I never thought I’d say this…

…but I miss my Irish ALDI store! We went to a local one yesterday and I was really sad to see no grapefruit segments, no couscous, no Indian sauces, and the store assistants wore super ugly uniforms! I guess ALDI in Santry just had more advanced items and not only basics (though they were still pretty basic). The one good thing about the local ones here are the lunchmeats and other bread toppings but oh well. The main difference might just be that I live in an ALDI Nord area and ALDI Ireland (and USA by the way) are both part of ALDI SΓΌd.

PS: Interesting piece of trivia: Trader Joe’s actually belongs to the same owner as ALDI. Wow…

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Looking back on Four Months Ireland…

… I really had an alright time here. I saw a country, which I probably would have never visited if it hadn’t been for this internship, and I’m glad for it as there are some breathtaking sceneries on The Green Island. Some of the highlights from my travels here:
4 Months in Ireland

Well, my start here wasn’t the best with this piggie roommate of mine, that horrible electricity meter, all that rain and the ugly street I’ve lived on. Thank goodness that guy moved out and the electricity issue got much better as he was the one using all the energy really ;-). The weather improved. Yeah it still rained every day or so and I hated that but I got two cute umbrellas (after one of mine broke in Belfast where we got super soaked by the way) and I got lucky in the fact that it was rarely pouring while I was working to and from work after that.
Work in itself was enjoyable. I had things to do and I learned a couple of things and was also able to teach my co-workers a couple of things so that was nice. Unfortunately the office never really did anything together after work and with the office being kind of in the suburbs we never went for a drink or anything. There was one party though where we had loads of fun and then thankfully a new girl started to work there and we went out three times and got along great. I’m glad that the internship is over now as I feel that I have exhausted my learning curve there and I’m looking forward to having a real job some time soon. I was very surprised today, my office gave me a lovely πŸ˜‰ DKNY watch as a farewell gift. I was honestly shocked that they spent over 150€ on their intern! Felt very appreciated!
I was also very lucky in that respect, that a total of 9 people visited me in these four months and I really enjoyed touring Ireland with them. I was busy almost every weekend, this month actually being an extreme as I was in 4 countries in 4 weeks. However, overall I rarely felt too stressed or overwhelmed by the amount of things I had going on in my life – as long as I wasn’t thinking about them but just doing them. A very good thing to have found out about me.
The Irish culture as I experienced it didn’t thrill me too much. They drink way too much for my taste. I don’t mind having a drink or two every day of the weekend but drinking till you’re comatose every day of the weekend and being hung-over Monday and Tuesday is just not my cup of tea. I’m also not a big fan of all the puke that you see on the streets because of that to be honest. Now, being in a pub and having a pint of beer is loads of fun though and there’s usually a cosy atmosphere I just don’t like the sheer amount they drink most of the times.
The famous Irish kindness was there but also a whole lot of rudeness. I think in the rural parts people are much nicer but here in Dublin most people on the street are pretty rude. All the ones that I have been in closer touch with though have been kind – not excessivly but you know, like me kind of. ;-). I have experienced great kindness up north so I’m not ruling out that it exists.
Clothes… let’s not talk about clothes… track suits/jogging pants – enough said.

So anyways, my time here is up and I’m fine with that. I’m not jumping for joy but I’m no where near being sad. The internship was good for my resume, I saw beautiful places and shopped much. Have I found happiness here and want to stay here? Nooooo but I did buy loads of stuff at Penney’s today and shopping always makes a girl happy. πŸ˜€

I’ll see you on the mainland my lovely readers. I hope you enjoyed reading about my life in Ireland!

