FullJelmerAlchemist

Weekend: Chilling and a drink with Colleagues

Posted on May 14, 2018 by jelmpi

So weekend had come! I had been wanting to make some new friends and asked my two Dutch colleagues whom I get along great with whether they would be up for a coffee. They actually were. So There is Matt who is 35 and Rainier who is 39. As you can see I am a just the youngest! By about 12 years haha. I get along great with both of them and so we went for a good cup of coffee. Well, actually I had invited them for a Milkshake. You see there is this amazing student place in town called Maggie May’s. It has two locations and they serve the best milkshakes in town! There is so much variation it is unbelievable and I just love it.

What a list :O !!! We were a bit unfortunate though and had the unlucky timing that we picked the location with the broken milkshake maker. We had a small lunch instead and talked about how we had gotten to Belfast. We really had a great time and we talked for about one hour when we decided to walk to the other location to get that promised milkshake! So I got a Death by Chocolate milkshake with so much fudge that I was in Choco-heaven! It was amazing. We went for a walk through the park afterwards and decided to even check out the botanical garden.

It was good shelter from the rain too! The building we were in is called the Palm House. The cool thing about it is that it’s filled with all kinds of tropical plants and seasonal displays and is one of the earliest glasshouse structures to be made from curved materials. The Botanic gardens were opened in 1828 and have been here for quite a while. The area even has a tropical ravine, much like my Uni town Leiden in the Netherlands, and the park is very popular with students and used as a great hangout.

We had a good time and after our walk in the park decided to go home because it was way too rainy. So we split up and took a last group selfie. A very funny photo.
At home, I ended up not doing much but watching a bit of anime and I went to bed early.
I did, however, scour the internet looking at one of my latest fascinations though: Interior design. I really like cool designs and have already made dozens of plans for my future dream house. I even have the location: It would be a combination of a lot of nature’s best elements. In a rural area, adjacent to mountains and with a sea view but not too far from a city so that sceneries can be busy when I want them to but I can return home to my quiet peace retreat whenever I need to:)!
Now I keep seeing the coolest designs: Dark oak walls and flooring with high windows letting in a lot of light, a rustic fireplace. A big garden with flowers blooming in all seasons, a palm tree, a basement which can turn into a 1950s jazz bar with a jukebox and a too chill setup. A bedroom That has broad windows that can let in a lot of light during the day and show a beautiful starry sky during the night. And don’t forget a cooking island! So that guests can join the cooking experience and the cook the conversation :D!
Does it not sound too good:)?

Loving my weekends 🙂

The week of March 8: International Women’s day and a the end of a series

Posted on May 12, 2018 by jelmpi

The Week of March the 8th was a busy week. I was doing great at work but making long hours, my colleague was in a great mood and I was cooking new dinners!

I keep challenging myself to cook new things and this week I made a terrific ( not boasting ) tasteful Chili con Carne!! Ow man it was good! I even added some yummy Jalapeño to it and it just was great. As I had kept an eye on local events happening in Belfast I noticed that there was a day full of cinema on Thursday the 8th. Now that specific day was International Women’s day. As I had two days of Annual Leave that I had to take that month I figured I might as well take one day to watch a lot of films! Now I left out the best parts: 1. They were all free and 2. They were in this lovely small cinema that was designed like a cozy living room with beanbags everywhere across the room. I had a great day and got to see some great films.

I saw Raise the Red Lantern, a Chinese film centering around a concubine who is struggling and basically fighting other concubines in order to get attention from the master of the house. He has a Red Lantern raised every night at the specific house where he spends the night. But he plays a minor role. The struggle between the concubines is the real focus and it ends up revealing some pretty dark secrets of all the four different women.
Next was Persepolis: A story about a strong and own-minded girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution. She rebels against the common rules in her own way and discovers Western bands like Abba and Iron Maiden and dresses modern. Very interesting animated film!
Then came a documentary: which showed the life and legacy of the internationally renowned and hugely influential human rights and trade union activist Inez McCormack. Lastly: If these walls could talk 2. This film tells the stories of three lesbian couples, who live in the same house at different periods of time, who are at a crossroads in their lives. I thought this film was the best as it showed such an interesting story and just how different those three periods were. 1961, 1972 and “Modern-day” 2000. I would truly recommend watching it.

Was there anything else that happened? Yes! I entered the void of not knowing what to watch next on my Netflix. I finished a cherished series: Grimm and really felt that I now had nothing to watch that would meet the intensity. Man was it good. As you can see my week has been pretty normal overall. I have even started reading a fascinating book about historical accounts described by ordinary people! It is a Dutch book which describes a normal Amsterdam day in the 1700’s and somebody who witnessed the razing of the Antwerp harbours in the 1600s. There are so many different interesting stories that it is keeping me reading at list a bit every week! ( I just can’t read every day haha ) I may as well conclude by saying: I got a haircut too!

