Settling down
Well I finally managed to get an internet dongle in order to get online. Using my phone was getting rather expensive with the Finnish carrier and all so this is a good thing. Cost me 49 euros to get the Three dongle + 10 euros more to get 2gb data allowance for the week. But at least now I can look for more apartments as well.
As for the apartment status, thing is that so far even though there may be a lot of options available, the best ones usually go quickly. Apparently the companies here such as HP get a new bunch of people every Monday so there's a lot of people looking for new apartments every week and with everyone wanting to get a place close to work, they usually go pretty fast. So that way coming in a few days early gives me an advantage as I've the time to look for other options and arrange viewings. I've nothing but time during the morning and day so unless the landlord is working as well, I'm available to go around to check places and this way hopefully spot the one for myself before anyone else gets a chance :)
Other than the apartment thing, what I've done here so far is pretty much getting an adapter from the nearby hardware store and charge my phone battery which was running out the day I came here although I charged it the day before. I guess listening to mobile Spotify took its toll on the battery as well. Not to mention the Facebook updating and all. But 3,5 euros for an adapter here was a bargain compared to what I almost bought at the Helsinki airport. They had an adapter for both the UK and the US but with separate plugins so since I doubt I'll be needing the US adapter anytime soon, I would have paid basically for nothing. Oh and the price, 20 euros. Daaaaammmmnnn!
Which reminds me, I went to Liffey Valley shopping centre yesterday, by bus even. Quite simple now that I know where to go to. You know how hard it is to know when to get off when you're sitting in a bus and there's no sign telling what stop is next. Even Bratislava local buses had those. So anyway, I just asked the bus driver to drop me off close to Liffey Valley and the people are really nice here so he stopped at the stop and told me how to get there. Finding a bus back was a pain in the ass and I ended up taking a taxi instead. Cost me like 17 euros, but I reckon that's not too bad for a 15mins bus ride.
But at the Liffey Valley I looked for a place to eat as I don't really know any places here close by to eat at so I ended up at Pizza Hut. For the first time in my life. We did order pizzas with Tyler and Denny once before I left the US. Good pizzas, but this time actually eating at Pizza Hut was a whole another story. The service was good, but I felt like a child sitting there with families and kids and a kids menu under my nose. But what the heck, I got myself a Pepperoni Feast with pan crusting and unlimited drink refills as they were only like 2,99e extra. No biggy, but when I left I thought I was dying when the waitress told that it cost like 23 euros. Pizza and drinks (I had two out of unlimited) cost a whopping 23 euros! Oh come on! A regular place will cost you like 10 euros with the same stuff. Damn it.
But other than all that, things have been all good here. I met an older Dutch guy here as he's in the same room as this Finnish guy here at the b&b. We get along nicely and are even considering the option to get a flat to ourselves because of the increasing pressure of actually getting a place. I rather have a place to stay by the end of the week instead of paying for an extra night here at the b&b. I mean it's nice here too, but I want to settle down somewhere instead of just wandering around not being able to decide where to go to. I've two viewings today so hopefully today I know a lot more about the forthcoming days. The Dutch and the Finnish guy know some Dutch people here who just got a flat to themselves and supposedly they've a backup there to sleep at as it's their last paid night at the b&b.
Anyway, holla back later!
It’s time
Obviously I'm talking about the departure day which is tomorrow, but as the hours count down, it's getting harder and harder to understand the move I'm making. I spent 2 hours last night reading articles related to my working environments from the work site newsletters I found online. Good stuff mostly, but for some reason they haven't published another one since summer 2009 which makes me a bit worried. But then again, my blog went on without an update for months until I said something again and although things have changed, over the years I've come to realize how hard it is to maintain regular updates to a content driven website. So the bigger part of me understands why the newsletter has either gone AWOL or just lazy.
