Mattia in Bratislava

Work week 1:
The workweek started quiet normal, I worked on some tickets, wrote some documents and read about SAP HANA.
On Wednesday the business delegation from Belgium arrived and we went straight into our first meeting.
After a presentation about our delivery center and the project, I had to present what I had accomplished during my time in Bratislava. I wasn't stressed at all to be honest, but that's standard...
After that we went to the city to explore the old town. I got to admit, when I prepared that two hour walk I thought it would be my walking phase…
Too bad, but I was deadwrong by thinking that, so we couldn’t see all the things I had planned. But I guess we saw the most important things. We had our dinner at the Altitude restaurant later that night, that’s at the Kamzìk tower! (200m tall tower on the hill)
We went for some beers afterwards, we had a really great night. (I went to bed around 4AM and my alarm woke me up around 6AM.. Awtch!)

The day afterwards there was some time to discuss the internship and the whole experience with my teacher, so we went to my apartment for some tea and coffee!
We had a great talk and I’m very happy she visited me! Seeing a familiar face is always nice. But also I think that for her, seeing that my apartment and workplace are just fine and I’m taking good care of myself, was a relief.
So the only thing that was left that day was the evaluation, a one-on-one meeting with the manager of Accenture Belgium and saying our goodbyes.
I’m not really sure if I can (and should) go into detail, but it was all very positive, and I was flattered by the compliments I got.

Friday was just like Monday and Tuesday, regular work BUT with still the nice feeling I had from the visit.


Weekend in Prague:
Okay, so about my trip to Prague!
I had my bus at 2:15AM and the ride took about 4 hours, so long story short, I didn’t sleep and arrived around half past six in Prague.
Everything was so quiet and peaceful so I took a morning walk and stopped at a local market next to the river for some (very good) food.
I’m really glad I was exploring that early because it wasn’t too hot at that moment. I walked up to the castle (*sweating already*), visited the monastery, and went up to the viewpoint tower. (see fake Eiffel tower…)
I went back down after a while and noticed it was 1PM, so I went for some lunch and met these three French guys sitting the table next to me. I was very proud that I could stand my ground although my French is terrible.

It became very hot in the afternoon, so I walked to the “island” between the old and new part of Prague and chilled there (big time)! This seemed like the place to be for young people when it’s hot!
After that I took the tube to my AirBnB
Once settled, I went back to the city because I bought some tickets to a classic music play in a cathedral and I wanted to be on time. I was sitting next to a 14y/o Finnish girl and her mother!
They were on citytrip but I think I talked for an hour with these people about a whole load of topics. Really interesting and nice people! (Go Finland, go!)

I had also met a Belgian couple, an Italian family (who I helped navigate through the underground tube maze) and three Dutch friends on a city trip that day, they were all very nice and interested in what I did!

After the play, I went to an Italian restaurant with live acts, walked some more and made some pictures! (Nice to know: I walked 28km that day alone)


The second day I didn't walk that much, it was more chill for me! I really liked Prague, it was a beautiful weekend, but because of the long weekend it was too crowded for my taste...
I made a lot of photo's so check that out!


Work week 2:
The second workweek was a rather short one, I had two free days, Tuesday and Friday!
During the 3 workdays I worked on some tickets, did the process chain monitoring and created an impact analysis.
On Thursday we had a 'teambuilding' evening A.K.A. eating the best, best, best BBQ EVAH and drinking sef-brewed beer, Duvel and BOROVICKA.
So it's honest enough to say that at the end of the evening I wasn't capable to do much. Luckely I had the day off on Friday! And my colleagues didn't succeed in their mission to make me puke! (Go me, setting records here, lol!)
On Friday I did some stupid shit in the morning because of the night before, but I'm not telling that story here! :D


Weekend 2:
During the second weekend (starting Friday morning) Valerie, Alexander, Rowan and Karel (A.K.A. Charlie) came to visit me.
They're doing their internship in Zlín (Czech Republic) and that's like two hours by train. We did some sightseeing, went to a mirror museum and drank some beers/lemonades at pubs during the days.
Once the sun was down, we went to some special clubs. (Ask me personally for more details, because that one needs a lot of context :p )
Concerning food, we went out for ribs on friday, I made a breakfast Saturday morning and we made our own hot-dogs in the evening.
Finally I made pasta Carbonara for us on sunday.
The weekend was so awesome that I decided to book train tickets for next weekend! I'm going to Zlín to p-p-p-part-*ayyyyyyyyeeeee*!


