So it's weekend and that obviously means that the liquor stores are more popular than ever during the week. Instead of what we have in Finland (Alko) with all the vodkas and other liquors, here we have Off Licence. It's sort of a same thing, but the difference in general compared to Finland is that in Finland you can get alcohol from any convenience store up to like 4,7% and if you want anything stronger, you need to go to a liquor store. And you can't get alcohol after 9pm from anywhere (officially). Here you can actually get for example wine (red and white) from SuperValu with alcohol up to 13% or so. I don't know for sure what the limit is, but for example the SuperValu store just across the parking lot from my place doesn't have any beer for sale which I think is quite amazing. They do have a whole corner dedicated to wines, but nothing else with alcohol. Of course excluding deodorants :D And here for example the Off Licence store next to SuperValu is open until like 10-11pm.
For example Slovakia and many other countries back there have hard liquor even at gas stations and you can actually get them 24/7.

So anyway, I've been settling (am kind of bored of using that word so often) in and it's looking a lot better now. I do need to make a phone call to ESB which is the main electricity provider here in Ireland to resolve the issue of not to charge me like 300 euros for something I'm not agreeing to. It's a policy of them that if you don't want to use direct debit for billing, then you need to pay a 300 euros deposit. Idiotic, but oh well... I did sign up for the direct debit instead earlier this week, but still their online billing site says I'm due 300 euros by the 4 of October. So I need to call them and sort this out.
As for the apartment, and the payday getting closer and closer, I'm eager to get my hands on some new stuff here. Sure I'm not able to get all right after my first pay, but at some point for sure since I'm hoping to have my computer etc shipped over here and then get some furniture. My initial plan is to get at least a new couch (or just a 2nd one), a computer desk, a TV stand and something else that I haven't really figured out yet. For some reason I'm not really a fan of the carpet floor here as it tends to accelerate my allergic reactions at times. I do vacuum my place every now and then, but I'd need to do a thorough cleanup for the whole place at some point. I just don't have the tools or the mentality to do that :D I did do some vacuuming the other night and it does feel a bit better. But I'm not dying here or anything if I don't do it for lets say 3 weeks or a month :D
Another thing I don't like about the place is the hot water system. I mean you actually have to heat it up first before you can use it. And having an electrical system with bills and all that, it eats energy to heat up the water which then shows up in the bills too. I'm no expert on these, but if there's something I hope for, it's an electric shower and preferably the whole water system. I don't know if it's complicated to install or if it costs shitloads of money, but at times getting up around 4:40am just start heating up the water for your shower can make you swear a little bit. And since I don't have a dishwasher, I also need to heat up the water to do the dishes. Plus the worst thing is that I don't even know how to use the stupid timer for the heater nor do my two neighbors. Even the landlord was a bit like what the heck...
I need more clothes, that's what I need money for! Being here over a month with no paycheck from work yet has really put my financing plans in new light when you need to use 4-5 different shirts until you need to wash them. I've two jerseys here (Liverpool and TB Bucs) but those are not allowed at work due to company policies :(

So I've been giving a lot of thought to what I'm going to do with my remaining days off from work. We're supposed to use them by the end of this year so I've basically 3 months to use all 7,5 days. Naturally Christmas is something to always think about, but the fact is that the flight tickets are damn expensive. With 400 euros return price it's a no go so naturally I'm considering just to stay here and save the money for a TV or something. And the reason is not just the price, but the fact that I'm planning to head over to Rovaniemi in late March for this exchange student+tutor reunion. That ought to be a one big party! Then on the same trip, I will stop by at my parents and friends in Tornio as well. A week off minimum is my plan. Had a look at the plane tickets too and they're somewhere around 200 euros which is not that bad. Depends on how you want to go there really. Surely playing around with Ryanair and waiting at the airports can reduce the price significantly, but I've always been the kind of guy that wants things done properly without the need of being bored at some airports. Efficient I think is the right word in this situation. But we'll see about this whole Finland vacation thing later on :)

One big topic here and with everyone coming here from abroad is smoking. Ireland was I think the first country anywhere to ban smoking indoors in public places such as bars, pubs, restaurants... At the time it felt a bit stupid, but now after having it in Finland as well for years I think it's a tremendous. After a night out your clothes don't smell like shit and the air at bars and pubs is much cleaner. Plus it's refreshing to go outside for a smoke. The Irish are big smokers and the prices of smokes here are really high. I mean whereas a pack of Marlboro in Finland is about 5 euros, here it's more like 8 or 9 euros and I think in Slovakia is was around 3 euros. I don't know for sure as I don't smoke that brand :) But in a long run, that will make you consider quit smoking due to financial reasons. I personally don't smoke too much and in the summer, I only smoked maybe 5 packs over a 3 month period which is little. Here I've been smoking more or less 2 packs a week and even 3 but I also know it's mostly the work and the new place. As soon as I feel more comfortable, I will at least reduce it.

