So it has been a while since I last posted... but in a way this is a good sign too, meaning I am too busy to find the time to post because I am doing so many things, going out and all is well :).
I realize there's still some posts missing from my trip to Burren and the Cliffs of Moher with pictures... But then again, you can just go to my facebook and see for yourself :).
This weekend will be a long weekend for me, tomorrow is St.Patricks Day and I took the Friday off, so I'll go to the parade tomorrow in Galway, maybe do a trip on Friday and then some of us are planning to go to the Aran Islands over the weekend, so lets hope for good weather :). At the moment it's amazing with blue sky and sunshine... I really feel strongly for getting days off when the sun is shining ;-).
So basically I love it here and all is good :D. And if everything works out as planned, I will be back home at the end of July and start my Masters at ETH in September :D.
So at least some tiny good news for you in those horrible times...
Mittwoch, 16. März 2011
Sonntag, 27. Februar 2011
Amazing Weekend - Part 1
As you probably all know, last weekend (by now it's 2 weeks ago) my two friends from Dublin, Ida and Tommaso came to visit me in Galway.
They arrived quite late on Friday evening (thanks to Bus Eireann for that), we had some tea, talked and eventually went to sleep because we had two days of sightseeing ahead of us.
As we were getting up on Saturday I saw something I hadn't seen in a while: the SUN. So we were all pretty excited about our tour and stood outside the house at 9.30 sharp so that we could get picked up... But guess what? No-one picked us up. So I called them and they said that they were there at 10 past to 30 past... But who knowing the Irish would ever assume that they were early? Anyways, we got picked up after all and made it to the center where we were told that we would be going to Connemara today.
Our bus driver was Paul... Paul was great. He was talking and talking about everything we saw and also lots of things completely unrelated to Ireland ;-), it was great entertainment and I learnt a lot, or at least some of my knowledge about Ireland got freshened up :).
Eventually we left Galway and drove along the sea for a while. This is where we arrived at the end of the promenade and heard a funny story about it. Apparently this guy had built a house and bought the land and built a wall around it, cutting the promenade short by 1 mile. So the people thought that what they would do is just kick it every time they reached it and if everyone did it no-one could be blamed when it fell down... But the wall still stands and everyone kicks it when they get to it:
We continued along into Connemara, saw a lovely beach and also met some real Connemara ponies. They truly look impressive and beautiful. The story goes something like this: Some ship was sinking very close to the coast and there were Arab horses on it as well... When the ship sunk the horses were swimming in comparison t the men that just drowned (they apparently believed learning to swim was bad luck because it would just take longer for them to drown... I guess they never imagined sinking close to land...). So those Arab horses came on land and started to have little foals with the ponies here... And that's how those came about:
After a few more lovely "photo-stops" we reached Kylemore Abbey. The weather was still really nice, but as soon as we set out for our little walk to the gardens Petrus turned on the taps... So we were having a look at the gardens in the rain. But truly, it's not very special for it to rain in Connemara, it rains on 270 days each year. By the time we walked towards the Castle it was pouring and the wind was so strong that the umbrella was becoming a hazard to people's health ;). So on we went through the wind (it was like fighting an invisible enemy) into the castle and later on into the abbey. It was quite nice, but I have seen nicer houses such as Muckross House in Kerry.
When walking back towards the bus the wind was becoming so strong I was scared that a tree might fall over. But luckily nothing happened and we got back safely. On the way home the weather was still quite bad, but I kind of liked sitting in the bus and watching outside at the landscape, listening to the bus drivers stories and hearing the rain on the roof. When we got to Leenane the bus driver picked up a local sheep farmer... That was quite hilarious..
At the beginning I could hardly understand a word that guy was saying... I'll try and describe the whole picture to you:
This really old man with a huge white beard and some old dirty farmers clothes comes into the bus and then he talks as if he were completely drunk and he ever only says the first half of the words... At first you wouldn't even be certain that he's talking English ;).