So the day is here, tomorrow at 8:35am I will be leaving from the Oulu airport towards Helsinki where I'm supposed to wait for like 3+ hours for the flight to Dublin. From Dublin I'm planning to get a cab to Leixlip where my bed&breakfast is before I will start hunting down the flats to move in. Despite the rent prices being amazingly high over there, I must admit the flats are also damn nice. Superb conditions and already mostly furnished which takes the edge off of anyone who's about to move there.
I my case though this isn't what's happening. I'm planning to find an apartment to share as this will give me the chance to get to know people a bit instead of staying in my own flat and just going to work or groceries whenever I go out. I've found 4 very nice places that I'm currently considering, each of which have 2-3 other people living in already. Notice that these aren't the kind of normal flats that students move into, but instead they are actual houses that are shared between 3-4 people (myself included). So there's plenty of space and the feeling of being part of a community like you have when living in an apartment building where there are people living just across the hallway or on the other side of the wall, doesn't really exist. I would compare this to living with a family in a own house.
The good thing about moving to Ireland (or at least Co. Kildare) is that there are more flats available than there are takers. So you can actually get some really nice deals compared to what you'd have to pay for living on your own. Your own, very own, flat would cost around 800 euros and more excluding bills. But with a shared apartment the price is between 250 to 400 euros which I think is very reasonable. Currently I've 4 options, 2 in Celbridge which is around 3-4km from HP and Leixlip which is just over 1km from HP. For some reason I'm more drawn towards the Celbridge area.
So tomorrow is my day and I will be flying to Dublin and around 2:30pm local time I will take the cab to Leixlip and once settled in, I will try to arrange viewings with the options I've printed out. Right now I've no idea how to get around, but if nothing else works, I will just take a cab to Celbridge and then back to Leixlip. My goal is to move in somewhere on Friday at latest and then figure out rest of the arrangements. While looking for apartments, of course I will use any spare time to get for example a dongle to my computer so I get online and a mobile phone sim card. And most of all, I need to get a PPS number which will ensure my taxation being correct once I start working. I read somewhere that if I have all the bureaucracy stuff figured out in time, I will get to use the low tax rate Ireland has, but if I don't, I will be paying like 40%+ taxes.
Well that's all for now, holla back at ya once I get to Ireland and have settled down :)
Back on the track
I suppose if ever, now is the time to bring back my beloved blog. I went through some old posts from my kneecrackin' days (use the search to find it) and with the latest development in my life, I might even be motivated to update my blog. Now I know Twitter and Facebook are "the thing" when talking about Web2.0 shit, but for reasons beyond explanation possibilities, I've grown fond of my blog and I find this more personalized than the other two.
So a quick recap of what's going on in my life:
1) Graduated in December 2009 as you already surely know
2) Went to St. Pete, FL for over a month to enjoy myself and celebrate my graduation. Time well spent, that's all I can say.
3) Was unemployed for about a month after returning until I got a job offer from Sweden, but that went all wrong and this blog isn't the place to discuss that.
4) Summer came and I was unemployed so I "moved" (basically took my laptop and some clothes with me) to my parents in Tornio to hang around with my old mates. So tennis and football was played this summer for sure. Too bad my knee couldn't handle it and eventually I had to retire for the summer.
5) Sent tons of job applications all over the world. Got tired of it a bit at one point and I remember one application having an open message attached to it that went something like this:
"Hi there,Are you serious that a nice, professional, organized and otherwise cool guy can't get a job from anywhere nowadays? Take a chance and consider me. Seriously.
Thank you, Toni"
I know, not professional, but with the frustration it came out naturally like I was in a trance.
6) Got a call one early afternoon from Bratislava and Dell if I was interested in a job I applied to. Now I was a bit fuzzy as I was still sleeping when they called so I didn't first hear who they were. But when they asked me if I was interested, I said sure thing. So after talking a while and after understanding what the job was about they asked me if I'd be willing to come to an interview in Bratislava. And so I did... Problem was that the job was actually Swedish-Norwegian Order Processing Analyst which requires really good Swedish skills, which I don't have. But I knew that before I booked the flights so no need to tell me that I'm an idiot for not listening at the beginning. So I didn't get the job, but I did go to Bratislava and it was awesome after 2 years away.