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Final Countdown

Well, one more day until I leave Ireland! Precisely 27 hours if my plane takes of as scheduled. I’m busy packing and cleaning. Trying to eat all my food but with still 3 glasses of Indian and Thai curry sauces in my press (there’s another Irish word for ya, “press”=”cupboard”) it’s not gonna happen. I hope my roomies’ll like them ;-).
On Tuesday I actually cooked one of them for Daniela, a German girl I had met via xing and we’d been out to the pub once with her boyfriend who had to work late on Tuesday though. She brought along choclate pudding and wine and we had a lovely night eating chicken rhogan josh at my apartment.
One suitcase is packed, the other is half full. I’m still debating what to do with my carry-on. I had three pieces when I got here: laptop, purse, backpack. Aparently you can only bring one and strictly only one aboard now. They were giving me a pretty bad time in London when I had a connection there in April and made me stick my purse in my backpack (and there was no lappy with me then). Not sure how strickt they are in Copenhagen – I know I’d be fine in Dublin but not sure if I want to risk it. I might just only bring lappy and a purse along or maybe lappy and the backpack?! I have another Guinness glass, mug and a vase that I don’t want to possibly break in my suitcase but hmmm maybe if I just wrap them up really well?! Well, I still have 27 hours to decide ;-).
My last day at the office starts in 45 minutes. I don’t think we’ll do anything special. 5 or 6 of our 10 people are out of the office anyways. I got them 3 huge Milka chocolate bars at Fraport last week so hopefully they’ll appreciate that and we can have a chocolate feast. Muahaha! πŸ˜€

Oh PS: My Mom just called to tell me I’ve got mail – from my university – and I finally got signed up for my thesis. Took them about a month to make it happen. So now I have until August 31st and the ealiest I can hand it in is July 15th. Yay, finally, I can see the end.

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Almost Perfect Day

I had an absolute fantastic day with very many blessings. Well I got up and it rained… yeah not good but by the time I was ready to go to the airport, it stopped. Got to the busstop nearly dry – well of course this one bloody Irish driver had to go extra close to the sidewalk to splash me with puddle water – asswhole – but other than that everything was fine. The bus came only a minute after I got to the stop and I got a seat. Yay!
Even though I had only rented a tiny car (think Opel Corsa 3 door) I was given a brand new Peugeot 207 with 5 doors. Now, the 207 was always on my list of cars I’d really like to try out because it’s on my list of cars to consider for when I’ll buy one some day. So yay! The car only had 700km down so it was pretty awesome to drive. It was kind of weird to drive a car that has a kmh speedometer in a country where they use mph but I didn’t trigger any of the traffic cameras so my little cheat sheet must have been correct. The nicest thing was, that at one point, the roundabouts before Belfast got super confusing and I had no clue where to go really. So I stopped at McDonald’s to use their facilities and ask for the way but of course the Asian worker didn’t know it. A guy in the parking lot though tried to explain the way but then was like, ah I’ll just show you. Follow me! Suuuuper nice!! I definitely found the Norther Irish much nicer than the Republic Irish Irish living in Dublin. So yay, another blessing!
Traffic was alright all the way up north and the sun even came out. Amazing because the forecast had said rainy and very windy. Well windy it was but sunny! Yay! I drove along the Antrim Coast for a bit, stopping here and there to take a picture and then got to the Giant’s Causeway, my main reason for the trip up to Northern Ireland. The whole coastal area there was just amazing! The cliffs were stunning and then the causeway itself was definitely something as well. Cool to stand on these rock formations and watching the waves crash in. Even though there were loads of people around you were still able to enjoy yourself so that was nice.
I was then lucky again because I got the last tea from one of the shops before they closed. That was definitely needed as the wind really made me feel pretty chilled.
One last stop at Dunluce Castle and then I made my way back south. I had been thinking of going to Londonderry too while I was up north but my eyes were already pretty tired so I decided against it.
On the way south it started to rain majorly again but the sun was still up on the other side so we got this gorgeous full rainbow with even a quarter double ray. Breathtaking! Ireland really is a great country for seeing amazing rainbows and not just these rainbow segments you see in Germany most of the time. So yay, I love seeing rainbows and it was great to see the point where it started just in the field next to the road.
Had dinner in Antrim at Red Panda, which looked like a normal Chinese restaurant as in quick and cheap but it was a bit more fancy and the food was pretty good. Super fast though, too, I ordered my food, went to the loo, and when I came back out my food was on the table. And I wasn’t in the loo for hours! πŸ˜‰
I finally got back to Dublin after a good 3 hours of driving but I was lucky again and the police didn’t catch me and lucky again, I got a parking spot over ground right in front of my building (and there are only 4 spots there). I was getting really worried that all these blessings today were trying to make up for something horrible that was to happen later on but luckily I banged my head into the wall when I came around a corner (don’t ask…) so now I’m not too worried anymore. πŸ˜€ Oh and also, my harddrive is full again and I can’t fit all my photos from today on it so I’ll take that as the bad reason why all these good things had to happen to me today ;-).
Well now, good night! Y’all sleep tight and have sweet dreams!

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