Do this and that…
Over the past 9 years, basically since I first moved from home to my own place, I've had the luxury of handling with the Finnish bureaucracy which by all means isn't of course a fantasy land where everything goes smoothly and we drink tea at the offices. But moving to a new country is a whole new story to tell. So lets go back 2 weeks when I arrived to Ireland with no idea how things work and how to get from point A to point B without looking like an idiot lost in time and space.
First thing is to notice that where I come from (Tornio), we don't or at least to my knowledge we don't have public local transportation. So if you wish to get from A to B, you either use a car you have or your parents have. Option B is to either walk or use a bike. Well basically the distances aren't more than like 5km between any two places you need to go to, be it a pharmacy, video rental or a pizzeria. Or option C is to take a cab which costs money but will take you where you want to go in a matter minutes. Living in Rovaniemi, I used the local transportation very little due to living close to everything I needed to go to or if I went downtown, I just took a cab home as I was usually just too wasted to even walk. But that's a whole another story to tell... someday, somewhere.
Now coming to Ireland without any knowledge where the point A (myself) even is, it is next to impossible trying to think how to get to point B. So I was rather amazed to be honest that before I came here, I received an e-mail giving instructions how to get to Leixlip from Dublin airport. The following is a quote from the e-mail I got when talking about my relocation to Ireland:
Toni could get a bus from the Airport to Drumcondra and get the Maynooth train from Drumcondra train station to Leixlip Louisa Bridge station
None of these names meant anything to me so I could have imagined myself wandering around the Dublin airport looking for buses (probably the easiest part). Not to mention trying to get on the right bus and then when sitting in the bus, actually knowing where to get off. I mean looking out the window doesn't mean a thing when you're just amazed that "Damn, I'm actually here now then...". All you see is green trees and the bus from inside. There's no sign inside the bus saying "next stop: Drumcondra". Nor would have I known how to get a train ticket, yet it goes without saying that it's common sense how it works once you've done it once or twice. But things work so differently in every place. Like in Finland, when using a train, I get in the train and get the ticket from the conductor or if I manage to have the time, I get it before getting in the train from the train station office. But exploring my options with 2 big bags isn't an option, not always.
So... On to this day.
Work's nice. I mean people come and go and I don't mean just in the office, but I mean people working in help desks know what I mean. You either are right for the job or you are not. If you're not, you get fed with it quite fast and get the fuck out. Myself, I try not to think "how long I will be staying there" or "will I be suitable to do the job for lets say a year". I aim to go one day at a time as you never know what will happen in 3 months or 6 months. All I know is that I will need to get up tomorrow around 7:45am, take a shower, put some clothes on and get ready to take a train to Louisa Bridge and then take the free shuttle bus to HP. But I would be lying if I said that I hadn't thought about if I like the job that's ahead of me. Of course I think about that. And I've come to a conclusion that I might even be good at it due to my IT skills, but I know that I will need to work on my customer support skills as in greeting, talking the right way and making sure I do it all according to "the book". But I'm quite confident :)
As for the place to stay... I did reside in Hazelhatch Park for a week until unfortunately I was "evicted" due to apparently I snored too loud at night. I do know that I can snore quite loudly during the night, but I mean... there's no quick solution. Big boys do that, I know. But so do some smaller boys too. So I reckon it's just partly bad luck that this happened. The day I heard about this was last Friday. My landlord tried to call me, but as I was in work, I wasn't able to answer. So instead he sent me a sms saying the he had complaints from one of the roomies and even the next door neighbor. The walls are quite thin, but still I was rather amazed that even the neighbor heard my snoring :D
So anyway, I got this sms around 10am, I called him back and we talked a bit and he gave me a week to find another place. I kind of paniced and also felt a bit sad as I really liked the place and the other roomie I had was also a Liverpool fan so I think we got along quite well to be honest. But the fact was that I had to move out. So I immediately started looking for new places... I just had my work computer installed and had an hour to spare so I started looking for new places. The first thing that crossed my mind was if I should look for another shared apartment and just move my snoring problem elsewhere or just get a place on my own. I decided to go with the latter option. Sure the rent would be at least double the money I paid for that one, but yet I felt very good about having the place all to myself after sharing apartments for over 5 years. So I looked for options from daft.ie and found a few places that I contacted. Then one guy told me about an opening in Riverforest...
