Home Sweet Home

It’s not always going to be a bed of Irish clover for us. So you get the good, the bad and the ugly of our adventures.

What a challenging 4 days it’s been for us, but we are finally in our apartment.  Here I thought it was easy to find an apartment, rent it and get yourself set up.  But of-course that’s if we were in the states, but not so in a foreign country being the foreigners.

I had been following Daft.ie (home rentals) for a good 8 months, learning Irish locations and watching apartments come & go.  This particular unit came on the market before we left the states, but I never thought it would still be available when we arrived.  Apparently, the landlord had to do some work to the place before he would rent it again since the gal before us lived here for 4 years. What they did was throw out the living room furniture, pull the carpet, put down vinyl wood looking flooring, brought in two huge overstuffed black vinyl chairs and a new glass top chrome table with grey vinyl chairs.  None of which is my taste whatsoever!  It’s all very cold and hard, there is nothing soft or warm with this furniture, so I’m challenged to make it better for us.  But hey, it’s new (we think, or were told).  Oh, and an old wooden coffee table which should have been given to Good Will a long time ago.  Anyway, we spent the first two days cleaning the apartment.  My guess is the gal before us cleaned it herself when she moved out, so while work was being done it sat the entire time, unattended.  I was surprised that the owner and/or his agent never really checked any cabinets, closets, etc. or had the place cleaned after the work was complete.  Oh Vey! Besides random pots/pans/cups and plates -  In the kitchen we found the remains of onions and garlic and god-only-know what else in a wet juicy mess in a cabinet. (gag) It’s taken us 3 days to get the stink out. Spiders decided to move it since they were not being challenged and NO ONE vacuumed under the beds.  I don’t think this is normal even for Ireland, I just think we ended up with two very inattentive men to deal with who had other agendas on their minds.  We did not pay a cleaning deposit, but 2 months security deposit (because we are foreigners).

We had to sign up for internet, again another challenge for us.  It would appear that lots of folks here use ‘hot spots’ via their smart phones.  Well, the phone we purchased is a simple smart phone, but not big enough to handle a ‘hot spot’.  Either we get another larger phone, or go with a direct line to the apartment.  We went with the direct line and the guy came today to set us up.  Which is a good thing since it was difficult to use the wifi in every café we could find.  Hard to sit for hours and blog in a public place and I was beginning to have internet withdrawals.  Let me tell you, it’s not easy exposing yourself to so many unfamiliar things and NOT having the comfort of familiarity such as internet and face book, or a family connection.  But I’m better now.

Surprisingly the bank account has been the easiest to establish.  We now have our own wonderful personal banker, Paul, at A.I.B.  He has been the most helpful, friendly and accommodating fellow we’ve met yet.  He told us on a Friday what we need to establish an account (as Americans). We went back in on Monday with everything they needed, we filled out the paperwork and 4 days later we get a text from the bank that say’s “Welcome to A.I.B.”  and we have yet to deposit any money with them.  I suppose our bank in the US will make it more difficult to transfer funds and charge us an arm and a leg for doing so.

Our greatest relief from of all of this is to look out our sliding glass door across the River Shannon. We can sit on our patio and watch boats all day if we like as they go north or south through the lock. We watch fishermen fish, geese, ducks and swans swim. (To see what we see, check out the photo album below.)  We’ve already met the lock master – John.  We’ve been told the river floods in the winter, that will be interesting to watch, I’ll keep you informed.

PHOTO ALBUM