Malaga , i don't regret it

Hola and hi,

my name is Christian, i am 25 years old and i am working for the Ben Hur Company as an IT-System-Electrican in Germany.

During the time here in Malaga i worked in small Shop from APP Informatica (Computer-Shop).

It was a small shop and there i worked with two other guys. The main part of my work was to fix and repair old computer-system or mobilephones. I changed old computer parts, like mainboards or harddisks or installed a new operating system. It wasn't realy hard work , but it was a lot of fun to work there with my colleges and i talk a lot to them and learned a little bit about spain and the people. 

Besides our work we had a lot of free time and we did a lot of trips to many diffrent places . But the most time we spent at the beach and in the city itselfs.

The beach was very clean and we were able to swim or we played volleyball. 

Malaga at night (first night)

At night the center of city was filled with many people and there were so many clubs and bars , so it was every time a hard decision to chose one of them.

 After we got enough from the city and the beach , we visited places a little bit more outside from Malaga.

Our first goal was Pedregalejo. There were many cliffs and bays and not so many tourists. It was a nice and a big diffrence to the beach near the center of the city, but it was a great trip and beautiful view.

One day i decidid to do a trip on my own. I want to see Malaga from above and so i chosed the highest point a could find and reached.

I walked 3 hours to a hill in the back of the center of Malaga , and it was harder then i thougt , because it was a really hot day and there were not so many shady parts on my way. But the view was amazing... This is/was my absolute favorite place in Malaga. You could see the hole city and the sea.

Malaga

And an other day, david and i walked to a lake near to Malaga.

It was a barrier lake and we walked at this place for two hours and did't see any other person, only nature but our reward was a great view.

But my favorite day was our trip to Gibraltar.

The city itself wasn't so interesting and (in my opinion) there were to many people.

But the rock of Gibraltar was really amazing. You got a really great view and

it was really impressive that you could see an other continent.

Over there is Africa

Africa was so near.... Only the street of Gibraltar was between us.

After we enjoyed the great view we visited the monkeys... 

Only one moment i put my bag on the ground and took a few photos, one monkey saw this and went to my bag. He needed only 3 seconds and it was open and he got my lunch. I hope he enjoyed it.

thief ^^

David filmed the hole spectacle,

 to see it click here

Now only a few days left, and i don't want to leave Malaga. There are so many things left and undone, so i think one time i must come back.

It was a great time and if anyone have the chance to visit Malaga , just do it. I regret nothing.

Best regards

Christan

One month in Malaga

Working in Malaga

Hi,
my name is Jil and I'm 20 years old. I'm from Troisdorf, a town near cologne and employed by the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in cologne as an apprentice IT-specialist for Application Development. Like many others before, I first want to thank you for this great chance!

Here in Malaga David and I were working at Randal Systems, an electronic engineering company. They are working on different projects and products. Doing everything on their own, from the design to the prototype.

We were integrated in the team very fast. They gave us a mail account and a company-shirt, which we had to wear at work. We have also participated at the daily team meeting and were able to explain our progress in the project. It was very nice to be a part of the team.

During the last weeks I created an user interface for a Backup-Application. I used html, css, JavaScript and jQuery mobile. I've never worked with jQuery mobile before, so it took a little time to learn it, but it progressed quickly.

It was a pleasure to be a part of this project and I would recommend it to everyone, to see how work is like in another country. So maybe you are here in Malaga next year and you will agree ;)

 

Freetime in Malaga

Now I want to show you, what we did in our freetime. Malaga is a very nice city and you can see a lot when you're just walking around. We walked a lot and visited many beautiful places. One of these places was the botanical garden, where you can enjoy the nature and you have a great overview of Malaga, too.
 

Mirador de Gibralfaro

 

Another nice place is the port and the beach of Malaga. Especially in the evening it is nice to sit there and watch the boats passing by. On the " Mirador de Gibralfaro" (Viewpoint of Gibralfaro) you can watch the sun go down behind the mountains and after that it is amazing to see all the lights in the city and in the port.

Nasrid Palaces

In Granada we visited the Alhambra. We arrived in the afternoon and had just a few hours, so we couldn't see everything. We saw the lovely gardens and the Nasrid Palaces, which is amazing, because of its fine carvings in the walls and ceilings.






 


Because of the Semana Santa we had a week vacation. So we are able to see many places, if we had the chance to get out of our hostel, because the processions crossed very often our way (or we crossed the procession ;)). But it was very impressively to see how they are carrying these heavy figures around, sometimes till 5 o'clock in the morning.

