Scotland!

Wow, it was really a great week in Scotland. No better way to start a trip that program all night until we left :D It was about 2.00am at the Wednesday night when we leaved from Elms. First we took 3.00am bus and then 6.30am flight from Dublin to Edinburgh. We arrived to Edinburgh about 9.00am without no sleep. Sebastian's friend Antonio was waiting us in bus stop and we headed to his place, where we were staying. Antonio showed us Edinburgh city in Thursday and Friday.









Saturday we headed to Glassgow where Sebastian's friend Edu stidies. Scotland-Italy football game was in Glassgow in that day so there were a lot of italian and scotish football fans and all the bars were packed full. Glassgow is maybe not really great place for a tourist, but for a one day trip it was good. We visited Glassgow Catethral, University and some major attractions. After a day of walking we headed back to Edinburgh to rest a bit, because next day was going to be a long day.



Sunday started early. We took to a trip to highlands. Plan was to make our way up to Loch Ness and spot the Nessie :) Roads were good and driver was mad, thats about all you need to have a good road trip.

A lot was seen in one day. After darkness came, we headed back to Edinburgh. Monday we just chilled in Edinburgh doing nothing special, making some shopping ofcourse. In the evening it was time to say goodbye to Antonio and head to airport. Flight's were smooth and after we even realized we were back in Belfast, home sweet home.

Here's some more photos through the way

Studies once in a while

First project of one of my modules was completed. It is a interactive promotion site for imaginary ski resort. Second project will something whole different.

You can view it http://mode.ie/wintervalley while it's there

Now better get ready to leave to Dublin and from there to Edinburgh. Next post after Skotland road trip next week.

Halloween

Last Wednesday was halloween. It is kinda big thing in UK, I really don't appreciate it so much. But anyway, maassa maan tavalla, so we had to dress up. I didn't have anything to dress few hours before the party, I was ready not to go anywhere. Sarah had an idea, that I should wear a girls cloths:S Well it wasn't so bad idea, so I loaned some clothes from Sarah. Dress, top and some make up.. :D ready to go

Party itself was really nice. Everybody had dressed and having good time. We missed fireworks that were at city center but I didn't even wanted to see it so no problem. Pictures are in facebook, I don't care upload them twice...


Life in Belfast is so normal now that I have started to want travel around UK. Me and Sebastian reserved flight tickets to Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, two weeks from now. We are staying there almoust a week, I think it's enough time to see the city. Some chance at least.

Ice-hockey and so on

Ye,

We went to see a local match of ice-hockey. It was Coors Belfast Giants vs Basingstoke Bisons. As most readers might know, finnish ice-hockey is "a bit" more combination of quality and teamplay. First thing I noticed was there was only 9 players sitting in the bench, so not even chains :S



Well match was what it was, Giants won 5-3, if I remember correctly :D But that wasn't the main point. Point was to see what kinda ice-hockey culture they have here. Cheerleaders and normal stuff, kinda back in Finland. Well it was nice excursion, more of these please.

And after party, ofcourse, we went to Box. Box might be the best club in Belfast, or that it seems so far. Always nice attitude and enough people to have fun, and ofcouse the best, funnies, people from Elms and from our floor. Nobody can't denide that!



Unfortunately there is some work to do also. Multimedia project is on it's way, thank god. Now we just have to finnish it, because next project is in the door already. Site under construct http://mode.ie/project/ But no worries, still alive. I also reserved flight to Finland for christmas, so I will be spending christmas with snow, or hope so.

Derry excursion

Derry was quiet intresting city to visit. It was a early wake and we headed to bus station about 8.30 am. We founded yourselfs in Derry few hours later and managed to find some information about places to visit. Mainly we were looking for murals, that Derry is also famous about, and we managed even to be there when cuban ambassor opened one in ceremony, it was weird.. :S




Next three weeks are going to be mad. A lot of work in one multimedia course, that I have never study before. I don't really know why I choose it, but it's quiet intresting anyway. Basicly in three weeks we have to do with my friend multimedia project, in software that I have never used before :D If you are intrested you can look your project development in our webpage http://csc3410708.pbwiki.com/

Cave Hills visited

Last sunday me and some of my friends decided to visit natural park of cave hill close to city of Belfast. We took but to Belfast castle and spend some time in there to see what was the craic like in there. After that we took a 3 hour hiking route around the mountains. It was kinda misty at that time of day and we could hardly see anything there. So basicly we were wandering in the mist 3 hours. But it was worth it still.


