people, the time at Tramway Court, the studying at ITT Dublin (including the exams), the nights out in Tallaght and in the city centre of Dublin, the nice trips, the time in the great city which Dublin is, the vacation, well yes the Erasmus semester.

Now the exams are finally over. My last one was yesterday morning and afterwards we did what? Well celebrating the end of the exams properly. This means: Last big Erasmus party @ Tramway Court. It actually was quite a good party.

So now there aren’t even three days left for me over here in Ireland because I will finally be heading back to Austria on Sunday afternoon. I will always remember this great time I had over here and all the nice people I met. At this point I once again refer to Pablo’s video.

Well I think it must be like this, that every good time has its end one day, but I will always like to come back to Ireland in the future although I know it’s never gonna be the same again.

Today it’s just a very short update. Well the exams are in full progress now. I already had two of them but there are still four of them left for me to sit the first of which is tomorrow morning at 9:30.

I just wanted to post the link to the result of what Pablo did this week instead of studying for his exams. He put together a video mainly with footage from the X-Mas party of the Erasmus Society that took place in BluBar on Thursday 14^th December but also including a lot of photos taken by several people during the last few months (there are also some of mine in there).
There are two versions of this video but Pablo said that he wants to cut one more because not all the Erasmus students can be seen in the latest version. So check it out, whereas I have to add that I might only make sense to watch it for people who are in the video themselves but everybody else can watch it as well.

First (short) version
Second (longer) version
Final version

Well now I have to go and continue to study for tomorrow’s exam. So check back soon for more updates.

After talking to some Irish people today about how I experienced the New Year’s Eve over here (I have written about this in the previous post), I have come to the conclusion that I just seemed to have bad luck this year because they said, that there should normally be fireworks and that they were maybe cancelled because of the wind. Well considering this they can’t have had fireworks for New Years Eve very often because Ireland is nearly permanently windy during the winter months at least this year. But this still doesn’t explain the few people in the streets, well it was raining in the evening but that’s not a reason.

Well I have to tell you some funny (or not, for some other people) story about what happened this morning. Two construction workers came to my apartment looking for the source of the whole lot of water that – according to them – was coming through the ceiling of the apartment one floor below. And in their despair (after they had already checked the toilet, the sink, the fridge and the balcony) they even cut an about 10×10 cm hole into the sheetrock wall in the living room just to check if there was maybe a leaking pipe behind it. Well there wasn’t one there but they subsequently found one upstairs. Hopefully they come back tomorrow and finish the plastering and painting of the hole they cut.

Well construction workers here in Ireland seem to be a special breed. But I think that this is about the same everywhere.

I know that I am a bit late, but I wish everyone of you a happy new year 2007.

Well I don’t feel like writing a lot now, I just have to say that it was really strange to see that the Irish don’t celebrate New Year’s Eve properly. I arrived back in Ireland Saturday night and the few of us that were already here wanted to celebrate the New Year in the city centre of Dublin. Well but there was no real celebration. In the Temple Bar area there weren’t more people on the streets than in a normal Saturday night. There were just quite a few people (including us) on O’Connell Bridge around midnight looking at the clock on the building with the big “Heineken” letters waiting for 2007. Before that we were at Kévin & Guillaume’s flat which was quite nice. Thanks for the invitation!
I really have to say that I had expected more from this evening but that seems to be what New Year’s Eve is like over here. I think if you want to experience a big celebration in Ireland you have to be here on St. Patrick’s Day in March. Ah yes and there weren’t even fireworks on New Year’s Eve. And everything was even more expensive than normally. I mean, a tenner admission for the Mezz is really too much, but on the other hand it was not as crowded as usually.

So on Monday the exams that take place in the National Basketball Arena start, so that’s the next thing now.

All the best from Ireland, check back soon

P.S.: I uploaded some new photos to the gallery a few days ago.

Well now it has really come to this. The Erasmus semester is mainly over now. I am currently back in Austria where I arrived Monday night and I have to say that it was quite a strange feeling when I first came back to my hometown and to my parent’s house after about 3 ½ months. On the one had this was because of the fact that I got very much used to the life in Ireland and on the other hand because it was somehow strange to see that mainly nothing has changed since I left in September. But I have to adapt to this life here again and I am really looking forward to Christmas with my family (and I really hope that we will have white Christmas – although it is very unlikely). On the other hand however I’m already looking forward to going back to Ireland for three weeks in January (although I will have my exams then).
Keeping you updated from Austria now – check back soon

As I already mentioned, on the 9^th and 10^th was our third and last trip, to Belfast in Northern Ireland. We reached Belfast at about noon on Saturday and made a round trip through the city and its suburbs on our bus after we had checked in at our hostel. As Hanno already mentioned on his weblog, this hostel was really disappointing. It was extremely cold in the whole building because the radiators didn’t work and there was only one small and slow electric heater in every room.

Well the first thing I have to say about Belfast itself is that it is a rather strange city. Of course everybody has heard of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland which luckily seems to have calmed down in the past few years. But when you go to the working-class districts west of the city centre the traces of the conflict are still present.

For example when you look at all the murals sometimes even depicting masked gunmen and including slogans like “Our days will come”. But these paintings were just one of the scary things for me in Belfast. Another one was that normal police cars there are real armoured vehicles and the fact that shocked me personally the most was the so called peace wall which divides a catholic and a protestant area. Before this visit to Belfast I had never heard about the existence of this wall and it somehow reminded me of the pictures of the wall in Israel I had seen on TV.

But there are not only bad things to be said about Belfast. Because afterwards we also went to the Stormont which is the seat of the government of Northern Ireland and is situated in a beautiful residential area. We walked up the hill to the Stormont and made a nice group picture in front of the statue of Edward Carson. Afterwards we went on a little walk through the city centre and visited the Christmas Continental Market in front of the City Hall where you could get food from nearly every European country including Strudel from Austria (!!!) which was quite expensive but I really had to taste it. You could also find Bratwurst as well as a German beer tent called “Der Lustiger Mönch” where you could get Glühwein as well as various German beers.

And well of course we went out at night. After a few beers at the hostel we decided to go to the Bridge house which was recommended to one of us by somebody. It was not really a good venue but the drinks were cheap compared to Dublin but this is the case for nearly everything in Belfast.

On the following Sunday we went (with a short stopover at Dunluce Castle) to the Giant’s Causeway which is an area on Northern Ireland’s north coast which is a quite impressive area with lots of hexagon shaped stones. You can see the photos in the gallery anyway. Although the weather was not very nice (extremely windy and therefore quite cold) the afternoon there was good because of the great scenery and the rough sea.

Well now it is time to say goodbye to Ireland (at least for two weeks) and to some great people (probably forever – as mentioned previously). Nearly all Erasmus students are going home for Christmas now or have already gone in the last few days and I’m leaving on Monday. And this last week now was mainly like one single party:

• Tuesday: Sicilindas’ flat
• Wednesday: Metro (The new bar on the ground floor of our apartment house)
• Thursday: X-Mas party @ BluBar
• Saturday (today): We’ll go out to the city centre once again. I hope it’s going to be a nice evening once again. Well in the end we decided just to go to Molloy’s around the corner once again. Because everybody was a bit tired and also somehow depressed.

That was it once again. By the way, I extended the Links-page yesterday. You can now find a few links to other people’s weblogs there. During the Christmas holidays I hope that I will find the time to extend the photo gallery as well.