March the 4th: I’m back once again.

Posted on May 9, 2018 by jelmpi

Well… I have had a bit too many days where life got in the way of describing life on my blog xd. I have decided to queue 4 items so I’ll be able to prevent that from happening again. Sorry guys I have been busy. But with a two-month margin, I will now be able to write so much we will have caught up to the current life soon haha! So here is one from my weight diary: On the 4th of March I was weighing around 90 kilos. I have filled up my days with loads of healthy foods and always eat in these set schedules: Breakfast=Two wholemeal sandwiches with ham, cheese, tomato and cucumber. Two hours later: Banana then three hours later: two sandwiches with almost the same recipe except there maybe chicken on them instead of ham. Two hours later: Apple and sometimes orange. Two hours later: Mixed grains bar. And then lastly: A healthy dinner which on that night was an incredible cooked salmon with rice, spring onion, leek, mushrooms and some beetroot. Did the spicing with my own secret choice of herbs for them to be perfect!
Why was the meal so fulfilling??? Because my day was too!

Today was an amazing day! ^^ As I am trying to get fitter and fitter I do a lot of exercises. Today was, however, the best day so far, as me and my noble iron steed have done an amazing 77.6 km!! So I had planned with my bandmates to do a bit of cycling from Belfast to Holywood and we set the appointment to meet at 10. This soon became 10:30 and then a pre-cycle coffee before we were off. We cycled this lovely path along the coastline and it was a lot of fun. We soon reached Holywood and both of my friends had to leave. I looked at my clock. Not even 1 yet? How were the legs? Steady…Alright, why not continue and go for it. The sea was pretty rough and the weather bad, but it still was a great trip. I cycled to Bangor and there were a few moments where I could feel a slight drizzle but that did not stop me from taking some beautiful photos along the way:

So I got to Bangor. I explored the city and walked around the town centre. There weren’t too many people out on the streets but I managed to ask a local what I had to see: Just the coast, the Guinness bar and go eat a fry. Though it was not most helpful, I was really happy to see that the lady was proud of her local bar drafting the best Guinness. I restocked on water and explored the old castle grounds. There is no real castle left in Bangor. A few walls still stand and a small castle garden which looked really beautiful from what I could see in the advertisements. But still: It was only March so the Irish Spring was yet to come. As I had basically seen all ends of Bangor I wanted to move on: Why not cycle some more? I had seen this funny place allocated on my map: “Six Roads End” and I could not help but want to know what was really there. Would you like to know: Six roads end there. At a roundabout!! That is literally it!!! hahaha. Not much to see, not much to do.

I took a break from cycling and headed to the supermarket to grab a bigger lunch than usual. I also checked my KM-reader and saw the number: nearing 40km… No wonder I felt out of energy! So I got my own tailor-made lunch: Two vegetarian spring rolls, a jumbo sausage roll, a fresh apple and a mango, 0,5L of Milk and extra water for the road! Well, that lunch was the exact recharge I needed. I felt ready for more cycling!!! One of six roads end’s directions was Donaghadee. So I thought: Wooooheeee! 😀 Donaghadee lies most Eastern of all Northern-Irish cities and on a clear day you can see Scotland on the other side of the water. Unlucky me picked the wrong day to be able to see Scotland but that did not mean that the way I got from the hilltop was not spectacular enough to take a picture of. Man, I loved it! I walked on the docks to catch some fresh sea wind and wondered off in thoughts for just a wee second. I felt like a few months ago when I was taking a beach stroll in France: Relaxed…Full zen.

Tower on top of the hill

Docks of Donaghadee

Lovely houses

Donaghadee was alright! I got a local ice cream and then figured I needed to find my way home: The long way of course!
So I picked Newtownards, Dundonald and the longest road back to Belfast! My legs were pulp, cycling that way to Newtownards! It wasn’t as easy as when I started anymore. I took a last break in Newtownards and saw the sun ( or more what was visible of it behind the thick layers of clouds ) disappear into the sea: Better get home now.

I snapped a quick shot of Newtownards, saw the Scrabo tower ( famous you know ) stand on the hill in the distance and went home. I was not in best shape on the steep hill bits and soon had to just walk a km to grab some energy. I called my grandparents to keep them updated on where I was and my granddad talked me through the football match that they were watching on the Dutch tele. This got my mind off the tiredness for a bit and gave me a brilliant reset: OKAY LAST BIT!

I cycled home in just as many minutes as my google maps predicted and felt proud.
Wait, more than that: I got home feeling amazing!! 77.6km done by me and my iron steed!!!! ^^
Fit boy Jelmer, coming soon :D!

Don’t think being abroad is always fun.