7) The next day after Bratislava called and I had booked the flights to Bratislava, I got an e-mail from CPL asking if I'd be interested to move to Ireland in Dublin. Damn sure! So we figured things out, I did a test, passed it, got a call interview while in Bratislava, passed it and by the time I was back in Finland I check my e-mail the next morning and noticed that I had received a job offer from CPL.
So now I've been pretty much preparing myself for a move to Leixlip/Celbridge (not sure which one I'm getting a flat from) in Co. Kildare, Ireland. Flights are scheduled for 24th of August which is two nights away and work starts on 30th of August. Despite all the worrying about adapting to a new country and how I will like the job (Finnish call center at HP support), I'm damn enthusiastic about moving there and practically starting a new life since I've no one I know over there and the funny thing is, I just understood that now. I really don't know anyone there. Oh wait, I do know Pekka but he's working at IBM and about 10km away. But still... Exciting :P
What I hate about all this is the people I'm leaving behind. Some friends are just too good to be replaced and despite being the IT nerd of the friends, I still do feel close to every single one of my friends and it hurts to move away and realizing that I've no idea when I will see them again.
But anyway, that's it for now. I surely hope I will post more stuff in the coming days and weeks as my life begins to change becoming more and more Irish :D
Here's a word I love from the UK:
Arse (means ass as in butt/stupid).
Digital CV
Sure I haven't updated my site in a long while, but last night I stumbled upon my Photoshop and came up with this nice digital CV.
Kudos to hv-designs for the layout tutorial for inspiration.
First few days in St. Pete, FL
So, I got here finally. Tyler's place is really cool and the first thing when we stepped in the house was this cute little doggie Oliver. A Jack Russell terrier or something like that. I'm allergic to most dogs, but these don't have that much fur on them so my allergic reactions are really small. Only had one pill so far for the reactions so it's good :)
We head over to get a friend of Tyler and then go to this beach on the west side. It's just awesome over there. Sun, sea and sand baby!
Here we got a few more pictures. On up left is my first drink. I think it was called Rum Runner. So yea, it had rum and some other stuff and some juice. Really good to be honest. So I had two of those until we left and went to a place called Chili's (I think that's how it was written). Now that place was amazing! Why? Well imagine a shopping crazy female at a shopping mall... Now imagine a Finnish guy in a place where you can get 2 beers for the price of 1. Yea, I was that excited. So I had 3 sets of those (I think it was Samuel Adams beer) before we head out. I think we came over to Tyler's place, but I can't be sure to be honest. I was getting drunk at that time and it was like 4pm. I guess it was a payback time for Tyler because apparently we got him drunk the night he got to Finland as an exchange student. Glad I was kind of expecting this so no prob! Then we stopped by in places that I can't remember the names of. I was completely wasted. Got back home and woke up on Tuesday morning around 10am with a hangover like never before.
So what has stuck into my mind so far from this place...
- everyone seem to be in love with their phones and Facebook. It's a "beep" here and there when they get messages from friends.
- SUN!
- mornings are a bit chilly, but if you step out from the shadow to the sun, it's warm. Kinda natural, but yea... It's warmer outside.
- Bobby's awesome but friggin' insane!
- wine, beer, video games, friends... awesome!
- Tyler's apartment, awesome!
- Oliver, damn sweet dog. I will teach him Finnish and make him forget English.
- the streets are so damn simple. In Finland you need to know where something is. Here it's for example 5th avenue, 24th street... It's like finding a spot from a grid with numbers. Go sideways to 24th street and to 5th avenue up or down.
- SUN! NO SNOW! \o/
- cars are so shiny over here
- very nice people all around
Once I'm more used to this place, I will probably have the guts to go out by myself, but so far I don't mind just staying in and catching up with stuff online.
More updates to come so stay tuned!
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