So after a while I started understanding what he was talking about to the bus driver and I asked which sheep are his (because each farmer marks their sheep in a certain color). And the guy just goes: "The horny ones"... and continues with "two on the head and one on their belly"... Haha, the bus driver was roaring with laughter. Later the sheep farmer asks me if I'm married, so I said no... And he started talking about how I should marry a Connemara man *lol*, and even told Tommaso to make sure I do.
After this little conversation we dropped the guy off at the gate of his farm and continued along the windy roads back to Galway.
That was a lovely day and the next day we went to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher... But more of that in my next blog.
xoxo
Eventually we left Galway and drove along the sea for a while. This is where we arrived at the end of the promenade and heard a funny story about it. Apparently this guy had built a house and bought the land and built a wall around it, cutting the promenade short by 1 mile. So the people thought that what they would do is just kick it every time they reached it and if everyone did it no-one could be blamed when it fell down... But the wall still stands and everyone kicks it when they get to it:
We continued along into Connemara, saw a lovely beach and also met some real Connemara ponies. They truly look impressive and beautiful. The story goes something like this: Some ship was sinking very close to the coast and there were Arab horses on it as well... When the ship sunk the horses were swimming in comparison t the men that just drowned (they apparently believed learning to swim was bad luck because it would just take longer for them to drown... I guess they never imagined sinking close to land...). So those Arab horses came on land and started to have little foals with the ponies here... And that's how those came about:
After a few more lovely "photo-stops" we reached Kylemore Abbey. The weather was still really nice, but as soon as we set out for our little walk to the gardens Petrus turned on the taps... So we were having a look at the gardens in the rain. But truly, it's not very special for it to rain in Connemara, it rains on 270 days each year. By the time we walked towards the Castle it was pouring and the wind was so strong that the umbrella was becoming a hazard to people's health ;). So on we went through the wind (it was like fighting an invisible enemy) into the castle and later on into the abbey. It was quite nice, but I have seen nicer houses such as Muckross House in Kerry.
When walking back towards the bus the wind was becoming so strong I was scared that a tree might fall over. But luckily nothing happened and we got back safely. On the way home the weather was still quite bad, but I kind of liked sitting in the bus and watching outside at the landscape, listening to the bus drivers stories and hearing the rain on the roof. When we got to Leenane the bus driver picked up a local sheep farmer... That was quite hilarious..
At the beginning I could hardly understand a word that guy was saying... I'll try and describe the whole picture to you:
This really old man with a huge white beard and some old dirty farmers clothes comes into the bus and then he talks as if he were completely drunk and he ever only says the first half of the words... At first you wouldn't even be certain that he's talking English ;).
So after a while I started understanding what he was talking about to the bus driver and I asked which sheep are his (because each farmer marks their sheep in a certain color). And the guy just goes: "The horny ones"... and continues with "two on the head and one on their belly"... Haha, the bus driver was roaring with laughter. Later the sheep farmer asks me if I'm married, so I said no... And he started talking about how I should marry a Connemara man *lol*, and even told Tommaso to make sure I do.
After this little conversation we dropped the guy off at the gate of his farm and continued along the windy roads back to Galway.
That was a lovely day and the next day we went to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher... But more of that in my next blog.
xoxo
Donnerstag, 17. Februar 2011
Cheesecake
So, it seems my cheesecake is popular :-). Since I guess it's easier for me to just post this once in my blog than keep answering emails here you go... I'll add pictures later on as well.
Sara’s Cheescake – No Baking Required
Step 1: Base
- Line the bottom of a baking tin with baking paper
- Crush 200g of biscuits really well (put them in a bag and use a rolling pin) (I used a bit more biscuits and butter because I love the base)
- Melt 125g of butter and if wanted add a bit of vanilla essence
- Combine butter and biscuits with hands and distribute the mixture on the bottom of the baking tin.
- Carefully flatten the base (I use a spoon) by using a bit of pressure
- Put the baking tin in the fridge while you continue with the next layer
Step 2: Cheese
- Put all of the following ingredients into a mixing bowl or something similar: 500g of Philadelphia, 250g of Mascarpone and 100g of sugar and mix well. (you could also add some vanilla essence or lemon juice if you want or I added a bit of the berry juice I used later for the top layer)
- Get the Gelatine ready (depending on what type you have...) I had the packets available in Tesco (Dr. Oetker brand). You just do as the instructions say and use 1 packet.