Posted on April 15, 2018 by jelmpi

So March was upon us and my first month in Belfast came to an end. There were many reasons I had gone abroad. I wanted to earn money, live in a new city, get out of my standard comfort zone of Leiden and Breda, focus on new experiences and explore!
With one month being over, I somehow subconsciously realised that too.

Then all of a sudden, I had a day at work where everything went wrong and I could not stop my mind from thinking. I guess you’re always going to have such a moment but I could not help but think: Does this happen to other people too?
It started raining cold realisations: “I’m far away from my girlfriend. My housemates do not even like to talk nor are they ever home. I’m not making too many friends. Are a lot of people here so hard to talk too or am I just somebody who becomes personal too quickly? These days I’m making are incredibly long, are they even worth it? There is literally no time for myself during the week. Am I then not interrupting my personal development?
Why are the only things I do on my phone consisting of: Reading a lot of news, trying to simultaneously stay in touch and keep a conversation going with as many friends as I possibly can in a day and reading about football and sometimes Japan?

I’ve always wondered if other people cannot really stop their flow of thought and sometimes tend to wander off to the weirdest or deepest of thoughts without any trouble? For instance, when I’m cycling, there is ALWAYS something on my mind.
Whenever I go to bed, I will have to make up a whole story or turn on some background noise because otherwise, I am not falling asleep for the next few hours!

So Back to where we were: As all this came down on me, I took my break early and just started writing all the above on paper! I ran through my hundreds of scribbles and past notes/memos I kept on my phone as well and I even made some small poem-like prose which I’ll put at the end of this post. I just kept thinking about all my goals and whether I was achieving the things I wanted to achieve by coming here.

I did manage to tick a few boxes of things that I was doing the way my goals were set:

I’m exercising a lot, still losing weight, not drinking any alcohol anymore and sticking to a good regime
I am sleeping on normal hours and I have finally managed to put everything into a good ritual
I am earning money and saving a good bit
The whole stay so far is only naturally providing me with new experiences, good and bad.

So what was I then not doing like I wanted to?

I was not spending enough time on learning new languages. I’ve set the bar high for myself and really wanted to work on my oral Spanish skills as I can watch films or series without any subtitles but I’m lagging behind on keeping a fluent conversation going if we talk topics other than daily life things.
I should be studying or at least reading some more scientific articles and stop filling my head with silly trivia.
I should write more poems and continue writing my book because I remind myself of wanting to get it done every single time but lack the true motivation to do so. It has been 3 months since my last poem.
I should kick some old habits and start new ones: 1 of the old habits being that I spend too much time on Netflix/Youtube etc.

As my mind wondered off I also got the intense longing to travel and immediately made 6 different travel plans just to satisfy my mind and fool myself thinking I would set off on my voyage soon.

With the weather still being gloomy and Belfast starting its second winter, I think I may have also been influenced by that. If you go through long dark days, they automatically set your mood to a lower, over-pensive tone. I noticed the immediate difference between those days as such because a few days later we had one day of sun. The sunny day lightened up my mood immediately and only confirmed my thoughts of the weather influencing my mind.
Nonetheless, all the thinking and overthinking may have been good this time. I have once again rearranged part of my habits and I have become very much aware of my slacking and lacking. In this realisation there is however also a small role for my job:
If you are intensively busy for more than 8 hours a day, replying to customers and reading through articles or e-mails, it is only natural that your energy might be drained by the time you get home. That does not, however, mean that a good run or some delicious food cannot reset your state of my mind! Because if you can numb your mind with zero attention needing series, you can also read at least a few pages of a book!

So with that came the following poetic flow of thought, which I originally wrote in Dutch, but tried to translate into English today:

Are there then so little amount of people
who wonder as much about their future
and their goals in life

or do people like to keep their thoughts still
because they are constantly busy
and stepping less out of their strife

people only start to think
the moment they break out of their habits
when rituals disappear
and they finally sit still at home

it is only then that they realise
which steps they have made
or which of their goals
they have seen fade

even though I only find myself
at the beginning of every crossroad
I cannot help but think
about the ones being nearest

because whenever I break out of my habits
my brain just grasps the opportunity
wondering whether this road will take me to the right goal
or whether I should make that choice based on nothing more
than a feeling

as long as I have not reached anything yet
I will never know
but that does not make my thoughts any more split
between all the roads that lie
in front of me…

jelmpi
15-4-2018
16:51

Every weekend a day out! 25th: Comber Greenway!