We talked with the guy over the phone for a few minutes and as he was just checking another apartment in the same building, he suggested that he'd pick me up immediately from my work and take me to check out the place. And so he did, 15mins later I was on my way to check an apartment in Riverforest in Leixlip. I saw the place and liked what I saw so we made a verbal agreement and headed on to the estate agency's office to get some info from me and pay the first month's rent. 700 euros... hurts, but hey... good things are never free. The next day, I moved in here :)
So here I am, in a two room apartment, all by myself. Shopping centre next to me and with a train station nearby. I like it although I must admit that after actually moving in, I noticed that there hasn't been anyone living here for a while as I even saw a spider in the bathtub not to mention a spiderweb :D But I got some cleaning supplies the next day and now it's a lot better.
So, there we go... TODO:
- better(!) internet connection
- furniture opportunities
- basic equipment from trash bins to having something to hang the laundry on
Settling in – part three
Thinking about the subject, I wasn't sure if this is still settling in or if I've pretty much already settled in. Anyway, yesterday was the same old... I was still working on my slight flu by drinking shitloads of tea. I mean I've had more tea over the past two days than ever before in my life in total. I do like tea, but I've just never really had it as a habit. But since being sick means that you should drink warm drinks, I had a lot of warm tea which did wonders to me eventually even though I was in really bad shape just 2-3 days earlier.
Today didn't start too well. I woke up at 7am and started getting ready for my first day. And I got outside hoping to catch the shuttle bus to HP. Well I didn't know what it looked like and after waiting for 20 mins, I just decided to call a cab instead. I saw one bus passing by during those 20 minutes, but since I had no idea if it was that one or not, I didn't try to stop it. It looked more like a small bus so how am I supposed to know that it was exactly the one. So after work I went to talk to the guy as he was just about to leave towards Louisa Bridge if it was in fact the bus taking to Hazelhatch and taking people to HP in the morning. And it was... So we talked a bit and we figured that I should just go out every morning standing outside the estate (around 50 meters from my front door) and wave for the bus to stop and pick me up. Then he will drop me off at the same place later in the afternoon after work. So that worked out perfectly! Oh and did I mention that as a "HP worker" (I actually work for CPL but at HP), the bus is totally free forth and back! \o/
That being the most exciting thing today, apart from work which I will not go into really as it's not something to discuss over here, I went for a walk yesterday to have a look around. I walked all the way to Hazelhatch station area and then back past the Hazelhatch Park (the estate) gate and walked on all the way to Celbridge Main Street to see how it is over there. Considering the fact that I still felt a bit ill, I decided to just get some groceries and head back home instead of stopping by at the two pubs just next to Eurospar (the groceries store). Mucky Duck and Village Inn were just next to it right after you cross the small bridge over to the Main Street :D
For the record, I just love the name Mucky Duck. I can see myself getting totally Mucky Duckied some weekend after dozen pints especially since they both show Premier League there :D
Well that's about it... I like it here a lot and everything has been going really well so far! Once I get my PPS number and bank account + sort out my taxation stuff, I'm pretty much ready to live the everyday life here. Work's youthful, nice people, many nationalities... We had actually 2 Danish, 2 Dutch, 3 Spaniards, 2 Polish, 2 Brazilians, 2 Irish, 1 Swedish and myself starting today :)
Oh and I got my earphones back today! Forgot them at the B&B on Saturday, but the lady over there remembered me and gave them to this Dutch guy who returned them to me today as he was luckily starting today as well. I was just about to go to the B&B after work today to get them back. They're essential to me as I like to listen to music when walking to get groceries and what not.
Peace everyone,
TD
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!
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 :)
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