This and That

Language exchange at work: My 26-year-old boss from the countryside is teaching me Northern Irish slang and I'm teaching him German phrases.

Over the weekend, friends from Dublin visited and we took a tourist tour to the Giant Causeway, passing beautiful evergreen Irish landscapes and Game of Thrones filming locations. Even though this series only came out in 2010, the Irish act like this fantasy world is part of their culture, like a centuries-old mystery.

After a hot summer with temperatures reaching 27 degrees, the typical Northern Irish rainy weather has now begun.

Despite feeling like autumn, we don't want to miss out and have explored the memorials of Belfast's dark days with a Black Cab Tour. We visited the Peace Wall, various monuments, and graffiti that not only remember but also reflect morale. Our unionist taxi driver portrayed the circumstances with bias and spoke more negatively about the Irish Republican Army (IRA) while praising the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Through a German colleague who has been working at the NOW Group in Belfast for 1 year, I was able to make contacts with locals and have dinner with a Spaniard in the student dormitory. So my Spanish is also improving!