Posted on April 10, 2018 by jelmpi

I had been reading up about the best cycling routes in the area and found one that peaked my interest merely because it started almost next to my house: The Comber Greenway! Now the greenway used to be an old steam train that connected Comber and Belfast! This railway once was extremely important as it helped to evacuate thousands of people to the countryside during the Second World War. The railway was closed soon after the war, in 1950 to be exact. As the railway withered, it slowly became one with nature. It took quite long to find a new use for the railway and a conversion of the railway into a walkway finally started in the early 2000’s. In 2008 they reopened the path to comber, naming it the Comber Greenway! This path is now full of green and home to various wildlife and it is frequently used by cyclists because it is a traffic free path!

I really enjoyed cycling it, especially as this was the only sunny day we had had in over a week. I made sure to even check the weather forecast before leaving my house and that did not prove any good for the coming week: Return of snow! So today had to be enjoyed!
Belfast 975.JPG

It must have been a bit more than an hour when I reached Comber! A lovely little village with streets from 6 directions all leading to the centre of town: The Statue of Major-General Sir Rollo Gillespie. I have tried to take a few pictures of the town just to show what it looked like and how it felt, to me of course, quite cosy in a sense! I also attempted multiple panoramas but with traffic constantly on the move, it has not been very successful.

There was something which I did not know: Castle Espie was very close to Comber! In my enthusiasm, I could only think of one thing: “Might as well go see it now that I have come this far!” Now, castle Espie is not famous for its ancient building. In fact, the castle has been long gone! The area is famous for its beautiful natural landscapes and some extraordinary wildlife. It is even a stopover site for almost the whole population of Nearctic geese! Can you believe that?!

As always there had to be something stopping me in my tracks. Want to know what it was this time? The Castle Espie site closes at 17:00….. You may wonder: what time did you get there? I arrived there at 16:58… Well isn’t that just FAN-tastic.
Unfortunate as it was, I was not going to let it stop me! I am not a huge fan of using Google Maps because I usually love exploring without a map! That to me is the true thrill of exploring. Mapping undiscovered areas ( for myself as an individual of course ) and going on a true adventure. But! In this case, I did as I had to see just how on the edge of Northern-Ireland I actually was. And that showed me a very small road just up ahead which would not let me trespass the grounds but take me right next to it! Happy me was on his way for some truly special views!

An amazing view and a fascinating tower on a hill site in the far back

Love this Panorama

Belfast 989

I found a house on the edge. It had no neighbours for more than 200 meters but had such a tremendous view of the bay. The area it had for its “garden” was vast and I had to share this with someone. So I called my mom. I gave her an update of where I was but even more: of what I was seeing. I described it in full detail and told her that if she ever dreamed of a countryside house by the sea, she needed not luck any further.

I continued my way down trailing a small path towards the sea. I got to the end of it and found myself gazing at nothing but water. The wind threw itself into my face. I had longed for this moment for quite a bit. It reminded me of France, where I used to walk my old dog ( Good old Pummeltje ) along the rocks of the forest and onto the beach where both my dog and I would literally stick our heads into the wind and enjoy it to the fullest. The funny thing about my noble four-footed friend is that you could totally see him enjoy that moment, probably even more than me! I miss my dog to have those moments with but I was lucky that the wind and the feeling of that deserted beach at least made me relive that fond memory.

Belfast 992 Belfast 993 Belfast 996 Belfast 998

I climbed up to a higher point of the beach and walked all the way to the edge of what I will call: the wall of the beach. This wall stretched out into the water but with the low tide just made it feel even more special. On this wall, a very lonely tree was posted. With its leaves shed, it branches felt naked but nonetheless provided all kinds of funny metaphors which I had pas through my head. I could not help but take two pictures, one with and one without the lovely tree. I sat down on the edge and ate my homemade sandwich while I enjoyed my view. The view, the serenity and the wind completely calmed me and my endless flow of thoughts down. Ow if it could only remain like this.

After about 40 mins the sun started to set and I really had to go home. I cycled all the way back again and came home tired and fulfilled. I was happy with another productive weekend, felt incredibly refreshed and was ready for whatever was to come next. For tomorrow that would, however, be an endless horde of work…

With Tree

Without Tree

Time to pick it up again!

Posted on April 8, 2018 by jelmpi

I’m sorry I haven’t been writing for nearly two weeks. I have but two things to blame: Myself and the internet in the house! The latter especially has been keeping me offline for more than a week but now that it has become consistent I have become the opposite.

