Diskurswelt.de

I did not trust my eyes this morning: the Emerald Island is all white today. We’ve seen some snow over here during the last months, but it melted when it hit the ground and only in the surrounding hills were white.

Monday, I had to get up very early. My alarm clock woke me up at three o’clock. I wiped the sleep out of my tired eyes, took a shower, made tea, had a small breakfast and took the first Flybus to Dublin Airport. At quarter to four I was already on my way to work.

No, I did not accept a baggage handling job at RyanAir. I was invited to come to Germany for a week in order to work on a web project. My employer had booked Monday’s first AerLingus flight to Düsseldorf. During check-in I realized that I had to pay extra for my luggage as the low-cost ticket only allowed hand luggage. Well, under normal circumstances you would not need a large travelling suitcase for just a week, but I do not have another one over here.
After the check-in I was bored; all shops were closed. So I dozed a bit before I opened my laptop and started banging out code for a small side project. At half past six the plane took off. The flight was very comfortable compared to my flights with RyanAir and British Midlands. I fell asleep after some minutes after take-off and woke up during the approach for landing. AerLingus has probably the best price/performance ratio if you want to travel to or from Ireland.

After I had passed the passport inspection and picked up my suitcase at the baggage claim a man came to me and said „Good morning. German Customs, would you please follow me.“ Diesen Beitrag weiterlesen »

Last weekend was another weekend of saying goodbye. Sunday, Chris and I went into town in order to do one last time what we did in the beginning of the semester: ramblin‘ through Dublin.

We meandered through the streets, had a snack or two and went into the usual shops (HMV, Tower Records etc.). Later, after a lot of to and fro, we met Lena and a German friend of her. We repeated the whole story, but this time we blended in some culture and visited Dublin City Gallery. There we sneaked a peek Francis Bacon’s studio – a perfect mess. If you think your office is messy, think again.

In the evening I had to say goodbye to Chris and Lena. A goodbye in the LUAS; it was somehow unreal. Both of them left Ireland last week and I really hope that I will meet them again. From the very first day Chris and I had a great time. Bye, Chris! I got to know Lena during our work on our CA in CSR and have the impression that we should have spent more time doing fun stuff together. Maybe we can still do that back in Germany?! Bye, Lena!
After a nice day in town, I had to pack my bags for my next adventure.

On Wednesday, before returning to Dublin, we took the bus to Blarney in order to see Blarney Castle and kiss the Stone of Eloquence, which is at the top. While you kiss the stone you are upside-down and can see the ground several metres below. It felt great, but went over way to quick.
My suspicion: this way you don’t really have the time to take your own photo and are more willing to pay a fortune in order to buy the one they take for you.

On Monday, Chris and I went with Bus Éireann to Cork. Unfortunately, Carmen could not come with us. The trip took about four and a half hours from Busáras, but it was way cheaper than the train. The bus driver was as so often very grumpy and unfriendly. There seems to be an unwritten law in Ireland that states that you have to be like this if you work in service or public transport. Of course, there are exceptions which prove the rule.

We really experienced the madness of the Irish weather: snow in Dublin, sunshine all the way to Cork and then, the moment we arrived, it started raining cats and dogs. A glance into the Lonely Planet and we were on our way to Sheila’s Hostel, a quite cheap but nice play to stay. We did not plan anything in advance, because we figured that it should be easy to find a place to sleep in January. Well, we were right and it was a good, spontaneous choice. The atmosphere was very international: Dutch, French, Canadian, Kiwis, Aussies, Spanish, Scottish and whatnot. By the way: the woman behind the counter was very friendly. Ha, exception!

We shared a room with some religious Scotsman, who played the accordion and talked about Rudolf Steiner and his Waldorf schools. Chris met a girl and colleague from his Dutch hometown. Some guy gave us a very strange handout after talking quite a lot of incomprehensible stuff. A girl from Spain invited us to have a cup of tea with her. A couple from Limoges started a way to serious conversation with us. To cut a long story short: the usual hostel encounters.

We spent most of the daytime with some sightseeing and rambling through Cork, which is a lovely city. Moreover, we went into some music and book stores and bought some really good movies at a very low price, such as the Coen’s gangster movie Miller’s Crossing for €3,60! Unfortunately one of them, The Zodiac, turned out to be a bad buy as I wanted to buy Fincher’s Zodiac. On Tuesday we saw it in the hostel’s cinema room together with some other guests and were rather disappointed afterwards. Just one tiny little word…
On Monday we went to see Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler in Kino, a small cinema where every second seat was „repaired“ with duct tape. However, the movie was brilliant. Maybe one could even call it is a must-see.

During the night we went into some pubs. Noteworthy are „The Thirsty“, because of its cool name, as well as „An Bodhrán“, where an Irishman played folk and pop songs on the guitar. But that man was not the only musician in the room. Besides Phil Lynott, whose photos covered all the walls, there was an even more famous one: Johnny Cash; the man in black. Or at least a Doppelgänger that looked just like him from the side. Elvis did not show up. He probably had already left the building.