In other news: Ireland got Google Street View recently! When I got here, it hadn't been made available even though the cars had been going around in mid 2009 already. So it took Google around 1,5 years to do the whole thing and get it live. But it's fantastic and helps a lot with knowing where everything is and how it looks! I even found my own home from it :P

Finally, due to my website backend (WordPress) version being rather old, I'm planning to get the new one and while I'm at it, revamp the looks of my website. I did some work on WP layouts in my thesis and then in another course during my thesis and I've a pretty good idea how it works. I'm not sure what the WP3 version did to all this so I might need to figure out how it works first if I'm going to customize anything. But we'll see... I'm in no hurry and I don't mind using some other themes taken from the internet. I just don't have the time to start studying the whole thing and it takes time to design a layout as well. With working from 6am to 3pm and going to bed around 9-10pm, you don't really have much time or the energy to do any of that:)

Anyway, that's it for now o/

So anyway, work's good. I'm not going much into details as there's not much new to tell. I started working on last Tuesday with the other Finnish guys and we get a taxi every morning paid by the company from in front of our doors. It picks all three of us around 5:30am and we're always about 15 minutes early. Which reminds me that today we actually didn't have a taxi. I went outside at 5:20 as the taxi is usually in front at that time and I waited around 10 mins until I noticed that we're supposed to be picking the second guy already so there must be something wrong. So I called the local taxi company without knowing who actually takes us to work. Turned out that the company I called to doesn't even usually take us to work and instead it's some other company. Well anyway, this local company takes us to work for 5 euros so it's no problem, but since I didn't have the 2nd guy's phone number, I just called the 3rd guy and told him that we'd pick him up. I tried to persuade the taxi driver to pick the 2nd guy as well, but he didn't want to go and "just stand in front of the house in case he's not there at all". So we didn't pick him up at all. But we got to work and due to our poor financial status (pay day in 1,5 weeks), I had to pay the whole 7 euros for the taxi. The company better pay me back... with interest :P

Oh oh oh! I got to tell you about this though... I went to Dublin city center on Saturday with a couple of my Finnish co-workers. We got stood up by the 4th guy, but that didn't really matter. We went to this place called Woolshed and oh man I got to tell you, it's awesome! It's a sports bar so you can imagine that they show sports. But they are something else to what I'm used to :P
There's like a 200 inch screen on the wall in the middle of the place and unless you're blocked by the poles around the place, you can see it. Also next to it is a somewhat 120 inch screen as well which on Saturday showed a different event compared to the big one. Oh and if you're blocked to see the game, no worries. There are... let me refresh my photographic memory... 8 LCD TV's around the two floor bar. And they also offer food, to my observation until around 10pm!
So you know... I was just thinking and also checking out already. What if I had a Saturday off, the English Premier League had games on that day, Liverpool was playing and I felt like "having a few"... You get where I'm going with this? ;) I was thinking of going to Woolshed on 20th of November. I think the games in EPL were Man City - Arsenal at 12:45, then some other game, I don't care, then Liverpool a game and after that it's already around 8pm. I like it :D
Definitely something worth trying some day! And you know me, I rarely turn down football and beer together if there's also food available :)

Also I didn't manage to sell my desktop so I'm trying to have it shipped over here as my laptop is already pretty much overdue with its lifeline. The screen is flickering every now and then plus there are some weird things happening as if the graphic adapter was giving up. But hopefully I'll get the desktop here soon so I just need to get a monitor and a desk for it all. Problem is that the shipping costs are huge and I'm talking like 120 euros. Plus I'm a bit afraid the whole thing will be broken once it gets here. I've heard some horror stories about computers being shipped over and them arriving in smaller sizes due to whatnot being crushed and becoming useless :(
Also am hoping to get my xbox360 here as I just had my Madden 11 three days before coming to Ireland. So am kind of gutted not having been able to play it. But as I get my tax returns in December, I might be getting a TV here (I don't have one at the moment). Will do wonders for my house to have something more than myself and a laptop here :D I had a Norwegian co-worker stopping by on Friday for a couple of beers and since I've nothing to do here, we just sat in the living room for a good 45mins. Sure girls do that every now and then and I didn't mind that as we talked about stuff. But you know a TV, music or something would be nice to have in case of visitors! :D
So I have my eye on this offer at Curry's for a 37" Samsung Full HD TV with a very nice TV stand included for about 600 euros.