- If Gelatine is ready quickly add a few spoons of the Mascarpone mixture to it and stir
- Then add all of the Mascarpone mixture
- Beat 3dl of cream until it’s stiff and add it to the mixture (I use a spoon, because we don’t have these nice baking thingies you normally use)
- Now get the baking tin out of the fridge and pour the whole mixture on top of the base, be sure that it’s flat at the top. (If you do not want a jelly top then you can maybe put some jam drops on top and take a fork and make some nice looking circles or hearts or something)
- Put in fridge for at least 3hours (after about 2 hours I make the jelly so it’s cool by the time the rest was in for 3 hours, also it might be ok with less than 3 hours, but I would be really careful)
Step 3: Jelly Top
- Prepare 1 packet of jelly (I used raspberry) as instructed
- Wait for it to cool down a bit (it should really not be warmer than room temperature)
- Pour the jelly on top of the cheesecake (be very careful to poor it slowly, I actually used a soup spoon to put it on top very gently, otherwise you might make some holes)
- I now added some defrosted summer berries (fresh ones would be nice too), also put them into the jelly gently.
- Put back into the fridge until the jelly is set (I left it overnight)
Hope it works out well and you’ll get an awesome cheesecake.
Ingredients:
200g of biscuits (digestives are the best)
125g of butter (unsalted if possible)
**********************************************************************************
500 g of Philadelphia (I take 200 light blue and 300 blue, obviously not the garlic one ;-))
250g Mascarpone
100g sugar
3dl cream (NOT low fat)
Gelatine (1 packet or 5 leafs)
if desired vanilla essence or lemon juice
**********************************************************************************
If desired: Any kind of jelly you would like (e.g. raspberry)
If desired: Fresh or frozen berries
Donnerstag, 10. Februar 2011
Sport, DERI and Showers
So today after work I saw some guys playing table soccer (at the entrance of DERI there's a table soccer table or whatever you call that). Honestly English sucks in certain aspects...
a table soccer table? so simple in Swiss-German, a Töggelichaste
or playing table soccer? again so much simpler in Swiss-German: töggelä
To be fair I have to admit that words like Chuchichäschtli are shorter in - at least the Irish English: the press
Well, back on topic... So I ended up playing 2 against 2 and my team won... I made more goals than the Swiss National Team... oh wait, that's not really hard, because they made NONE and even managed to miss 2 penalties. And as if this weren't bad enough they had played against Malta... Nothing against this lovely little island or it's inhabitants, but not even they themselves belief in their own team. So while listening to Züri's Radio24 today I had to hear over and over again how terribly embarrassed everyone is back home and they repeated Alex Frei's awful remark nearly every hour (he's the captain and missed his penalty and said in an interview that he was never going to kick another penalty again), how old is he? 6?
And also the Swiss skiers suck a bit... Instead of just going faster down the hill they complain about the condition of the slopes... Well, ok, even the ones that win medals complain about it (obviously not the Germans...), so I guess there's something to it, but because the ski races are always during times where I'm at work I can't really watch for myself.
Work is getting more interesting as I start to comprehend more and more. Today I had the awesome task of fixing a bug in VinhTuan's other project (IVEA) and I was at it the whole day... With a bit of moral support from my awesome friend in Japan - whose parcel arrived today with loads of goodies from Japan btw - I managed to not go completely nuts over not finding this bug. And who knew... one hour later the bug was found (not really understood, but found) and VinhTuan was happy, I think :-) At least I remember him saying something like I'm awesome :-) Yay! Tomorrow he'll leave Ireland for places where the sun actually still knows that it's supposed to shine, namely California, for 2 weeks. But I have enough work to do for two weeks and with the modern world and internet I'm sure he can give me more in case I run out of it :-).
Oh, about some gossip going around at work... The director of DERI, Stefan Decker was at Stanford with Sergey Brin and Larry Page and I heard from someone that they were actually roomies and that they wanted him to join Google as well. But being true to his research he didn't and ended up as director of DERI a few years late. I guess that's a good thing for me :-).