So here we are! It’s 24 February and another weekend has come. Now the reason I don’t have anything to say about the weekdays is just that there literally is nothing to talk about. I have chosen to work a lot of overtime but that makes me work incredibly long hours and only come home around 8 or so. Your day then literally consists of: Doing the dishes, taking care of your personal hygiene ( shower, brush teeth, shave, laundry, maybe a small workout ) and if you’re lucky enough to not have fallen asleep by then you might be able to watch something for 30 mins or so. So I always look forward to the weekends! On this particular one, I met up with one of my bandmates: Susan. She was one of the first to welcome me on the band and had always been very friendly so I figured: might as well invite her for a cup of tea and hear the local sights and information! It was very nice and inspirational especially as she told me she was training for a half marathon!! As she was not a fan of slacking it got me to also push up my personal training program!! I think we talked for about 2.5 hours when we left the café and we took a little walk around Belfast. It was nice to hear from her what she thought of the city and also very fascinating how she had ended up doing a job which had nothing to with her major! It showed me personally how I should look beyond my bachelor’s degree in Japan studies and try to find more things that interest me as there surely are!
I left our meeting full of inspiration and decided to just cycle towards a view that has kept me thinking about it ever since I got to Belfast! From my home, there’s a hill view which looks like it is situated quite a bit higher than Belfast. When I got to it I found it just how much it was!! About 120 meters higher! The hill’s base suddenly became so steep that I had to get off and walk the rest of it.

When I got to the top I had a lovely semi-sunset view of Belfast and it was very nice :)! It also felt very good to cycle around there was a lovely hanging breezy which cooled me down as I did some more uphill cycling. I really loved all the houses in the area and also the fact that, even though it was so isolated in those hills, it had a lovely primary school and some very interesting day-care buildings. It felt like a completely different world compared to life on the foot of the hill! The road I walked up btw, was called: Rocky Road. I walked through some of the residential streets just to imagine what life in the area must be like: Were all of the kids sent to that same school further up on the hill? Were they all taking that same bus up and down every day? As I gazed into the skyline I just imagined how my scenery had changed from good old Breda to where I am now and how I am sure it will keep changing in the future.

The weekend of the 17th of February: Sightseeing

Posted on March 21, 2018 by jelmpi

As my mum left I was left alone in Belfast again. Now in the week of the 17th, I had signed up for some meetup groups. One of them was the international meetup. I went to the meetup on Tuesday evening and met a few interesting people there. It was however not really my environment as most people really knew other for a while and were rather hard to talk to. As the weekend drew closer and I saw the sunny weather forecast I knew it was time for: Some sightseeing! I had seen a lot of adverts showing Belfast castle and I just knew I had to go see it. I made one, in the end, fortunate mistake though: I cycled the wrong way. As it was a lovely day, I started my trip and packed some fresh sandwiches, extra carrots and two delicious apples to make sure I kept myself running for the day. I am a big fan of exploring instead of constant google map reading and only briefly studied the map at my house to know in which direction I had to cycle. The cycle projected was supposed to take one hour but in reality, it took me two! I missed a very unfortunate turn because I was calling with my buddy Jorik to catch up on the dart news and we also discussed our thoughts on the premier league of darts results. Making me miss my turn, I luckily found an extremely beautiful sight. Of course I took a picture of it and the result is visible below.

Good start of the day! The point of my photo left me with a notable choice: I could choose to either go straight and follow a route which would lead me through the mountain/hill range or turn back and take a left and see if the road would eventually lead me to the castle. Most confident as I was, I cycled back and searched for the road to the castle.
Now I started getting through some very steep roads and small hills and I was really hoping I would soon see a sign: Castle ( 2 miles ). I did not encounter any though!
I knew it was situated on a hill so the only thing I could do was continue. To be honest: I was getting a wee bit sweaty. Cycling up and down roads for an hour is challenging. You would not believe what I found, just as I hoping for a lovely breeze: a beautiful park! The park was lovely situated and had a beautiful lake. I could not leave it there so I took a photo and send it out to some friends in Japan who also really adored it!

Yeah, Belfast was showing me more and more of her beauty. As you can see in the last picture I found a path that was leading me directly to the hills. So I followed it and cycled along it all the way until I finally found it! The Castle! It had taken me rather long but boy did it look nice. Of course I have a lovely bit of history to tell you. The castle’s construction started in 1862 as the Marquis of Donegall, who was a relative of Sir Arthur Chichester the early founder of what we now call Belfast, and it took about 8 years to finish when it opened in 1870. For about 64 years it remained in the family when in 1934 Belfast city received the castle from the family. After a huge renovation in the late seventies, the castle reopened its doors about a decade later. The castle is renowned for its amazing location on the hill which provides all visitors with a simply staggering view. I really loved the scenery and had not seen a better computer background for a long time haha! The castle also is famous for its cat garden. From what I got to know about it the garden became cat themed for two reasons. 1. There had been some very famous residential cats around the castle and 2. If visitors to the castle were to see a cat, specifically a white one, it was supposed to bring them good fortune.