Ending:
See you guys soon!

With love,
Mattia

Work weeks:
So in the last two work weeks I've been working on my tickets, changing and adding some things to the BO analysis for Excel course I wrote for the end-users.
They liked the first version, and we all know what that means. More work!
I've also been doing the monitoring and fixing of the process chains and reports every day on my own. That's the first thing I do, when I arrive at 7.30AM at the office.
For the rest I've been preparing some other courses, been reading some more and had two interesting weeks.


Weekend in Vienna:
My initial plan was to take a bus to Vienna, but due to some technical issues on the reservation system of the bus company I had to search for an alternative.
So if the bus doesn't work, try taking the train right? Well yeah looking back the moment, I'm so glad that I took the train instead of a bus. It was so easy and cheap!

Once arrived in Vienna I just started walking in one direction. ( I always do that, fuck making plans in advance! :D )
Luckely for me it seemed that I had choosen the right direction. I think I saw the first impressive building after walking 5 minutes and everything that followed was as good or even better.
I'm totally blown away by the beauty of the city and it's people. I thought Bratislava was beautiful (and it is) but it's not comparable with a big city like Vienna. There was this cycling-event from Redbull while I was there, so you'll see some action in my next video and maybe there will also be a photo of that.
The last thing I visited was Shönbrunn Castle and I'm seriously considering that this is the castle from Ed Sheeran his song... *insert laughter here* No seriously that was the best thing I saw in Vienna

So I advice everyone to visit Vienna once in your life!


Weekend:
This past weekend we had the perfect conditions in Bratislava, the weather got to a peak of 27°C, everything was green or in blossom, people were happy, it was great!
It's really crazy but the longer I'm here, the more beautiful the city becomes. I arrived when it was snowing and now everyone is so happy because of the great weather.
*Sneaking this in like a ninja* So I advice every student who's got the chance to dive into a international experience without doubt. You'll be just fine! ;)
Today is a chill day, I'm going for a walk in the town but most of all, I'm going to enjoy warm weather!


Ending:
So for this week, I'm getting visitors from Thomas More and Accenture and I'm going to Prague next weekend, so a lot of cool things on the agenda, but that's for the next blogpost.

See you guys soon!

With love,
Mattia

Workweek:
The workweek was quite interesting, it started with an extra day off because of the Easter weekend.
I started helping with monitoring the production system in the morning and I made a tutorial about BO analysis for Excel for our end-users.
Making a document isn’t that exciting, I know! But the possibility it created to play with a new environment is so much worth in terms of experience.

That said, I asked to learn about HANA although this is out of the scope of my internship. But I think it’s important to know this technology SAP HANA is the newest technology on the (SAP) market.
My BW progress is good enough and I’m lucky to have a nice team and coach, so I get all the support needed for honing my skills as good as possible. The installation of the HANA studio went okay, but we had some problem with the last patch, so I searched and found (!) a solution, so I felt great!

My coach also gave me my first ticket at the end of the week, but I had to delay working on that because I had some issues with my software.
BUT I fixed that, so I was ready to start working on it after the weekend.


Weekend:
Marlien came to visit me this weekend, she landed really early on Friday but I had to work, so I made sure there was enough food at the apartment and gave her my key.
After my work we went to the old town by bus and we walked around, had a cocktail at Urban House, went to the UFO deck, walked some more and decided to go for a small dinner. (again at Urban House oops)
On Saturday we went to visit the castle, and walked all the way from the castle to Slavín Memorial. (It was very warm, so this trip wasn’t that easy..)
We had a drink at Urban Bistro, that was also a new place for me, but it’s great, so we visited this bar a couple of times that weekend.
We also met this guitar artist who told us about some cool places, I've shot a video of his performance at the fountain to say thank you.
We had ribs as dinner, they were really good, and it was a big portion! (500g !!! )
There was a marathon on Sunday, so we walked through some of the hotspots of the marathon and also walked in the sun next to the Danube and through a park.