Also today after taking a shower really late I felt the need to clean it again... The Irish weather is really not good for the way they build the houses here. This time I took the really strong stuff to get rid of the last of the stupid mold and it already looks better :-).
Right now I'm just trying to think of advantages of Irish weather... hmmm - 10min later - well, I could think of a few:
a table soccer table? so simple in Swiss-German, a Töggelichaste
or playing table soccer? again so much simpler in Swiss-German: töggelä
To be fair I have to admit that words like Chuchichäschtli are shorter in - at least the Irish English: the press
Well, back on topic... So I ended up playing 2 against 2 and my team won... I made more goals than the Swiss National Team... oh wait, that's not really hard, because they made NONE and even managed to miss 2 penalties. And as if this weren't bad enough they had played against Malta... Nothing against this lovely little island or it's inhabitants, but not even they themselves belief in their own team. So while listening to Züri's Radio24 today I had to hear over and over again how terribly embarrassed everyone is back home and they repeated Alex Frei's awful remark nearly every hour (he's the captain and missed his penalty and said in an interview that he was never going to kick another penalty again), how old is he? 6?
And also the Swiss skiers suck a bit... Instead of just going faster down the hill they complain about the condition of the slopes... Well, ok, even the ones that win medals complain about it (obviously not the Germans...), so I guess there's something to it, but because the ski races are always during times where I'm at work I can't really watch for myself.
Work is getting more interesting as I start to comprehend more and more. Today I had the awesome task of fixing a bug in VinhTuan's other project (IVEA) and I was at it the whole day... With a bit of moral support from my awesome friend in Japan - whose parcel arrived today with loads of goodies from Japan btw - I managed to not go completely nuts over not finding this bug. And who knew... one hour later the bug was found (not really understood, but found) and VinhTuan was happy, I think :-) At least I remember him saying something like I'm awesome :-) Yay! Tomorrow he'll leave Ireland for places where the sun actually still knows that it's supposed to shine, namely California, for 2 weeks. But I have enough work to do for two weeks and with the modern world and internet I'm sure he can give me more in case I run out of it :-).
Oh, about some gossip going around at work... The director of DERI, Stefan Decker was at Stanford with Sergey Brin and Larry Page and I heard from someone that they were actually roomies and that they wanted him to join Google as well. But being true to his research he didn't and ended up as director of DERI a few years late. I guess that's a good thing for me :-).
Also today after taking a shower really late I felt the need to clean it again... The Irish weather is really not good for the way they build the houses here. This time I took the really strong stuff to get rid of the last of the stupid mold and it already looks better :-).
Right now I'm just trying to think of advantages of Irish weather... hmmm - 10min later - well, I could think of a few:
- mushrooms grow (it's one of the few things in the supermarket that is actually from Ireland and not imported (ok, I might be exaggerating a little, the potatoes are also from Ireland)).
- if the sun shines once in a week (ok, exaggerating again) you are really happy about it
- you don't get skin cancer
- you don't feel guilty for staying inside on the weekend playing games or watching movies
Ok, that's about it... can't think of anything else.
I truly hope that this weekend the weather will once again be sunny, it would just be awesome. Tomorrow evening Tommaso and Ida are arriving from Dublin and we have booked two 1 day trips for the weekend. On Saturday we are going to the Cliffs of Moher (yay, finally!) and on Sunday we're going into Connemara (mostly to places where I've been already, but it was so nice I'd love to go a second time!). Naturally I'll write a post about it and hopefully you'll get to see some pictures with a blue sky and the sun.
Now I should go to bed, I have to be fit in the morning for work and this weekend I can't just sleep half the time ;-) or I'll miss out on the beautiful scenery while in the bus.
xoxo from Galway
Dienstag, 1. Februar 2011
Random Thoughts
So wow, I have been working for over 2 weeks now and I have encountered a programmers worst nightmare: a program that doesn't work for some strange reason. Turns out it's Bill Gates fault ;-) or rather that all those jerks have to stick to their own standards and can never agree on anything. So VinhTuan developed on his mac which is a UNIX system and I tried to run the program on Windows. Lesson learned: trivial little tiny details like line feeds and carriage returns can mess up a program big time. But now the program is running smoothly and I get to enjoy the cool Text Analysis program VinhTuan wrote and add some functionality. So slowly but steadily I am getting used to working and I quite enjoy it.