So what else... I should start writing down on these things I should write about. Maybe it's just the 6-15 working hours that are drinking the juice out of me. I now there are shitloads of things to tell about, but I think this update already reached its peak and "maximum" length.

But I'll write something more later this week, I promise. I'll make that list even just to motivate me :D

Apart from the power and alarm problems, things are going better everyday. Today I had a final quiz + test call and on Monday I'm supposed to go live with the Finnish customers answering their calls and helping with technical problems. I've some problems with a few practical things, but I trust and know that it will get a lot easier once I get started and get some hands on experience. Listening to lectures and watching PowerPoint slides doesn't help much, not to mention compare to actually doing it. So it should be okay.

Few things though about being here...
- Rain. There hasn't been much the past couple of days which is nice.
- Prices are quite the same as in Finland really. Well that is in SuperValu though. It's the closest grocery store I've over here and since the prices are quite the same as in Finland, I don't really see a reason to get a bus or something further away to for example Lidl and save a couple of euros.
- Beer. I need some and will get a few tomorrow. End of discussion.
- Internet connection. I should be getting my UPC broadband tomorrow. There's supposed to be a guy coming here tomorrow between 1pm and 6pm to install it. Good stuff! No, make it EXCELLENT. I so hate this Three Mobile Broadband. I mean it's enough for basic use, but with my usual usage habits, it's useless. I can only use it for basic surfing, checking e-mails and so on.
- Beer. Not sure if I mentioned this, but hell I'm getting some tomorrow.
- I want a TV and a desktop computer here. This laptop is is falling apart and it doesn't have the performance to run Trackmania properly. Not to mention Football Manager.
- Man Utd vs. Liverpool on Sunday. You'll never walk alone!

I think that's it for now. Better leave something to rant about for later entries as well :D

First thing that people think of when they think of Ireland, is the weather. At least usually, so lets dig into that one first. Sure I've been here during the autumn season so it's pretty much the same everywhere, but then again it also usually changes the same way when we talk about winter or summer too so just to give you an idea what I know about the weather here:
It's raining. At the moment it's raining and it's been raining every day the past week or so. When I came over there I didn't see a drop coming down for about a week and I was honestly a bit amazed by that. Sure enough the locals told me that this is very unlike from the Irish weather, but it was nice when we had plus 20 degrees and sun was shining like it was still summer as it should be.
Then came the rain and it has been raining pretty much every day. Some days had heavy rain and light rain all day and some have had just light rain all day. Despite the rain, I comfort myself with the assumed fact that there's no snow during winter, which I hate quite a lot after living in the North for close to 30 years. And it's also not supposed to be so cold over here either. Minus 5 degrees might sound bad to some, but that being the lowest temperature you usually get here during winter time, I think it's no biggie. Someone like me coming from -15 to -30 degrees most of the winter time, it makes me consider about buying more shorts and t-shirts.

I went out on Friday with other Finnish pals and had a lot of fun. Sure enough was raining, but that's a whole another story which I pretty much covered in the previous chapter. Next day though, I woke up and was barely able to stand on my left foot. For some reason, be it the drinking and the partying or not, my foot must have somehow been twisted because I can barely bend my ankle while walking. It hurts like hell when I do that, but when it's resting, it's just fine but I still can't bend it like I should. I figure there are two possibilities for this...
A) I twisted my foot at some point on Friday, but can't remember shit about it or it just didn't hurt when it happened
B) All the walking to work, back to home and in work has caused some sort of a stress to my foot. I mean the HP building is huge and me being such a lazy dawg, I don't walk too much and with the left knee fucked up, it may have caused my left foot to strain a bit or something. I mean my right foot is fine, as always.

It's so funny that everything that happens to me, it's always my left leg. I've never had problems with my right leg. My left leg instead had the knee spiral problems since teenage football times, ACL injury back in 2007 and with the ACL surgery just being a knee spiral surgery, it's not fully healed and I'm pretty sure there's still something quite wrong with my left knee. So I just hope it's not something that projects to my whole left leg.
So anyway, a doctor here is around 50-60 euros from what I heard and 3 times a year the company is supposed to pay like 30e for each visit. So it's a bad deal I reckon, but I will give this foot a few days to see if it passes by. I don't feel like going to my boss after 2 weeks at work that my leg hurts, can I get a sick leave... boohoo.

