Category: FS03VZ Dublin 2012

Finally we are back in Germany, for two days now. It was an exciting week in Dublin and we saw so many things, interesting places and met a lot of friendly Irish people during our stay there.

During the whole week we were constantly on tour – no matter if alone, in little groups or as complete class.

So we can say our whole trip was full of highlights and we couldn’t imagine what happend to us before we were starting our flight. It was a great mix of laughing and learning all the time.

The most interesting and also the trickiest item for us was definitely the visit to Intel!

But it was very educational to gain an insight in their ways of producing and get some background information about Intel.

Another amazing experience for our class, was to meet the Irish students & teachers from Greenhills College, they were so lovely and attentive to us. We talked a lot while we had a drink and a snack – questions about Ireland and also Germany, we were joking and laughing so much. In the end, they took us and we went out in a pub and after a while we joined in a nightclub. Maybe in this night new friendships were originated and we are looking forward to when Greenhills College is visiting Berlin in November and maybe next year they want to visit Darmstadt.

But there was much more to see!

We had a tour across the wonderful and green nature of the Wicklow mountains, made some fun with the sculptures in the wax museum, had a whiskey taste in the Jamson Distilery, discovered Dublin, went on funny tours through some pubs & clubs, saw the impressive St.Patricks Cathedral, were jailed in Killmainham Goal and other stuff.

Be advised that it is very worthwhile to visit this great city and meet the people there and stay tuned for some pictures of this Adventure!

If you have any unanswered questions about our trip, don’t be afraid and ask us.

After meeting at 10 o’clock this morning, we discussed how we could spend the day, because Sarah from Intel still hadn’t answered us. After a short discussion, we decided to drive to Intel and see what we could arrange there.
Fortunately, Sarah called us back a few minutes before our departure and told us that she will meet us at 1:30 at the front desk of fab24.

After our bus driver had ignored our wish to stop, we stopped it by ourselves and had to walk approx. 500m into the other direction and therefore we were a little bit late. Finally we arrived at the front desk where Sarah was already waiting.

Now one of the most exciting parts of our trip to Dublin began and Sarah was leading us into the fab, where the 300mm wafers are being produced. For the visitors, it’s basically a long corridor with a lot of windows through which you can see into the clean rooms, where the different steps are proceeding. A clean room is 1000 times cleaner than an operation room in a hospital. The whole air becomes exchanged every 6 seconds.  She also showed us a 200mm wafer and a mask for the circuit which is being transferred onto the wafer.
It requires 250 different steps for a wafer from the pure silicon plate to the finished wafer. When a wafer is produced, all chips on it have to be checked for errors. Usually there are about 10% of the chips on a wafer which are broken and have to be binned. Sarah told us that in the history of Intel , only 1 wafer had 100% functional chips on it.

Later that day, the class met in the dining room to start a small feedback round about our trip to Dublin.
Everybody had a lot of positive things to tell and everybody had another personal highlight. After that, a small group went to the O’Donough pub to have a few drinks and talk about this nice trip.

 

Trip to the Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT)

We met at 8.45 am in front of Gogartys. Then we went to Abbey Street to take the tram to the ITT in Tallaght. It took about one hour to the end of the line (Tallaght).

Then we met the students and Mrs. Maguire from Greenhills College at the entrance of the college. The plan for the day was to attend two lectures. At lunch we had the possibility to ask the lecturer some questions about the institute.

The first lecture started at 10.00 am and the topic was “Irish Tourism”. Glenn, the lecturer who is also a German teacher, welcomed us very kindly in German.

We learned how important tourism is for Irish people and the government.

He told the class which countries are popular for tourism around the world.

In this presentation we could see that Ireland is the 25th most popular destination for travelers.

At 11.00 am we attended the second lecture and we learned something about “Interview Skills”. The topics of this subject were how to introduce yourself, how to act at the job interview, you have to use proper English as well and also we learned that in Ireland you don´t ask about the salary.

After the lecture we got vouchers so we could get various menus, like very hot rice curry, beef with mash potatoes and so on.

We ate upstairs in the canteen, where we had a little conversation with Glenn and the head of the department.

Additional information we got from Glenn, e.g. that the semesters have the same term like in Germany. If you are interested in a further education at ITT you need an A-level or you must be older than 23 years.

The costs to study there are 2000€ per year.

At 1.00 pm we left the institute and took the tram towards home.

We created three groups: One group visited the Kilmainham Gaol, the second group visited the fire brigade and the last needed a lot of sleep.