Also the people in DERI are so far all really nice. On Friday I went to the FAWM (friday after work meeting) and we went to the city (if you can call it that) to a pub. Quite a lot of people had joined because there was a Ph.D to be celebrated. The evening was awesome, I talked to new people and finally got to dance again... Also quite interesting what you learn about the people at work in one evening.
Oh, I have a possibly amusing story for all the non-Irish people out there. So yesterday I went swimming and I have to say I am quite proud that I did 2km in under 1 hour (ehm yeah, it was 59 minutes and 10 seconds, but still, less than 1 hour). Afterwards I thought I could do something a bit more relaxing and go to the sauna. Here I have to explain something for the non-Irish people: the sauna in Ireland is usually located to the side of the swimming pool. So I can tell you that going to the sauna NAKED is unthinkable... It is as if while in the sauna something bad could happen if you do not wear your swimsuit. I still quite can't get over the fact of wearing something in the sauna, just seems completely unnatural and unhealthy to be sweating under a tight swimsuit. Well anyway, so I got over my concerns and went to the sauna. I was there for 20 minutes and during that time there were only guys in the sauna... Like probably around 20 different ones. At one point I was in this quite small sauna with 6 other guys LOL. So maybe after all I was glad for my swimsuit.
What else? My flat mates are going to go away for 2 weeks, so I will have the whole flat to myself. So far I don't really have a clue what to do all by myself, because we do something together nearly every evening. I guess I will be missing them :-) (and in case you read this Simon and Lukasz, I am only KIDDING ;-)). But because I am so smart *laugh* I invited some friends from Dublin to come on the weekend. So far my Swedish friend Ida has said yes and we'll probably rent a car and I will FINALLY get out of Dangan (that is the area I live in and DERI is also there).
Otherwise I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking (made a Dreikoenigskuchen and twice I made Zopf - that is a special type of bread we usually eat on Sunday in Switzerland - from 1kg of flour). Additionally I discovered the joys of a PlayStation3 in the house. It is the most amazing thing to play the same pretty stupid and simple game with your flat mates over and over again: WORMS. Soooo much fun I tell you. Especially because I am the best worm player, Lukasz comes second and we all know who is loosing (and claiming that the other team up against him... *innocent look* no clue where he got that idea from).
I am running out of things to write ;-). So I guess I wish you all a nice week, hope you are all well, wherever you are.
Sara
Also the people in DERI are so far all really nice. On Friday I went to the FAWM (friday after work meeting) and we went to the city (if you can call it that) to a pub. Quite a lot of people had joined because there was a Ph.D to be celebrated. The evening was awesome, I talked to new people and finally got to dance again... Also quite interesting what you learn about the people at work in one evening.
Oh, I have a possibly amusing story for all the non-Irish people out there. So yesterday I went swimming and I have to say I am quite proud that I did 2km in under 1 hour (ehm yeah, it was 59 minutes and 10 seconds, but still, less than 1 hour). Afterwards I thought I could do something a bit more relaxing and go to the sauna. Here I have to explain something for the non-Irish people: the sauna in Ireland is usually located to the side of the swimming pool. So I can tell you that going to the sauna NAKED is unthinkable... It is as if while in the sauna something bad could happen if you do not wear your swimsuit. I still quite can't get over the fact of wearing something in the sauna, just seems completely unnatural and unhealthy to be sweating under a tight swimsuit. Well anyway, so I got over my concerns and went to the sauna. I was there for 20 minutes and during that time there were only guys in the sauna... Like probably around 20 different ones. At one point I was in this quite small sauna with 6 other guys LOL. So maybe after all I was glad for my swimsuit.
What else? My flat mates are going to go away for 2 weeks, so I will have the whole flat to myself. So far I don't really have a clue what to do all by myself, because we do something together nearly every evening. I guess I will be missing them :-) (and in case you read this Simon and Lukasz, I am only KIDDING ;-)). But because I am so smart *laugh* I invited some friends from Dublin to come on the weekend. So far my Swedish friend Ida has said yes and we'll probably rent a car and I will FINALLY get out of Dangan (that is the area I live in and DERI is also there).