Also today at work I discussed with my fellow Finns about the remaining holidays from work. I'm supposed to have like 9 to spend before the end of the year so naturally spending it in Finland with my family during Christmas sounds like a natural option. But then again, considering the flight expenses from here to Northern Finland... It can be quite a hefty pile of money. I'm talking like 25% of my monthly salary so it's quite a lot to be honest when like 40% of it is going to rent already.
So I was thinking that I have like a couple of options that I've figured out so far:
A) Fly to Finland for Christmas and spend the holidays over there in -20 degrees before coming back here.
B) Take a Ryanair flight to for example Fuerteventura in Canary Islands for about half the money I'd pay for a trip to Finland and spend my holidays under a palm tree or something with my shorts on drinking nice cold drinks.
C) Stay at home over here and save the damn money and use it for something else.

And to be honest, I'm seriously considering the 2 latter options. Not that I don't love my family, but I'm sure they understand that this is an option where as everything else too. I'm planning to travel to Northern Finland in March anyway so I don't see it being much big of a deal. Sure it's "holidays and you must come", but lets be realistic here for a moment. I've been here for 3 months when it's time to book the flights to Finland and I've had 3 paychecks by that time. Everyone here keeps telling me that it takes like 5 months to settle down decently over here and to get yourself financially organized. So I must admit that I'm a bit uncertain about having the money to travel forth and back in December already without running into financial trouble.

I'm sure you're all wondering about how my job is... Well since it's a job, I'm sure you're all also very well aware of the fact that the companies like a bit of privacy for themselves so I can't go much into details here. Instead I will just give out the bits and pieces :)
Toni's work course 101: He works as a technical support agent for a company called CPL located in an HP building (not working for HP though) in Leixlip, Ireland. The first 3-4 weeks are basically just training to get to know how things work and what's going on around the place while settling down (hence the previous titles in my blog). TSA job is pretty much about answering e-mails and phone calls from customers while logging their information and trying to solve the issue(s). It's not a glorious job, but I think it's one of those jobs that you either suit for or you don't. Sure it depends a lot on the attitude, but it's in everyone's interest that you keep your head cool and try to do your job until you're just fed up with it and want to move on. Which happens quite a lot in this job, no matter where you work. Some are here just for the money and then get off to a vacation in Thailand. Some are here to get work experience before eventually finding a better paid job elsewhere. Myself? I think I'm more looking for both experience and work experience. The career opportunities here are very good though so you don't have to spend years and years answering phone calls either, you can actually climb up the ladder and that naturally makes everyone happy.

Now to my apartment. Last and final chapter, I promise :)
I pay 700 euros for the apartment and it's around 60 square meters. It has a living room, a kitchen, bathroom and a bedroom. It's (almost) fully furnished and the bed is a double size so me being a single guy, I like it (for sleeping purposes you pervs!) :P
But a few things have crossed my mind, flaws you might say, that need some repairing or attention:
- The toilet seat is a bit loose from the other side. So I hope to get it fixed before I some tiring morning or evening after a night out go to toilet to take a crapper... I accidentally crush my balls with that thing. So I got to get that fixed asap. It's also very uncomfortable to use when the seat is going from side to side.
- I don't understand why warm water has been made such a big thing here. In Finland and even in Bratislava I was used to just turn the damn handle that said HOT and you get at least warm water. But here you apparently need to heat it up first and that's just... from the middle ages to me. I don't know how things work related to this, but if I have to get up 20-30mins earlier to get hot water from the shower, it blows. The timers are hebrew to me. It has no logic at all and nor did it have to Irish people either.
- Water heater or the kettle... Doesn't work. I just saw an opened junction box on my desk last week and figured the landlord might have tried to fix it, but it's not working so I wonder what it was for or if the landlord just forgot it. Haven't seen him, but I heard he's a really nice guy and 82(!) years old. So I got to give props to that o/
- Internet connections are shite. My neighbors upstairs got one from UPC, but apparently I can't get it from them. I don't know why, but that's what they said. Now I'm considering Vodafone at the moment which I reckon is the next best thing (though far from UPC in price and quality). Also the damn landlines... Every ISP (Internet Service Provider) here offers phone deals with the internet connection. So yes, the landlines here are still used very much. I haven't used one for like 10 years so you can imagine how much this seems like the dark ages to technology jackass like me.

That's it, now this is the last chapter after all. But I'll keep it short. Take care everyone!

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

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

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.

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 :)

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).