Today also started my english course about seminar skills. It was kinda easier than I thought, just chatting with other international students and making some presentation about your culture.

I have also some friends from Finland visiting this week. Maybe arrange some party with them.. maybe. This weekends plan is to go Londonderry, city near Irelands border in north. Heard that it is one of the intresting citys, if you look at the history, of Norhern-Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry

Should be a good trip, as usual.

Cheers

Perussetti

Lukukausi on alkanut ihan sujuvasti ja käytännön asiat alkaa hoitumaan jo luontevasti. Jouduin luopumaan yhdestä kurssista, koska proffa ei uskonut että jaksan suorittaa 4 kurssia lukukaudessa, 3 on se normi ja ehkä hyvä näin. Käyn kolmea kurssia Java Programming for BIT, Computation Theory ja Applied Multimedia. Java ohjelmoinnin kurssi on ehkä paras(vähiten työtä) ja paikallinen ohjelmistotieteen perustyökalut taas siitä toisesta päästä. Multimedia kurssi on tarkoitettu viimeisen vuoden opiskelijoille, joten 0 kurssia multimediaa lukeneena ihan sopiva valinta.
Ensimmäisellä viikolla täällä, kaikki sanoivat että belfast on yksi euroopan turvallisimmista kaupungeista(YK:n tutkimus). Kuitenki vähän naurattaa, kolmen viikon aikana parin kilometrin sisällä mistä asun on tapettu yksi ihminen ruuvimeisselillä("naapurin pojat"). Hetki sitten jollain paikallisella kaverilla meni hermot (ei tietoa miksi) ja tuloksena oli 2 autoa tulessa. Katu sijaitsi yliopiston päärakennuksesta seuraavassa korttelissa, tätä oltiin todistamassa. Mutta mukava paikka tää on.

-From the G09-

Semester kickoff

Semester started yesterday in good weather, only raining not winding. It only rains about 2 hours a day in south belfast, so it's not that bad, just keep rihanna ft. jay-z with you all the time. Most of the G floor residents survived from the birthday partys, most. It was a great success. Anyway, semester started with 1 hour of lectures in monday. It wasn't that bad, but lecturer had kinda booring voice, suprice suprice. This week will still be easy, because there's no practical or tutorial work.
It's also purpose to visit this week some belfast's legendary spots. Maybe to see one of "entries" in northern city. Some of the worlds best pubs lies there, in the dark alleys. Only a smell of pint.
I have been in contact with the local orienteering community also. Like kepardi, they think that craic should be relaxed, not competitive. They are organizing training's once a week, maybe next week.. http://www.quboc.tk/

Cheers

Freshersh' week almoust paketissa

Uusien opiskelijoiden orientaatio viikko alkaa olemaan paketissa. Viikko on ollut ehkä hauskimpia koskaan. Elms tarjoaa todellakin erinomaiset mahdollisuudet kulttuurien välisiin kontakteihin. Yhteen viikkoon mahtuu niin paljon... tour belfastin syrjäisimpiin osiin, jonne 45-vuotta jatkunut konflikti on jättänyt suurimmat arpensa. Luodinreiät vielä rakennuksissa ja "freedom waalit" konflikti alueilla, huhhuh. Liikaa kulttuuria suomalaiselle pienessä ajassa. Paikalliset ovat kuitenkin ystävällisempiä ihmisiä mitä olen koskaan tavannut. Britti ja irkku identiteetti kysymys on saatu vihdoinkin rauhoitettua poliittiselle tasolle. No more fighting.
Freshers' week päättyi tänään hyviin pippaloihin, joihin oli vain freshers' opiskelijoilla mahdollisuus päästä, lippuja oli 1000 ja ihmisiä klubilla about saman verran. It was a great success :D Täytyy myös sanoa että belfast ei ole ollut läheskään sitä tasoa jota oletin. Se on ollut paljon parempaa. Alun pienten "ongelmien" kanssa painiminen ei poista todellakaan sitä tosiasiaa että täällä ihmiset ja kulttuuri on parasta mitä voi kuvitella. Ja vasta alle 2 viikkoa täällä ollut...