Otherwise I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking (made a Dreikoenigskuchen and twice I made Zopf - that is a special type of bread we usually eat on Sunday in Switzerland - from 1kg of flour). Additionally I discovered the joys of a PlayStation3 in the house. It is the most amazing thing to play the same pretty stupid and simple game with your flat mates over and over again: WORMS. Soooo much fun I tell you. Especially because I am the best worm player, Lukasz comes second and we all know who is loosing (and claiming that the other team up against him... *innocent look* no clue where he got that idea from).
I am running out of things to write ;-). So I guess I wish you all a nice week, hope you are all well, wherever you are.
Sara
Dienstag, 25. Januar 2011
Settled In
So time has again been flying... I'm honestly here since 2 weeks already and I am adapting to my new life here.
Everything is different ;-). Work is good, quite demanding as I still have to read a lot to learn all the new technologies, but I'm happy to learn something useful for now and the future. What is the most amazing difference is that I come home at 6pm and I can do whatever I like...
In the beginning I hardly knew what to do, but now it already seems again like there isn't enough time for all the things I want to do: cook, bake (oh yes!), going to the gym, socializing, watching movies with Simon and Lukasz on the beamer (yes, we have a BEAMER), playing PlayStation (yes, we have a PS3!) and sleeping... All of this still doesn't include making trips, because so far I didn't get to see anything. I haven't even been to Galway City Center, but I'm hoping to change that this weekend... Last weekend the weather was so bleak that I really didn't feel like going out of our lovely home, unless for the necessary groceries shopping, but luckily I could go with Lukasz in the car.
Otherwise everything is fine. I meet new people at DERI every day, there's quite a lot working there and it's very international, but I'm the only Swiss :-).
Ok, that's all for now I guess.
Und für all mini Schwyzer Fründe: wenn ihr mich wännd cho bsueche sind ihr do härzlich willkomme, me cha gärn bi mir übernachte. D Gegend um Galway ume isch wirklich super (Connemara) und d Cliffs of Moher sin au nit wyt ewäg, sowie natürli d Aran Islands.
Everything is different ;-). Work is good, quite demanding as I still have to read a lot to learn all the new technologies, but I'm happy to learn something useful for now and the future. What is the most amazing difference is that I come home at 6pm and I can do whatever I like...
In the beginning I hardly knew what to do, but now it already seems again like there isn't enough time for all the things I want to do: cook, bake (oh yes!), going to the gym, socializing, watching movies with Simon and Lukasz on the beamer (yes, we have a BEAMER), playing PlayStation (yes, we have a PS3!) and sleeping... All of this still doesn't include making trips, because so far I didn't get to see anything. I haven't even been to Galway City Center, but I'm hoping to change that this weekend... Last weekend the weather was so bleak that I really didn't feel like going out of our lovely home, unless for the necessary groceries shopping, but luckily I could go with Lukasz in the car.
Otherwise everything is fine. I meet new people at DERI every day, there's quite a lot working there and it's very international, but I'm the only Swiss :-).
Ok, that's all for now I guess.
Und für all mini Schwyzer Fründe: wenn ihr mich wännd cho bsueche sind ihr do härzlich willkomme, me cha gärn bi mir übernachte. D Gegend um Galway ume isch wirklich super (Connemara) und d Cliffs of Moher sin au nit wyt ewäg, sowie natürli d Aran Islands.
Dienstag, 18. Januar 2011
Second Day...
So, my second day at work was fine, not much to tell. I read a lot, set up the laptop which I got today (email, printer, internal applications,...) and went to have my picture taken for the deri website...
Here some pictures from the office:
 |
| This is VinhTuan's desk... he would not let me take a picture of him, so I guess that's all I have for now ;-). |
 |
| Me at my desk, I redecorated a bit in the morning because these green walls are a bit boring. |
Then I went home, had some dinner and now I'm so tired I'll go to bed. More reading for tomorrow...
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