 

At Kilmainham Gaol

At the Kilmainham Gaol we learned a lot about Irish history and famous Irishmen, who lived in the gaol. We learned much about the Eastern Rising 1916, rebellions and executions.

We had a look at the Gaol’s museum. After a few minutes waiting we started with the tour.

At first we saw the old district and then went to the younger part of the building, like the East Wing, that is also a favorite movie location.

Our tour, which started at 2.00 pm, was for free, regular the price for students were 2€.

After that we took the tram back to our hostel.

 

Dublin’s new firefighters

Another part of the class visited the fire brigade, because they are interested in similarities and differences between the German und the Irish fire brigade. They got a guided tour and saw vehicles and some parts of the station. It was very interesting for them.

 

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

One of our students (Mr. Haas) started to take a look into St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After his dangerous trip across the streets of Dublin, he arrived at the church. He said it was very impressive. So take a look or ask him for further information.

Intel canceled our tour on Tuesday, so we had to adjust our schedule. We switched the program from Thursday to Tuesday.

There were some problems with the communication between Intel and Herr Claassen, for more Information ask Herr Claassen directly. But that is how it works with projects it never goes the way you want it to.

So we decided that we will have a day for individual activities in small groups. One group decided to go to the Dublin Zoo the other one went on a guided tour in the Old Jameson Distillery.

 

Dublin Zoo

http://www.dublinzoo.ie/

The zoo was really nice. It is located in Phoenix Park in the heart of Dublin, one of the largest city parks in Europe. As one of the world’s oldest and most popular zoos there are plenty of amazing animals to discover including tigers, hippos, gorillas, chimpanzees, red pandas and reptiles to name only a few. We had a lot of fun exploring the zoo and although Ireland is known for its unstable weather, it was sunny all the time. The zoo is designed very naturally and eco-friendly even if there is nothing naturally on locked up wild animals.

 

The Old Jameson Distillery

http://www.tours.jamesonwhiskey.com/Home/The-Old-Jameson-Distillery-Dublin/Tour-Info.aspx

After a long walk through Dublin we arrived at the Distillery. With our tour guide James began the “savor an experience”. He told us about all stations of making a good Irish whiskey. After our tour for 8 people from all over the world, began the special whiskey tasting. Due to our extremely objective and uninfluenced tasting we chose from three different whiskeys the Jameson Whiskey as the best. Since we all gave the right answer, we received our certificate as a “Qualified Irish Whiskey Taster”. At the end all of us drank a glass of Jameson Whiskey.

 

Evening

http://www.brazenhead.com/ / http://www.fitzsimonshotel.com/

In the Evening we met some teachers and students from Greenhills College at the Brazen head. Later in the evening the students went to the Fitzsimon`s and had a lot of fun.

 

After breakfast we met at Gogarty´s at 09:00 am. Then we took the bus line 9 from D’Olier Street to Greenhills College in the Limekiln Avenue.

When we arrived at Greenhills College we got to know Isabel, the German teacher who organized our visit. She brought us to the meeting room of the Junior school. There the principal of Greenhills College welcomed us to the school. Then they wanted to show us a video about the College. But in the beginning there was a little technical problem with showing us the video. So we see, that these problems are not only at our school. In this video, they showed us a lot of information about the College. After that, we went in little groups from class to class, where the students could ask us questions. Before we went into one class, the students were very noisy. But when we went into the class, all of them were very quiet.

The students were very interested in where we came from and our favourite football team. Some of these students could speak a little bit of German.

At 12 o’clock we got some coffee and tea. During this coffee break we had time to speak to some students and enjoy traditional scones and brownies, which were baked by the students

After the break we went to the Greenhills College of further education for adult students. Here we also went to different classes, where the students asked us some questions.

The students in both College forms were extremely friendly and interested in us and our trip. It was very nice to talk to some of the students. At the end of the visit we made a group picture in front of the school.

When we arrived back at our hostel, we took part in individual activities in small groups. Our group went to a big shopping center and bought some things. After that we went to Captain America’s restaurant and ate the, for us, best burgers of Dublin.

In the evening the whole class went to the O’Donoghues’s Pub, where we drank some pints of beer or Guiness and listened to the wonderful traditional music. We can say that in every pub we visited, the music was brilliant. During the last hours we were staying in the pub, the employees rolled many empty barrels of Guinness in front of the pub.

On this picture you can see how much Irish people (Rico &Marc) drink during one weekend.

We met this morning at 7.45 am to begin our trip to the Wicklow Mountains with Daytours . Some of us made lunch packets. After meeting  we walked to our pickup location which was a church.