View to Afrika (on the left)

We also made a trip to Gibraltar with the whole group. We started very early in the morning, because the bus needed 3 hours to took us to "La Linea". Then we walked to Gibraltar. The bus back to Malaga left at 7pm, so the time was rare. We only saw "The Rock of Gibraltar" with the monkeys on it. The view on top of the mountain was incredible, luckily it was a sunny and clear day, so we could see Afrika.  In Gibraltar I had my first sunburn, since we arrived in Spain. It is a kind of funny to get one in the United Kingdom on one day, while we stayed in Spain for 3 weeks and nothing happend.  

Now we've got a few days left, before we have to leave and still have so many plans, what we want to do here in Malaga. So we will enjoy our time here.

Little David in big Málaga

Company

¡Hola! my name is David (25) and I am working for RLE International GmbH in Cologne (Germany). During the time here in Málaga, Jil and me worked at Randal Systems. It is an engineering company with eight employees. They plan and produce prototypes for people which have ideas for new products and want to realize them. They also do scientific projects like preventing fire in the nature with a system which can recognise smoke very very early and stop it before it starts to burn. My task there was to revise the corporate design/identity. I was looking for mistakes and formatting errors on the company website, I created and edited new icons for the website, created Microsoft PowerPoint templates and vectored company logos. Almost every day we had a little team meeting where all colleagues was getting up-to-date with other projects. These meetings and of course the whole time in Málaga improved my english skills a lot.

One of four rooms

Old icon                                                          New icon

Vectored Randal Systems Logo

 

Vectored Prodetex Logo

 

Málaga

At the first evening in Málaga we walked up the hill to Gibralfaro with some beer to see the city at night. It was a breathtaking moment to see the big city the first time with all the lights everywhere. In the first days we went every evening through the city to take a few cerveza with tapas or something like that. We went almost every day to the beach, which was a 15 minute walk away from our hostel. What confused me at the beginning was, if you are going by day through the little streets you think: “Okay, here is nothing special to see... just places to live”. But at night in each street were so many restaurants and bars. For example our street: 50 meters long – 2 shawarma (Kebab) stores.

Málaga by night - Time exposure

Pedregalejo

After we had enough from the inner city, we decided to take a bus to go a bit more outside from Málaga. Our goal this day was Pedregalejo. It was a nice place without those many touristic shops. That was the first time I thought: “Now I am in the right spain”. We stayed there for 4 hours and saw many places where the young spanish people chilled out and had some BBQ.

Beach at Pedregalejo

Barrier Lake - Embalse del Limonero

One day, Christian and me decided to go to a barrier lake which is near to the botanic garden. That was a really nice place. There you can walk 2 hours without see any other person. Just nature everywhere and really great views from the hills.

Barrier Lake - Embalse del Limonero

Gibraltar

Last Saturday we were in Gibraltar. This day was one of the best in my opinion. The city itself I don’t like. Too much touristic for me. But the rock with the monkey was really impressive. They don’t care about you and are bold to the people.

For example Christian leave his bag unobserved to take a photo because of the nice view and 3 seconds later a monkey sits next to his bag and tried to open it. Christian pulled the bag to get it back, but the monkey just showed Christian his teeth and make some creepy noises. Christian let him do and the monkey got a sandwich. Luckily I took some photos in this moment too and was able to film this situation. Here you can see the video.

Sandwichmonkey

Random monkey & Gibraltar

View over Gibraltar

Strait of Gibraltar

In the next days we want to go to Marbella and if there is time enough we will see Sevilla too.

At the end all I can say is: If you have the chance to go to Málaga – DO IT. I regret nothing.

¡Adios Amigos!

Málaga, I'm thankful to have been here!

¡Hola amigos! My name is Marcel and I'm 21 years old. I came from Cologne in Germany and I work as an IT system engineer for Bayer in Leverkusen, in the near of Cologne.
During my stay in Málaga, I work with Torsten for MIT school, a ultramodern private school.

MIT School from the front side

In this school is everything particularly and different to a german school. Every class is equipped with a laptop for every pupil, instead of a blackboard they have in every class a smartboard and some classes have tablets instead of Laptops. My task there was to built a own network, foreclosed to the other network devices for around 35 IP-cameras and link them to it. Also I was responsible for the equipment in den classrooms. If some devices should fail, I have to repair it.

When we arrived, my first impression was "Wow!", because on our first evening we went to eat tapas and after that, we visit a higher place in the city, from where we could see the whole city from above in the night!

Overview by night

At the next day we drive first to I.E.S. Campanillas to met the spanish teachers, which support and organized our exchange together with our german teachers. After that we all visit our companys, where we have to work for the next 4 weeks.

