Final destination - DUBLIN, IRELAND!

WE'VE ARRIVED! We've actually been here for a little over a week but we've been too busy to update the blog. Where to start???
We got here on sunny Saturday October 8th at 3:40pm, checked into our hostel (Right next to the Guiness Brewery) which was in a dodgy location but only about a 20 minute walk to Temple Bar. We dropped our bags and began the tour of our new home city. First we had a look at the map, got our bearings and then walked down to Temple Bar where we immediately found The Temple Bar and had our FIRST IRISH GUINESS! It was a GREAT pint and Luke and I immediately enjoyed the feel of the Temple Bar district. Lively, packed bars for blocks and blocks full of enthusiastic Dubliners and tourists. Luke chatted with a bloke from Cork (Who had a Polish girlfriend.... The Polish are like the Australians... NO ONE IS AT HOME!) about Dublin and jobs, etc while we watched a Football match (Soccer) between Ireland and Cyprus (Ireland won!) before heading to a new bar called Rogue where we met up with...... SEAN AND DAVE URIE! (And Sean's lovely girlfriend Aubrey and their friends John and Nicola). We all hung out for a few hours and had many laughs while getting right pissed. Welcome to Ireland! Sean then told us that he and Aubrey were hosting a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner and that we were invited to join them! We were also told that if we show up at a bar on the north side of the city for 12:30pm we would be able to watch.... wait for it... wait for it..... HOCKEY!

Sunday we showed up at the bar and yes folks, it was the real deal.... Hockey Night In Canada. Leafs VS Habs. And we had crispy chicken wings and Moosehead beer... just like at home! (This is something that will be held every Sunday. Apparently there are tons of Canadians interested in getting together for the game. Some Canadian guy tapes the games at home and brings them to the bar where they put it on all the T.V.'s and the big screens). We chatted with Sean and Dave, ate our wings and then wandered off to Grafton Street to have a look and buy a mobile... makes it MUCH easier to get a call back from a potential employer when you have a phone, headed back to the hostel to change and freshen up and then walked to Sean and Aubrey's place (About an hour walk from our hostel... not too bad). When we got there we were greeted by Dave, Sean and Aubrey and the smell of Thanksgiving dinner in preparation. Mouthwatering. We were then joined by Aubrey's sister and her boyfriend as well as Aubrey's brother and his girlfriend and John and Nicola. We all chatted and had a good time snacking while Sean cooked and then we feasted on chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, green been & snow peas and gravy. Class. After dinner, Aubrey's brother, John, pulled out the guitar and played & sung a few songs for us. He's got a great voice and some great songs. Soon after, Luke was playing and everyone was singing along. It was fantastic! After some more drinking and laughs the party ended and we all parted ways. It was a great Thanksgiving, and so nice of Sean and Aubrey to invite us.

Monday we moved in with Paddy and Joyce. We got there in the evening after a day spent in the Immigration office so that I could get my Green Card, which I did. From there we headed out to Greystones (About 45 mins on the DART) where we were greeted with enthusiasm and a VERY yummy dinner from Joyce (Homemade soup!) and a chat - Paddy was still at work but joined us later. At about 9:00pm we asked where the local pub was and Paddy said he'd drive us, but of course we said no. Then he decided to join us and ask Joyce to drive. She didn't want to, had to get up early for work, but was quickly convinced that we wouldn't keep her out too late. We went to Horse and Hound (Where my Dad's favourite pint of Guiness is served, according to Paddy) for a few Guiness (When I say a few Guiness, I mean Luke and I each drank 2 in the same amount of time that Paddy slammed back about 5). We convinced Joyce to have a glass and we all had a nice time chatting and laughing. We got home at about 11:30pm... a little later than Joyce had agreed to but we had a good time nonetheless.

Tuesday Luke and I headed into the city to hand out resumes, email resumes, etc. I got a call while sending them off and was invited to an interview with a recruitment agency. We agreed to 11:30am the following day. YAY! From there we wandered around town trying to find me a pair of black dress pants for the interview (I was successful after much searching) and then I recieved another call from another recruitment agency and scheduled an interview with them for the following day at 3:00pm. After that we headed back to Greystones to have dinner with Joyce and Paddy. Another wonderful dinner - Irish Stew. Amazing.

Wednesday Luke and I came into town. Luke came here, to the internet place, while I went to the interview with the first company. It went well - I was put through a typing test as well as a Microsoft Word test (Apparently I'm not that great with Word... who knew there were so many things you could do with it?? Apparently not me!). I then met with a couple of people to discuss my qualifications, etc and then I was set free with the promise of a call and a job. Apparently I have a very good resume so I wasn't worried. After that appointment Luke and I grabbed lunch and then headed out to Blackrock (Out of town on the DART) for the next interview. While I went through it Luke had a pint at the local pub. The interview was crap (Kind of rushed and not all that informative.... apparently they had no positions available in my line of work at the moment but they would keep in touch). I joined Luke for a pint where we then met a crazy older woman from Ottawa who asked me for my phone number and gave me hers... Kinda strange but interesting. Then we headed back to town to meet Dar, a guy that Luke has been communicating with VIA email. We met him and his girlfriend in the city centre at The Temple Bar where we had a quick intro and chat and pint. After that beer we headed to another bar where the Poland VS England and Ireland VS Switzerland matches were on. We all crammed ourselves into a tiny room in the bar (The only area that was showing the Poland game), had a bite to eat and chatted above the noise until the game began and Luke was lost to us all. Halfway through the game the other two left and went into the main bar where they watched the end of the Ireland game (Ireland is now out and Poland lost to England in what was one of the worst football matched I've witnessed. They played horribly). After the game Luke and I headed back into Greystones where we hung out with Joyce and Paddy before hitting the sack fairly early.