Lovely picture from the right side of the castle, the sea in the background

Castle from the front with its Garden entrance on the right

Beautiful stairs leading down to the garden from what once were the bedrooms

View from one of the windows

I think I spent about an hour checking out everything around the castle and the restaurant in the basement. A peculiar thing to mention was that the castle was hired as a wedding location for the day which was clearly visible as I went upstairs. I had priorly asked one of the men working there if I could check the upstairs and he told me it would be okay. My presence was nonetheless heavily frowned upon as I walked around the preset tables in my hiking outfit and a man who was giving a small tour kindly verified if I was in the right place! haha

My day was not over though! As I saw the mighty hill behind me, I knew I wanted to climb it! I asked the groundsman for a map and he gave me a nice pamphlet portraying the different routes. Adventurous being my middle name, I chose the most difficult one and set off. The hill I was climbing turned out to be one of the most famous ones of the Belfast surroundings: Cave Hill! Its name derives from the fact that a lot of the hills have entrances to inner caves and its presence is first mentioned around the year 1000.

The views from Cave Hill were simply gorgeous and I knew from the beginning of the climb that I would definitely go climb it again soon.

The climb leads you up to a summit at the max height of 400m with a hilltop viewpoint called Mcart’s Fort which provides an incredibly beautiful view of Belfast.

Panorama from the viewpoint

McCart’s Fort

Just a lovely view

The sun was burning nicely

I climbed it and walked around the longer trail and this lead me through some lovely green fields. As I started going down I came through small forests and even got to a lovely little waterfall. By the time I was finally down, the sun started to set and I knew I had to go home. On my home I made one last stop because I really wanted to check it out for myself: the famous University Quarter. The Quarter is just an area filled with pubs but they have managed to hide it very neatly in this small alley. After having seen the famous umbrellas stuck to the roof, I headed home. I warmed up my dinner that I had made the day before and chilled on my bed for the rest of the night. Tired but very satisfied with another day of adventure and sightseeing 🙂 !

Mum in Belfast part 2!

Posted on March 16, 2018 by jelmpi

So we were both sleeping in and only woke up around 11 on Sunday. We had a good wee breakfast and then went for a walk. I took my mum to St George’s Market. Now St George’s Market has been a local a market site since 1604. It has been a market for boating tradesmen to sell their wares to the local population. The present building is a market building which was built in 1896 near the river. In 1997 the building, as it was in a very bad state, the building was on a list of the municipality to be taken down but luckily this atmospheric building was saved. As you walk in there are stalls with things on display everywhere and a lot of local tradesmen have set up shop in the hall. The only shame is that it is only open from Friday to Sunday because I could go there every day.

Now when my mum and I went to the mark there was a live band performing and all food stalls were open. So my mum and I bought some fresh muffins to take home and both got a freshly made snack. I got this lovely burger from an Argentinian man who definitely knew who to grill his meat. That was a delicious burger! Now of course I wanted to show my mum a bit more of the town. So we went to city hall and got a tour there. Now Belfast city hall was only built around 1900 and opened its doors to the public just a few years later. The building was built to show off the city’s growth as well its amassed wealth. This is clearly visible on the tiles and marble pillars. It is a building which is not used very often, with the city council only gathering there once a month. The mayor holds his or her seat for two years before it changes again to one of the other council members. When stepping down, mayors are allowed to choose a city artist to paint their portrait and this will be hung on the wall of city hall. I think this is a lovely tradition and some of the portraits looked way too real. The council hall was amazing and I even got to sit in the mayor’s seat 🙂 ! ( not my best picture though haha )

The city hall had many lovely details and I also found this very neat wall painting.
My mum and I just took it easy for the rest of the day. However, as we walked home we saw something amazing. A beautiful natural phenomenon. A Murmuration of Starlings.
This murmuration is something starlings do to show off but they also use it as a very handy defence mechanism. These large numbers are of course very impressive. They also use it as a way to communicate about handy places for food as well as to divide their sleeping spots. In the murmuration I saw, they basically laid off a few starlings every time they performed a stunt and this went all the way until all performing birds where at some kind of resting place. The beautiful thing of this phenomenon is that the Albert Bridge is one of the top 9 locations across the UK to see a Starling Murmuration and one of the only ones to actually happen in a city.

Isn’t that incredible!!

I added my youtube video for convenience.

As Monday came I had to go back to work but my mum was not feeling too well so she stayed in. The Amazing thing she did for me though was to cook another dish for 4 people so I could have some more dishes to warm up through the week 😀 !!!
Nothing like the taste of home. I was really happy with this and thanked her for all she had done through the week. Now that the last night had come my mum said she had enjoyed it a lot and felt assured that I was living and working in a safe environment!
The next morning we got up at 6:30 and I put my mum on the bus to the airport! Goodbye mum and all by myself again in Belfast!

