Settling in – part two
I saw one apartment on Thursday just close to the b&b. It was very nice and the location was superb, but then:
- Owner is going to Paris for the weekend which leaves me with option A) paying myself the extra nights at b&b while waiting his return or B) taking some other place
- The house is owner occupied, the owner himself is a Man Utd fan, the 2nd guy living there is a Man Utd fan, the neighbor is a Man Utd fan... I wonder how long I could have taken it with the current Liverpool situation.
On Thursday we also went for a few beers at Murphy's while I was watching the remainder of the Liverpool's Europa League game. Then the other guys went playing poker and I decided not to play with the 20e buy-in. After like 3-4 hours we went to Darkie Moor's which is a nice place as well. Only had one beer there before heading home. I started to feel really sick and my throat started hurting so once I got back to b&b, I already had some trouble sleeping. I took a ibuprofen to ease the headache and I slept a bit badly to be honest.
The next day I just stayed in bed all day watching TV and surfing online a bit. I was just feeling too sick to do anything so the only place I went to was the petrol station nearby to get some soda and snacks. That's all I ate yesterday. I was soooooo hungry today that I actually spent like 30-40 minutes in the breakfast table eating and drinking tea :)
To conclude this post, I will rant about the things that annoy me the most right now:
- Internet connections. Anyone who's been to Finland or read the article about legalizing the Internet to all users know what I'm talking about. Remember connections in Finland back between 2004 and 2006? Yea, that's about it. Generally the fastest option is pretty much the 24mbit connection. Also the upload speed is pretty much limited in all options to 768kbs. Most have 512kbs. Now I don't mind the upload speed that much, but these dongles can be really useless at times when you're trying to surf the web. You can barely get the 3G speeds and usually it's around 30kbs. Like now I had to come upstairs to my room with my laptop to use the internet. Downstairs it was seriously like using a dial-up in Finland back in 1999.
- Being sick. When I came from Helsinki to Dublin, I had this middle-aged lady sitting next to me and she had slight fever, sore throat and her nose was dripping. So guess who got it now... 2 days before work starts. I don't want to call in sick the first day in new job.
- Distance to work. We tried getting apartments from closer to HP, but eventually I just thought that this would be nice. I live pretty much in the cross-hair of Hazelhatch Avenue and Hazelhatch Road in Celbridge. It's like 10 minutes walk to train station which takes to Dublin and the same to get a bus to HP (at least I think). But the estate is really nice and at times I feel like living in a upper class neighborhood :D
- I need to get some stuff... Like an allergic-friendly pillow, a blanket, some Finrexin kind of medicine drink... Well this week I'll be living here without needing to pay the rent and I will figure it out next week.
- Irish pronounciation. I'm having tiny problems understand some of the names or saying for example place names.
If something bad, then something good too:
- Finally got to move somewhere. This gives comfort and I can start planning a bit further ahead. The lads living me are nice, other one being a Liverpool fan from Liverpool. So we do get along fine. 3rd one of us is apparently a construction worker.
- I feel good, apart from the flu and all.
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!
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).
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