At 8.30 am our bus came and we got on it. We had booked the public  tour. Already on board were people from Australia, Texas and some other places. Soon we noticed that our bus driver, his name was Damian, also was a funny entertainer and a good tour guide as well. He told us many things about Dublin and Ireland. The beginning of the trip was a small Dublin City tour. At 10.00 am we reached Glendalough. Damian gave us a guided tour over the cemetery and then we walked among a lake to our next meeting point. During the walk the typical Irish rain began.  Fortunately it was soft rain.

Picture of:  Mr. Szalma with his wet cloth.

At the end of the walk some of us complained about the weather, which was ordered by Mr. Eckert.

At 11.30 am we went on with the bus. During the next hour we travelled through the mountains and saw many old ruins, also we made a short photo stop.

At 12.30 pm we reached our stop for lunch. It was a small village where we stopped off for a bite to eat. Most of us visited a restaurant. While Mr. Eckert had a passion for cheeseburger with chips, Mrs. Schmidt-Lisowski told us about her huge salad. Others had a taste of their lunch packets.

After lunch we drove to an old Norman ruin, the Trim Castle. It was a film location for the movie Braveheart.

http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/midlandseastcoast/TrimCastle/

The castle was very interesting and we had there an extra guide, but unfortunately he spoke very fast and lisped. He told us about the living in the castle. After the castle our tour came to the end. We drove back to Dublin and the trip finished at 5.30 pm

Then we had some time for ourselves till we started our last part of the day. Our final destination was “The Brazen Head”. It is the officially oldest pub of Ireland.

http://www.brazenhead.com/

The main courses were already ordered. We had 4 options:

–        Bangers & Mash

–        Fish & Chips

–        Mushroom Risotto

–        Choice of Beef with Irish Stew

We think all liked it a lot. The meal was delicious and reasonable. The waitresses were nice and beautiful. After the meal we talked animated till 10 pm and closed the event.

By accident (?) we met the Texan ladies from the bus tour and some of us amused themselves till daybreak.

I was asked to give you a closer look on the theater play “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.

The novel is about a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian’s beauty and becomes infatuated with him in the end he even starts to worship him.

Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil’s, and becomes enthusiastic by Lord Henry’s world view.

Lord Henry suggests the only things in life are beauty and fulfillment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian decided that he even sells his soul to ensure the portrait would age instead of him.

Dorian’s wish is fulfilled, and he starts a life of sins and excesses. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul.

The actors were all really good even if I didn’t understand everyone especially some of the female actors were hard to catch up with. But within the context I could understand the whole story.

The actors of Dorian and Lord Henry, in my opinion, were the best, both of them changed strongly in the course of the story. Dorian the innocent and naive boy grows to a heartless, cruel man and you could even see and hear this in his play.

And Lord Henry an imperious and decadent dandy becomes a grumpy old man who is tired of life.

In the end I just can say that it was an experience for me that I don’t want to miss.

Our second day in Ireland started off with a Guided Walking Tour at 10:30 am in front of our hostel.  The guide we had was a native Irish lady named Collette, who told us a lot about the history of Dublin while she showed us some interesting places in Temple Bar. Trinity College, Dublin Castle and some copies of Viking artifacts made of metal embedded into the pavement were the most interesting sights in our opinion. Trinity College is the university with the best reputation in Ireland where the entrance conditions are way above average. Dublin Castle was impressive not only because of its architecture but also because of the stories Collette told us about the history and the closer past of it. One of the most important moments for the Irish was the visit of Queen Elisabeth and her speech on Dublin Castle’s square which she started in Gaelic, the Irish native tongue. This tour was a good start in discovering Dublin and it’s worth every Cent.

The activities in the afternoon were placed in the hands of the students on their own.

A small group took the chance and visited the Wax Museum while the rest chose to regain energy for the rest of the day due to the night before.

In the evening five of us went to a theatre where “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was staged. A closer look at this will be given by J. Trautmann. The others enjoyed a few beers in the pub of our hostel and played cards and dice.

 

On Friday, 28^th September 2012, the class met at 8:45am at the airport in Frankfurt. After we checked in at 9:15am, we had 30 minutes time for lunch. First, the class walked to the wrong Gate, because the airport changed the Gate number. After that, we flew for two hours and arrived at the airport in Dublin. At the baggage circle, one baggage was missing. Then we drove with the Airlink express to the Oliver St. John’s Gogartys Hostel, after we arrived at the hostel, we had time to check in. The class was divided into smaller groups and explored the city. In the evening, the whole class met at the pub, to have a drink by listening to Irish live music.