Ending:
This week I’ve been working on my ticket and doing some research. This blogpost is later than previous posts, but I’ve also been creating a new video, had a skype session with Milan and went jogging in the last days…

See you guys soon!

With love,
Mattia

P.S. New video online -> check it out by clicking on "Videos" in the navigation.

Workweek:
I had a short workweek due to Easter. Apparently the long weekend starts on friday in Slovakia, so hooray!
I had a lot of studying, making documents and installing new programs this week, so nothing special to say there!

I did have a call with a manager from Accenture Belgium on monday and a call with my coach from school on tuesday. Both with the same reason, they wanted to know how I was doing and feeling.
I've got to say, both these calls were very nice and positive, so they gave me a little boost!

Because I knew my parents were arriving on friday (and they were bringing our dog Kamiel with them) I was sooooo hyped to finish my work on thursday!

Weekend:
I'm just going to put the whole weekend under one title this time, so I don't write a whole book like the previous blogposts.. (sorry guys!)

So on friday I did some cleaning and ironing because the inspection was arriving somewhere in the afternoon!
(Mom liked the apartment and thought it was very clean -> Mattia +1)
They unpacked at their hotel, I showed my apartment and we walked & talked a lot that afternoon! After that we went for some italian food, the entree was really good, but damn that pizza was sh*t! I am never, ever, ever, buying a pizza at that place again! *cries softly*

Well shit happens, but we left that stupid place behind us. The three of us decided (& Kamiel had to follow) to get a good night of sleep and meet each other at the breakfast the next morning.
Saturday we went to do the city tour, with ofcourse, me as guide. It would normally rain that day but we were extremely lucky and had no rain while the sun was up. We tried some local food, had some drinks and visited a lot of places.
Because we weren't really that hungry that evening, we decided to take a pulled pork burger at Urban House instead of going to a restaurant.
We also drank some cocktails, Léon is my new favourite cocktail! (Strongest one on the menu, oops...)

Sunday we were really tired because we walked 15km the day before, but we went to the city, visited thet presidential gardens, went to some different cafés.
Because it was Easter, it was difficult to find a lot of open places where we could enter with our dog. But we managed and even had some ribs in the evening.
Surprisingly we had 16km of walking that day without even noticing ourselves that we had walked that much.

Ending:
The ending of our ending was sad and so wonderful at the same time. I realized that I would have to miss the people closest to me for another two months, but also that I am on one of many adventures and I'm perfectly capable of being independent.
I'm so excited to see what other things I'll be able to do in the future, all because of the love and knowledge my parents gave me these last 21 years.

For starters, I planned a weekend to Prague, a weekend to Budapest and a day to Vienna today..! *happy face*
I'm feeling too young to get stuck in a boring life.

See you guys soon!

With love,
Mattia

P.S. I have taken a lot of photo's these last weeks, so I created a page "pictures" in the navigation, so you guys can check all of these at one central place.
(I'll keep adding the most important ones to my blogposts, but maybe I'll post some extra at that page...)

Workweek:
Do you guys remember the case study I told you about?
Well, the initial plan was to create one dataflow. That's from creating flatfiles to creating BEx queries and reporting.
But since I finished early... (half the week somewhere, whoops!)
I asked my coach if it was okay to create a second flow just to underline the use of the MultiProvider, ofcourse he thought it was a good idea, because that made me do all the steps once again. And you know, practice makes the master, so gogogo! :)

Friday:
Friday morning I finished my second flow, and did some finetuning of my flows and queries.
But because I was jobless around noon and my coach was working from the home office, I decided to create some documentation of my case study.
For me that's a way to recap any information when necessary and maybe even a handy tool to use in my bachelor presentation jury.