Kai englannin kielikin on parantunut jonkin verran, kun ymmärtää jo 70-vuotiasta charburgin perus irkkua respasta :O läppäää pystyy jo heittää almoust kaikkien kanssa. Meno alkaa olla jo aika relaksoitunutta.

Ainut asia joka ihmetyttää QUB:ssa ja muualla UK:ssa on yliopistoon tulevat ihmiset. Keski ikä on noin 18-v ja meno on sen mukaista. Nukkumaan ei tarvitsekkaan mennä ennen kahta yöllä, koska desibelitaso on sen mukainen, mutta ei tuota ongelmaa mulle :))

Ensi viikolla alkaa lukukausi, joten saa nähdä rauhoittuuko meno Elmsissä, jää nähtäväksi. Kurssi byrokraatit uhkailivat jo että paljon työtä on luvassa, mutta nähtäväksi jää, jotain tekisi jo mieli opiskella.

Huomenna viikko huipentuu Bartekin(alempi kuva mun vieressä), 23-v synttäreihin, puolalaista vodkaa I guess ;) joten hyviä settei vielä tarjolla tällä viikolla. MUTTA kiltisti oon ollu, tiedät ;)

It was a day of football

Today there was a football tournament in PEC courts and we managed to get team from our floor. Now that Belfast is much more familiar it was time to spent some time with sports also. Our spiritual captain, Bartek(blue shirt) promised unlimited amount of polish vodka if we will win the tournament, so our motivation was high ofcourse :D
In the first game we were a bit of lost, because most of us havent played football in a long time. We lost 1-2 to some local lad team. But it was no shame because they had trained a lot more than us, but we were much more talented, hi.
Second game was best of us. About 2 minutes played and tsipi kicked the winning goal \o/ so some amount of vodka was guaranteed :D After few close up's we won the game 2-0, cheers!
Third game was totally a piece of shit. Referee didn't know the rules and while we were explaining rules to him other team scored :D After I yelled I AM The Law to the referee, he started to get pretty pissed, no shit shelock... but we lost 0-3 and after complaining about the rules we got remach, thanks to out spiritual leader again :P We lost remach with wrong rules again 0-1, but it was much more better performance from us.
Now is time for the aftermach ofcourse!

Cheers!

So what's the craic like hi?

After the first few days shocks, it was time, actually a pint time. I live in Elms Village, which is largest accommodation that QUB offers, guess about 2000 residents. Mainly 11 residents in on floor sharing everything. Anyway, I met some Swede pals from grant house, guaranteed fun :D
Belfast is famous of it's pubs(not the reason why I came here :D) and I can confirm that information :D We have been in some pubs, like in five, and all of em' have been great. cheers! Today I tried also montain climbing in PEC(Physical Education Center) and it was a lot of fun. My climbing technic is not yet very good so it was hard sport. PEC offers great possibility to do all kind of sports.
The first week went fast, learning habits and local english. Really really hard to understand when some local lad talks. But it's better every day :) Just throw the ice braker, what's the craic hi! :D Local lads are really warm and nice, first impression of Belfast is really good. Next week the first semester will start, I can't wait to see what's the craic is in QUB. Cheers!

Intro

Tsipi has landed to Belfast! My airplane leaved from Tampere 10'th of september and destination was Belfast city airport. I had to change plane twice on the way here, so the whole day was just waiting and checking. Feeling was pretty surrealistic when I arrived to belfast city. It was monday night... a good night to have pint or two! cheers!
First few days went fast, mostly just getting known with other people from other countries. Accommodation was shock first. 11 people in the same floor, sharing kitchen and two toilets. But you can't compare accommodation between, for example finland and belfast. These
buildings have culture and history. But sharing floor with people from Spain, US, Poland, Netherland, Belgium, UK and Portugal :D it's fantastic. BRILLIANT!
We had three day orientation program last week, from wednesday to friday, it was brilliant. cheers! Now being here 7 nights and having greatest time of my life makes me wonder, how great this semester is going to be. Lots of pint and fun with fantastic people. Cheers!