Finding an Apartment in Dublin

Yes, this is something that anybody relocating to a new city or country will normally have to go through (although this assumption does not hold for quite a few friends back in Japan that were “put” into a comfy corporate-apartment).

In a way, there is something nice about searching for a new place, exploring the possibilities – if you will, but for me, the process of finding a new apt has always been painful more then anything else. This is especially true when you quickly find out that there is no way to find any apartment half-descent for less then 1,000 Euro here.

This kind of understanding takes away immediately the excitement part related to exploring “possibilities”, and it becomes more a matter of survival and prioritizing. After looking into a few apartments available for about 1,000-1,100 Euro that were rented-out on the first day that they were publicized, and that did not really look like something I wanted to live in, my prioritizing exercises where coming up with the main result of “spend more money”.

I got especially desperate after going to see an apt that was on offer for 1,200 Euro a month, in a spot-on location – no furniture, old and ugly, and smelling really bad, with a hole-in-wall-in-the-corridor that was supposed to be the wardrobe.

So relative to all of this, I guess I should be quite happy and satisfied with my lovely one-bedroom into which I moved last week. The living room IS quite big, and it has most of the basic things one should need (even some knives and forks that the former tenants left behind, and … mmm … a scale … was that a hint for me ?).

Once my things will finally arrive by sea, the next big challenge will start of how I manage to push all of them into this apartment, as relatively-big as it may be.

And here you go, a revealing picture of the living-room and balcony.

Just before all my things arrive, and the apartment becomes way-smaller, and actually just before I actually moved in, I thought it was the right timing to throw a little welcome-to-Dublin party for myself. Doing the party before actually moving in was probably not such a bad idea.

I have the impression it was a nice party all and all (from what I managed to recollect the following day), and the half-day that I spent picking up all the empty beer-bottles was supportive of this impression. And no worries, I found quite a few bottles/cans that were kindly left for my future use and/or parties J

To rap up on this story, here is another picture of the same porch, this time with a few party-guests, just before they found out that there is also a very nice garden-roof that they could smoke at.

More information coming up

Hi All,

It seems that the wonders of free information on the internet indeed work, as I just found out I have readers that I actually don't know ... :)

One has even taken an active role posting a comment on my single post so far. This is definitely increasing the pressure for me to write again pretty soon, as this BLOG is not meant to be written about information flow on the Internet, but rather to write about life here in Dublin (that is, until I travel somewhere else to write about).

So your answers - dear reader - will be soon answered (to some extent, at least, I hope), although I will need some time to actually explore the life here (and specially the advancement part ... what is that ?) so I can write all about it.

Once I get to download some pictures, I will probably write about my moving-in party of last friday - finding and moving into an apartment is an integral part of any moving-into-a-new-city BLOG, probably :D

Welcome (to Dublin ...) and starting up

Hi all,

After some basic experimenting, I decided that my recent official entry into the WW-Information world is a good excuse to join the rest of the world with a BLOG ...

Hopefully, this can help keep everyone more or less in line with what's going on with me when I find the time (and more important) to write down a few lines without having to go through the same stories with each of you seperately.

One might expect that after the long stories I have written and sent out about my experience in Japan, Cuba and Mexico this site might be filled soon with many stories.
The last experience in Brazil, however suggests that I am not so big on writing any more.
But maybe I am to bag-log some of the stories of my recent visit to Brazil. I guess the picasa thing helped me be lazy trusting the "a picture is worth a 1,000 words" thing.

Time will tell.

Anyway, about to run into the 2-week mark since arriving in Dublin, I am almost set with a local bank account, a local social security and immigration numbers, and a few other basics.
Am yet to find my own apartment, and to get myself a phone number though.

After relaxing abit from eating at my new workplace - Jumping between breakfast to snacks to lunch (Sushi / Mexican / Mediterranean/ etc ...) and back to snacks, I finally decided to think about finding out what I am actually supposed to do here, and so I registered myself to the gym that we have here in the company.
The snacks and drinks that are available everywhere you go here (just by the coffee machines) are a real danger, but they keep me up and running till it gets dark here (and it doesn't really get properly dark before 22:00), along with the 2~3 double espressos/Machiatos.

Coming friday, I am about to be ridicouled as a newby in front of the all company (along with many other than joined recently) - everybody will be drinking as well, so this should prove to be interesting :)

Last sunday, I was already invited (thanks to the local in-house Israeli mini-Gmafia) to a "singles" party (whatever is the proper term for it) of the local Jewish community.

Since the community here consists of about 1,000 people, about 80% of which are over 50 and the "young ones" are long married, I had - let's say - not too many expectations of the event, but as it turned out, the real local Jewish community was almost no part of it, and instead many "temps" such as myself.
By yhr time I arrived, everybody was quite drunk with the free wine and beers, and the guy that took up DJing decided to play a kind of funky/ jazzy afro-house kind of thing, which seemed to be working quite well with the wine(s). By the end of the evening he was escorted by a guy playing saxophone live and a girl singing "da-ba-da-ba". Quite a surprising (and fun) experience.

Hopppefully, ... before too long I might be able to give a report from the London Film Festival in which Eran's Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (The Band's visit) will be starring like it does in any other festival recently :)