Okay, enough about my work, I know many of you are interested in what the crazy weekend brought (I see you guys!)
So it started around 8.40 pm, I went with an Uber to the airport and this Uber driver his english was very good, he told me that he was an insurance agent and how he started with Uber and other typical smalltalk. Once arrived at the airport he asked if he should wait, but I told him that I wasn't sure if Wesley his flight was going to be delayed or not. So I thanked him and went inside.
Luck has it that 3 minutes later Wesley walked through the gate and when we got outside and I ordered another Uber, it was the same f*ckin' cool guy!
So funfunfun in the Uber! :D

We dropped off W's luggage at my apartment and took a bus into the city. We ate pizza and drank beer at this place I've went to with a colleague.
Well, our stomaches were more than satisfied so we headed for our second stop, "Urban House". I don't know why, but I always feel totally at home in this bar.
There's good music playing, it's almost always full, you can hear laughter between friends, couples being romantic and that one waiter with his flashy socks with dots. Life's great!

When we finish our drinks it was already midnight, oops! Y'all know what that means, up to the club, *happy whoo echoes*!
So we were almost at the club when we passed an Irish Pub and Wesley went like 'Hey we should have a drink here, I've never tasted Guiness before...'
I told him it was a shit idea, but whatever, let's do it. ... ... Jup, it was as bad as I remembered and we did regret that!

Finally at the club, we danced until 4 pm and then decided to go home.

Saturday:
Saturday we slept until half past 10, took a shower and took a bus to the center of Bratislava, from there on we went over the river to the shoppingmall "Aupark",
you might wonder, why?
Well, the answer is very easy and is an abbreviation that consists of 3 letters: K F C!
Oh yeah, we do love our fried chicken!
After having stuffed ourselves, we walked like 10 km. -I'm not sure about the 10km, but it was much!
(We had 35 thousand steps at the end of the day if I'm not mistaken!)
We saw the most important things on the small amount of time we had, and decided it was time to hit the climbing gym!

So we went home, took our gear and walked to the gym. Once there we did like one hour of route climbing and one hour of bouldering.
After that, we went to the grocery store and took everything to the apartment. We made some pasta (duh), took a shower and headed out!

We walked to the old center, and we had heard that there's a club under the hill of the castle earlier that day, so we decided to check it out.
It was a super nice location, but the music was... How should I compare it? Like a raggae band on ?
Our ears couldn't bare the noise, so we went to the same club as the night before because that was fun! We closed the club and joined the crowd to the club next door for another hour.
I think it was somewhat after six am when finally got some sleep.

Sunday:
Around 11 am we woke up, having slept through 3 alarms oops... So we had to hurry, but Wesley got his plane! :)
For the rest of the day there's nothing to talk about, I was so tired that I slep the whole day! (Sorry not sorry)

Ending:
But that brings me to today (monday).
I was very fresh today and it was a good day!
I had a nice call with a senior manager from Accenture Belgium, so that's nice.

Up to new adventures! :D

With love,
Mattia

Workweek:
This week was really good!
On monday I did a bit of reading and studied some theory about BW and BEx.
Tuesday I got the great news that I'm starting on a case study from which I could come up with an subject myself!
So I had some things to think about!

The rest of the week was creating flatfiles, making InfoObjects, transformations, helping a colleague etc etc....

RIBS AND BEER:
I was very excited for this evening!
My colleagues had invited me to the teambuilding activity of the whole BW squad at work.
Lucky for me they like to do two of my favorite things:

• Eat A LOT
• Drink EVEN MORE

Like for real guys, at the rate I was drinking my half-liter pints, they were drinking 1 liter pints. I felt like a noob!
But the evening was really great, I met a lot of new people, all with their own different stories and they all were super nice and interesting!
I would choose one of these nights over a night at a party in Bratislava every time again!
Quick mention: 'BOROVICKA' shots are something typical here and they tried (and failed) to get me drunk with this! :D

Protest in Bratislava:
I'm not going to go too deep on this subject, because it's a rather sensitive subject in Slovakia.
There has been a murder on a young journalist and his girlfriend, while he was investigating some politicians.
These politicians are apparently corrupt and have several connections to the maffia. Something to do with drugs and laundering of money.
When I arrived there was this march across the city, but I didn't write about it because I didn't know what it was about at that moment.

So I went to a rally on friday evening, it was the 3th since I've been here, and I got real quiet from the amount of people that gathered to fight this corruption within their government.
*See pictures and video*

Weekend:
So I've heard that you guys in Belgium had some snow and -2°C?
Well, I'm glad to tell you that there was NO SNOW in Bratislava this weekend! Thank the lord..!