Now the work week was not over yet but I was officially out of training and started jamming the real hours in. I think it started off pretty alright and my manager seemed to be very satisfied too. Also, I have been receiving a lot of evaluations and they all came back with really high scores 😀 ! Happyy. Some of my colleagues had invited me for dinner on Friday and I gladly accept. We went to this Pan-Asian buffet restaurant and had a lot of fun there. They even took me to several pubs which was nice as I got to see what kind of cool pubs Belfast has to offer. We ended our night at Lavery’s which is a really neat pub that has several areas to chill in and a roof terrace. I think I went home at around 2 and walked for quite some time. It actually was so long that I called one of my friends to talk to them and catch up while I was walking. But who’s awake at 2:30 AM right?! Well Michael, my friend in Australia 😀 ! Gotta love an 11 hour time difference.
I caught Michael preparing for work and waiting for his lunch. Ideal opportunity to talk !
We really caught up on what we had been up to recently and I told him how my experience of the Belfast life so far was 🙂
I got home satisfied and went to bed with many plans for the weekend….

Mum’s in town! Belfast week 2!

Posted on March 10, 2018 by jelmpi

As I walked around town on a random wednesday evening, I realised that they have made a whole town just for me to not feel homesick!!!

For those of you that don’t understand this joke: I was born and raised in Breda, so I felt of course very honoured that they made a new town here just so I can go home from time to time. Haha.

No, in all honesty, this is just a build-up to the fact that my mum came over for a few days. What started as plans for just a weekend, ended up becoming plans for nearly a whole week! Week 2 was the first week of my official training in the company. They have made me do and see a lot of things already in week one, but my official training was only supposed to start in week 2. So the first few days of my Real Training, were boring me a little because I knew a lot of it already haha! That, of course, did not mean that my training did not tire me! Luckily I had some awesome fellow trainees to keep the spirit going. My training was just like our current society: so digital and advanced. I had my great trainer Marco who was based in the Philippines and he was training my two colleagues in Bulgaria, the lovely Valentina and the awesome Bogi, and me in Belfast :D!
Now in my prior experiences, training used to be really dense and formal. This one was not! Our sessions became more and more informal as the days went by and it created a lovely little atmosphere of support and fun! We exchanged stories of our weekends, shared music and in the end even became friends! I was there to provide some jokes and luckily they were appreciated haha! So yes, training went slowly at times, I might have been too critical at times, but at the end of the day it was tiring but fun. It was on one of those days that I took an amazing picture of the mountain/hilltop covered by snow:

Prior to my mum coming over, I had a lovely little facetime session with my grandparents. I still find it really cool that my nan is able to use facetime and we can have these sessions. My granddad is always the funny man because he makes these delicious ad-rem jokes and always sets a great mood. Even when I feel down, that lovely man makes me smile in an instant! We talked about what I would be doing when my mum came over and we agreed that we would just facetime once a week!

Then my mum arrived! It was Thursday and she said she was fine with me just working and her checking out the city. I made her a small list of things she could check in the perimeter of her bus stop and she loved the initial sights of the town. My mum wasn’t feeling too well though so she stayed home while I went to samba practice!

I was really glad that we were able to wrap up my Friday so fast at work and before I knew it, it was time for the weekend! My mum, bless her amazing caring personality, had her eyes set on me settling in the best way I can! She had already even packed a full suitcase, prior to her arrival, with every single kitchen utility of which we had a spare one at home and sent that over to me! While I was working, my mum had installed me in the house and made sure all tools and utilities were lying in the right places and cupboards. I was pretty damn tired after work and luckily my mum was too. So I got takeout for the both of us and we just spent the Friday night watching a film and going to bed early. Our Saturday morning was spent on buying what was missing: a good frying pan, a few wee cloths, a good duvet, some pillows, and some other cleaning utilities for the house. After all this shopping it was time for us to explore the city!

I took my mum to C.S. Lewis Square and Victoria Park. Now C.S. Lewis might be a name you have heard before and if it isn’t I will now tell you why you should now. C.S. Lewis is most famous for writing and brilliantly creating NARNIA! Growing up in the outer ring of Belfast, he found himself surrounded by lovely forests and the mountains which can only lead to a great inspiration for the mind. I can agree with him being so fond of nature as Belfast has some really amazing forests, trails and astonishing mountains. We walked around the park and I showed my mum a bit of the Titanic quarters as well. As the weather was lovely outside, we managed to sneak some amazing pictures in as well!

Tired and satisfied we returned home and my mum offered to cook for me which I gladly accepted. She cooked a great noodle meal but, what was even better, cooked so much that I could freeze some in to be able to warm up later during the week. Now my people sometimes say I am spoiled with all my mum’s caring and I think I can hardly disagree on that. She always takes such great care of me. We ended the night with a good talk about work and also how things were going at home for her. As my mum had been under quite a bit of stress, it was also a great escape for her to just be with me in Belfast, for her to ease her mind by verifying with her own eyes that I had found myself a safe and good environment to live in and to get to know a few bits of town so she would become able to visualise where I was walking if I told her on the phone. As our weekend had started really well we went to bed on a high note. Half of the time with my mum was over but luckily we had another few days to go 🙂 !

