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On Friday, my friend Brandi arrived for a three day visit. We took a long walk through the town (i.a. up the quays, across the Liffey and back) and caught a glimpse of the rather disappointing Maritime Festival before I introduced him to Bulmers as well as some friends of mine in Thomas Read.

The day after we took the DART to Malahide, a small coastal town some kilometres north of Dublin. We strolled through the park and enjoyed the sun which kept us out of the castle. Later on, we went from the marina along the coastline to the beach and enjoyed some very spicy pub food in Oscar Taylor’s for a belated lunch.
In the evening we went to try some microbrewed beers in Dublin’s Porterhouse near Grafton Street. Yuck! It was horrible. To some degree it was our very own fault, because we decided to check out some rather strange beers (Chocolate Truffle Stout). Anyway, we decided to leave after our first pint and met up with some of the remaining Erasmus students at Anthony’s flat for a relaxed evening. I sincerely hope that their other offerings are better, but somehow I do not want to figure this out myself anymore.

On Sunday afternoon, we wanted to have a barbecue at our place. So Brandi and I went to the Aldi to buy some food and charcoal briquets. After entering the store, I immediately headed for the briquets. This turned out to be a good idea: there was only one bag left. We continued our way through the store to get some groceries and went to the checkout. Before queuing, I asked my friend: Do we have everything we need?
Beer? Check! Cheese? Check! Charcoal? Che.. wait a minute! Where is our charcoal? Someone had robbed it from our trolley. We looked around and spotted a bunch of girls that were just leaving the store with a bag of charcoal. Our bag of charcoal. I got really angry, but what can you do? So I had to walk all the way to B&Q to buy a bigger and more expensive bag. Thanks a lot, girls. Very nice of you.
Anyway, the barbecue was pretty cool although Abdoun was our only guest. After he had left, we watched the German movie Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex to kill the time until 3:00 am when Brandi took the cab to the airport. In between, Andreas and Janine dropped by to say hello to us and goodbye to Chris.

Here are some photos of the weekend:

As you can see, we had a pretty good time. Thanks for visiting, Brandi!

On Wednesday Chris and Ennis invited me to join them on an afternoon trip to Ennis‘ hometown: Trim in County Meath, a small town in the Boyne valley. While Ennis packed her bag for an upcoming hitch hiking trip, Chris and me visited Trim Castle – the biggest castle in Ireland. Afterwards we bought some groceries to prepare a huge bowl of delicious home made hummus. Yummy!

Last Sunday the photography society went on a one night trip to Charleville Forest Castle near Tullamore. Although I do not own a DSLR and do not know too much about photography, I joined them together with some other non-photographer friends.

This turned out to be a very good decision: it was a lovely day, the first of the Irish summer (it did not even rain). We enjoyed the sunshine all day long and recharged some energy after all the stress of the exams and last Saturday. All in all a very nice last trip with my friends! I am going to upload some funny series in the coming days. Here are some photos of the castle.

As mentioned earlier, I went to Alfeld in order to celebrate my little sister’s confirmation. It was really nice and I met relatives I unfortunately do not meet as often as I would like to.

Moreover, I spent a night in Hannover with my friends Oli and Marian (thanks for the invitation) and celebrated my brother’s last leaving exam at school. Of course, I took the opportunity to take some photos that might give you an impression what it looks like where I grew up: in a provincial, but nice-to-look-at backwater in the South of Lower Saxony.

I forgot to take pictures of the „Planetenhaus“, another great timbered house. I am going to post a follow-up. When? Well, „otro dia“.

As promised earlier, here are some impressions from my trip to the lovely town of Bamberg two weeks ago.

If you think that I spent all the time eating, you hit the bull’s eye. One spare rib all you can eat, three barbecues…