My weekend was rather chill, I slept a lot! (Yes mom, you were right, working is tiring!)
I also went to IKEA to get some of the last stuff I missed at my apartment, and I also washed and ironed my clothes.
Today I wanted to go to Kamzik to go hiking, but the weather wasn't great, so I decided to do some video-editing and writing!

Ending:
I'm very excited for what this week will bring... See you guys next week, stay safe!
With love,
Mattia

P.S. New video online -> check it out by clicking on "Videos" in the navigation.

First day:
My alarm went off around 8 am and around 8.50 am I went to the office. .

At that moment it was still freezing cold here in Bratislava, so I walked in packed with my wintercoat and scarf.
Luckely for me the kind lady at the reception didn't scare too much and still wanted to prepare my documents. Once she was finished, I got my accesscard and got picked up by one of my colleagues.

I'm so glad to tell you guys that my colleagues are really great! They are so kind, funny and understanding.
They asked me to join them for lunch, so we went to a little bistro that's on walking distance from the office.
I ordered a pizza, you know, gotta try that, Italian and stuff... :D
And I gotta say, it wasn't bad! (But not to compare with a real Italian pizza ofcourse.. *shoutout Via Malta*)

I can't tell you guys much details about what I'm doing because I've signed a confidentiality agreement, but I can tell you that I'm following a training program around SAP at the moment.

My day ended around 5.30 pm, but I heard that the guys are always starting at 7.30 am in the morning, so I decided to join them at that hour!

Workweek:
The rest of the week was kinda the same pattern:
Starting at 7.30 am, going to lunch with the team and stopping somewhere between 4.00 pm and 6.00 pm.
That are long days, but I have the feeling that I'm learning a lot, and that I've been given a great opportunity, so I don't mind going the extra mile.

The first workweek was really getting into the technology and installing software on my laptop. Next week will get more practical.

Weekend:
GOD YES, LET'S GO WEEKEND!
For real guys, I was exhausted and my eyes were so tired from looking at my screen the whole day.
So Onur and I ended our week on friday with some pizza and beer at 'La Strada' (yes, I know, again, pizza....), it's not too far, just around the corner and down the street!
After that I went to bed and slept 'till 11 am the next morning. (sorry not sorry)
My day after that was really chill, I cleaned the apartment, I ironed my clothes, I went to the grocery store, cooked (see picture) and took a shower.
We all know why! P P PARTYYYYY! *echoes*
No seriously, I never thought I could have such a good time on Hip-Hop, but damn, these guys know how to party!

I'll include some footage of this night in my next video!

Okay, sunday = exploreday! (And it's 16°C! And sometimes sunny! And I'm way too excited... :D)
I called an Uber and Michal came to pick me up! I never, ever, ever had such a nice driver before. He told me where I should really go, gave me his personal number and kinda was my guide that day.
My first stop was at the southern side of the old city center, I walked the towpath besides the Danube, took the pedestrian bridge over the water and walked back.
I went up the UFO tower. (famous lookout/lounge/restaurant on top of the main bridge to Bratislava)

And last but not least, gave Michal a call and asked him to bring me to the 'Kamzik TV transmission tower' in 'KOLIBA', up in the lounge you're at more then 600 metres altitude, so the view is amazing.
(It's located in the national parc of Bratislava, so maybe I'll go hiking there next week..)

Ending:
That was kinda it, today (Monday) was just another workday, I made carrot puree, but I didn't have like a masher, so I used a glass... oops! See you guys next week, stay safe!
With love,
Mattia

P.S. Since yesterday I've changed my instagram profile to public, so for more photo's and stories, click the link at the bottom of this page! (Instagram icon...)

Journey:
My alarm went off around 4.15 am and around 5 am my mom and I left for Brussels Airport. We left this early because we wanted to be sure there was a minimal amount of traffic. Well, yeah, there was almost none, so I've arrived way too early. And so the waiting game began.