Settling down in my new room in Belfast

Posted on March 7, 2018 by jelmpi

Now that I had my room in Belfast, I had to of course get more things done. One of these was to get me a bicycle. There are many websites here which are very much like the American Craigslist or the Dutch marktplaats and I had found a bike on one of those websites. The guy who was selling it told me he had come from Poland to Belfast a few years ago and as a hobby, he fixed bikes. We made a nice deal and he told me he would even provide me with free service if I needed anything in the future! Sweet my Iron steed was in the pocket! As the weekend had come I decided it was no option for me to just sit around and do nothing so I went out and explored the city a bit more. One of the main attractions of this city is the oval-shaped shopping centre called Victoria Square. It has four floors, a very large open space in the middle with shops on both sides. The cool thing is that you can walk all the way up and you will find yourself in an observatory from which you can practically see the whole city. I, of course, climbed up and made a few lovely pictures of the surroundings.

As I am of course going to be living here for a while, I was very keen to find out about Belfast’s history which I’ll try to share a bit.If you wish to find out about Northern-Ireland’s history I would suggest you find a timeline on google as a lot of things have happened in its short history and it’s too much for me to explain here haha!

Belfast was a very small trading settlement when it was first accounted for in the 17th century. As it was merely used as a stopover for trade it never really grew and remained a small village for a long time. In 1611 an English soldier called Arthur Chichester was handed the lands and Castle of Belfast, which he rebuilt. In 1613 Belfast was granted official town status by King John I and had sir Chichester basically run the town. Its name comes from Béal Feirste (Mouth of the Sandbanks or Sandy Fords).

View of Belfast harbour

One of the things I would like to point out is that Belfast did not really grow that much during the 17th century. A lot changed however when William III gained reign. He was a Dutchman who became king of England, Scotland and Northern-Ireland by invading: William defeated the then reigning King James in a war, with the battle of the Boyne in 1690 being seen as the major defeat which ultimately brought William victory over King James. The population at the time had an immense disliking for King James because he wanted to reinstate Catholic faith. As William III was a Protestant, he is still being commemorated for this victory till this day by the yearly parade, performed by the Orange Order here in Belfast. He was already famous in Europe for fighting the Catholic Rule of King Louis XIV of France, so when he became king of the peninsula he basically made a lot of French Protestants flee their country and move to several of his cities, including Belfast.

As William III reigned he was very quick to see the ideal location of Belfast within his kingdom. With its ideal harbour location, he boosted the local economy. Belfast slowly developed an economy which was based on the Linen and rope industry. This saw Belfast’s population (around 2,000) increase by a tenfold in the 18th century and by the end of that century, Belfast instated a Harbour board to oversee and maintain the harbour. The Belfast shipyard starting operation soon thereafter.

A picture of the Belfast Customs house which was built in 1856.

As Belfast bloomed and rapidly expanded it developed a very famous trade. That of shipbuilding! The City’s most famous shipyard is that of Harland & Wolff ( H&W ).
This shipyard is most famous for building the Titanic!!! Now I walked the historic path of the shipbuilders which explains a cool bit of legends about the early history of the shipbuilding and on my path I also found the Titanic Museum. This museum only opened six years ago but tells the story of the people who built it and ultimately, the people who went down with it. It is an immense building and very visible along the river.

The Industrial Revolution and the inward migration that it brought along had Belfast expand exponentially and it had already reached more than 300,000 inhabitants by the start of the 20th century. After the Partition of Ireland in 1921, Belfast became the capital of Northern-Ireland. Belfast now is a thriving city and has a Metropolitan population of 670,000. This makes the area account for about 1/3 of the whole population of Northern Ireland.

Belfast is surrounded by a lot of hills and a few of the famous ones are Cavehill, Divis and the Mourne mountain region which is easily reachable. It has its own ice hockey team and a few local rugby and football teams. I am starting to like the city more and more as it really feels like every neighbourhood is a small town within the collective of the city. Belfast has also given us some very famous people. Van Morrison ( singer ), George Best ( an incredible football player most famous for playing for Manchester United in the 1960s and 70s ) and C.S. Lewis ( Most famous for writing Narnia! )

I find Belfast and Northern-Ireland’s history quite fascinating and I am glad that I get to learn a lot about it. In my next post, I will tell you a bit more about me moving in as my mom came over after two weeks to help me settle down. For now, I will leave you with a lovely picture of Belfast and its river Lagan. Thanks for keeping up with me 🙂 !