In our free time we visit different places in Málaga, for example, of course, the beach and a botanical garden. It was very cool there, because how often you have the chance to see lemon or orange trees, bamboo or other exotical trees that would not be grow in germany? Also we visit other cities like Granada and the Alhambra there and Gibraltar.
For me, Gibraltar was my personal highlight, because there are so much friendly and very funny apes. You could stroke them, let them climb on you and so on! Also we visit different historical places there, like a stalactite cave and a old castle.

An ape, hanging on the abyss and eating a biscuit

Stalactite cave

 For me, this exchange program was one of the best experiences I've ever made!

4 weeks in Malaga, amazing experience!

¡Hola!, my name is Torsten (21) and in Germany i'm working as an it-system-electrician for Bayer in Leverkusen.
Here in Malaga i'm working at the MIT School with my colleague Marcel. The MIT School was build in 2010 and it's a private which is orientated to the american and british School system.

MIT School, bilingual school in Málaga

In this 4 weeks we lived in a hostel called patio 19, i shared a 8 bed room with Marcel, David and Christian and many other people form all over the world, like Korea, USA and also some People from Germany.

For me it was an awesome chance to talk to people from other countries and get to know how their school system works or whats the infrastructure is like in their countries. And of course it had the opportunity to improve my english.

The it infrastructure of the school we were working at was build up completely new. Our contact in school and also the it specialist/it administrator of the school was building up an infrastructure based only linux. For us it was new to work with linux so we had to get into it in the first days. But in the end, theres not that big gap between linux and windows.

Our main task was to fix problems with the complete hardware installed in the school. In every room they don't have a blackboard like in germany, the whole school is equipped with Smartboards. So it was very interesting how interactive a school lesson can be. 

For me it was a big pleasure to join this exchange program.

And when you have the chance to join an echange in Spain or in every other country - DO IT! 

Málaga, what an awesome city

¡Hola! amigos, my name is Christoph (20) and i work for Bull GmbH in Cologne. Now here in Málaga i work with Sarah for CEIP Rectora Adelaida de la Calle in a new area built for young families. The elementary school was opened in 2011 so the building is very new and clean.

computer room

Unlike the building the computer equipment is not that new. They look more like 2000 with little cathode ray tubes and computers with IDE hard drives (most of them have 80GB) and slow dual core processors and not more than 512MB memory.

The ethernet cabling is way ahead of the other equipment. They have primary and secondary fibre optic cabling to ensure high speed ethernet over the hole campus.
The first tasks were simple, we had to change BIOS-Batteries for the whole computer room and raised the memory to the highest possible size for the same computers. Afterwards we got a new task
to fix a teachers pc that did not want to boot. First we switched the power supply followed by the mainboard. Then the pc booted but stucked in a loop when the OS got in. To fix that we had to reinstall Windows.

In the free time we went often to the big and clean beach where we were able to swim even if the water was cold at the beginning or we went a lot through the old part of Málaga.
There are a great many little alleys with food shops or clothing stores. Not forgetting all the Tapas Bars.







At the first weekend Semana Santa (Eastern) started in the part of Málaga where we were. First i thought: wow what amazing processions with so many people in it. They were carrying huge statuaries and wearing clothes like the Ku Klux Clan but sometimes in different colors. 

After my first thought it turned into: oh my gosh when do they stop it? They started at 4 or 5 o clock and went through the alleys till 2 o clock in the morning at one day. It is very annoying if you want to get something to eat and can not get through the mass of people watching the processions. Someday it took one hour to get to a Tapas Bar when it normally takes just 5 minutes. Luckily one week later it was over.






In addition to stay in Málaga we visited the botanic garden  
which is a very nice place to spend a lot time in. There are so many different palm trees and cacti or a bamboo forest next to banana trees. 

Gibraltar

 Our next trip was a 3 hour bus tour to Gibraltar to visit the city itself and of course the free-range monkeys on top of the Rock of Gibraltar. The monkeys are very hand-tame and jump on your back or shoulder if you get close to them and go down. Or for example they open your hand if you hold out your hand closed to a fist to look if you have food with you. The smaller ones are very playful and jump through the trees or initiate fun fights.
Quite contrary to them the bigger ones are more calmer and relax all the time or fight about the highest place to sit.





Once i had a smaller one on my shoulder and its mother was a bit upset about that and started to get closer while hissing at me. That was the signal to get rid of her child and go away. I did not want to get bitten by a bigger monkey. Because of their spiky teeth a bite can create some pain.
Beside the monkeys there is an awesome overview to Gibraltar city and the habour or to Africa on the other side.


In our Hostel Mirko, Sven and I shared the 8 bed room with many people from all over the world. It was very nice to get into lots of conversations so i could refresh my english and had a lot of fun with them.

Summary i had a very nice time here and i am glad about the chance to enter the DaVinci Project i got. For everybody who is thinking about this exchange you should DO IT!!