After a delay of 15 minutes, the boarding started and I was on my plane to Prague. On the plane, I had this kind gentleman next to me who told me he had a small business and was heading to Sweden. There was a lot of smalltalk that flight between us, but that made sure the flight didn't seem as long as it actually did, so hooray stranger!

When we landed in Prague, I had like 10 minutes before the boarding of my plane to Bratislava began. (And I had to pee... oops!)
But I got there in time, and the bus took us to the plane. Smooth trip you would think? Think again! I think I saw it coming when the 3th engineering team in their Skoda arrived at the plane. Some parts of the plane were frozen, so we had to go back to the airport and wait.
Around 50 minutes later they found us another plane, so finally I could reach my destination.

Arrival:
Once landed in Bratislava I've met my driver, who was holding a paper with my name on it. (Still feeling sorry for the 50 min. delay dude! :D)
He took me to my apartment, while doing that he showed me a local market and told me a bit about the city, so that was cool.

At the apartment I got my key and started unpacking. After that I went to the grocery store, made dinner and had a quiet evening at home.

Friday/Friyay:
My contact at HR told me that I'm not expected at the office until monday, that gave me time to explore the city a bit.
That's why I was able to stay in bed until 10 am, I was really exhausted from the day before. But no time to lose, a quick healty breakfast, a shower and I was good to go!
Onur, the other Belgian intern at Accenture has already been working for 1 month but hasn't been exploring too much on his own. So we met and started walking to the old town.
Our first stop was at "Urban House".
Urban House is definitly a hipster place, here you've got the weirdest cocktails, the coolest barista coffees and the kindest waiters ever!
Onur is more a beer kinda guy, so we both tried another beer, but neither of these beers were really good. (Dammit, should've taken a Gin&Tonic..)

We roamed around the city for a while and decided to check out the famous "Hrad Castle" on the hill.
But what a shame, another pub just before we ascended... ;)
The beers we got there were really awful. For the first time in my life I had to make an effort to finish my drink..

But no worries, we did finish 'em, we ascended to the castle and by doing that, we left that place with the awful beer behind us.
The journey to the top was hard and freezing cold, but the view we got in return was beautiful! (See pictures below.)

We stayed for like half an hour, and started our descend. The descend was very slippery because of all the ice. (Onur fell 2 times, I was very lucky I guess)

We visited the "NU Spirit Bar", it's a hip bar with a kind waiter where we drank a Gin&Tonic (Hendrick's with cucumber). The waiter told us that later that night there would be a Hip-Hop party and a House/Funk party on saturday evening.
We went for some food (hipster hamburger) and started our walk to the apartment.
Our plan was to go out to a club, but we were too tired due to all the walking and exploring that day.

So that was my friyay! :)

Saturday:
Saturday I did some grocery shopping. (one of my bags tore, so suddenly I could swear in Slovak..)
Onur came by later that day, we watched a (funny?) movie and took a taxi to the old center. We had some trouble with the Uber app, but we got a nice taxidriver instead. He told us that a trip of that length always costs €5 with a taxi. That was something to keep in mind..

We went to Urban House for a cocktail because there was a private party at NU Spirit until 11 pm.
I drank a Pornstar Gin&Tonic, that was SO good! (It's really called that way, no joke!)
After that cocktail we headed for NU Spirit where we joined a little House party until 1 am.

When we took a taxi back to the apartment and during the ride I asked the taxi driver what the trip was going to cost.
He replied with €10... Onur told him that it was preposterous 'cause it shouldn't be more than €5.
The taxi driver definitly cursed something at us, BUT he asked no more than €5 when we arrived.
So keep that in mind when you visit Bratislava folks! (They always try to rip-off tourists!)

It's sunday today:
So today is been a lot of finishing this blog. But when I finish it, I'm going to check out "Climbing Center Vertigo".
All that remains after my climbing hours are: making dinner and skype'ing with my peeps at home.

Ending:
Let's have a good night of sleep and rock my first day at the office tomorrow!
Wish me luck!

I'm so sorry for the long post, but the first days are always the wildest I guess... Anyway, congrats if you read all of it!
Also keep in mind, I'm not a professional writer. The next blog will be somewhere next week I think.

With love,
Mattia

P.S. Check out my videos by clicking on "Videos" in the navigation.