Thursday at noon Luke was called for an interview at MBNA for 4:00pm so he rushed to iron his shirt and pants (Well, Joyce couldn't stand to see him do it incorrectly so she helped... LOL) and while he got ready Sarah Jane and Joyce took me to have coffee at a lovely place where we sipped our coffees while sitting in the back garden. Beautiful weather (Which we had had every day so far). Sun shining. Great. We went back to the house afterward where Luke was finishing up and Sarah Jane and I drove him to catch the DART to town. I opted to stay in Greystones as I figured there was no point in spending money going out there if I was just going to wait around for him, spending more money just to entertain myself in town. I spent the afternoon partly at Sarah Jane's searching the net for an apartment and then playing with Lorna at J & P's. What a great kid. (For those of you that don't know Sarah Jane, she is J & P's daughter and Lorna is their granddaughter). Luke was home at about 6:30pm and when he arrived we had dinner... DELICIOUS... AGAIN!

Friday Luke and I went to see a couple of apartments. The first appointment was at 12:30pm and we ended up putting a deposit on it by 3:30pm as the apartments here go REALLY fast (He rented BOTH of his apartments that day, the first day of showings!) and it is a 3 minute walk to the DART station and only a 10-15 minute walk to Grafton Street, O'Connell Street, Temple Bar. Great location (Pictures to come soon...). That night we went back to Greystones and had dinner with J & P and then the three of us headed out to Horse and Hound for a night out. We left at about 8:30pm (We were going to walk there a later but we figured we'd catch a ride with Sarah Jane who was heading to a friends house for some lingerie party thing....). We ordered beers and sat in the quiet, pub area for a little while and then moved on to the bar, pub side afterwards where the four of us got right pissed. Many laughs and good conversation. Sarah Jane ended up meeting us there at about 11:00pm and stayed for a while, joined us for a beer. At about 12:30am we all left, quite drunk, and Sarah took the lot of us to their local fish and chip place where we got... yes, that's right, fish and chips. We brought it all back to the house where we all dug in (Except Sarah Jane, she was DD). Sarah Jane left a short while later while the rest of us stayed up, continued to drink and had a way too serious conversation that turned into a sort-of argument and then we all went to bed. (Not a big deal, just too serious a topic for a bunch of drunks).

Saturday Joyce woke up with a headache and Paddy SAID he didn't feel bad but I'm sure he did as he was up and out of the house pretty early to go to work for the day. Luke and I decided to take a walk into Greystones where we found the coast and walked down the beach for a good couple of hours, along the traintracks between the water and the golf courses. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, we were both way overdressed in our sweatshirts. It was great. After the walk we hit a pub in Greystones where we enjoyed a couple of pints and called our parents to tell them the news of Luke's job and our apartment. Afterwards we headed back to J & P's where we had another wonderful dinner... Shepherd's pie with HP (Brown sauce, as they call it here... not AT ALL appealing sounding...) and went to bed fairly early as we were due to get up fairly early the following morning.

Sunday Luke and I got our shit together and went into the city where we found ourselves a hotel for the night. Luke had to start work at 8:00am and we needed to buy stuff for the apartment (We were moving in the next day) but we didn't want to have to lug it out to Greystones and then back in the following day so we decided to splurge a little and stay in a hotel so that Luke didn't have to get up at 5:00am to catch the DART and I could load all of our purchases into a cab to get it to the apartment. It was great... we bought lovely red sheets, a brown duvet, a couple of pillows, cutlery, an alarm clock (Really cool one), IPOD speakers, a towel set, dishes, glasses, etc, etc... It was pretty fun to start from scratch as I haven't had to do that before... (Well, that's not TOTALLY true, this is just the first time I've done it witthout my parents help... they helped set me up in King City years ago.....). We bought everything, brought it back to the hotel and hung out watching T.V. and then went to bed early as Luke had to be up by 6:30am. YUCK. Back to reality.... Reality DOES bite.

Monday Luke was off to work at 7:20am and I was up with him. I left the house at about 8:30am and headed to Grafton Street to see if I could use my La Senza gift certificate (A wedding shower present) but unfortunately I was unable to... I'll use it back in Canada when I come for a visit.... whenever that is.... Anyway, from there I hit the internet cafe where I emailed a few resumes and then I went to the Bank of Ireland to set up an account... NO LUCK. We have to have proof of address, which we won't have until we get a PPS # (The equivalent of a SIN #) because we have to have something mailed to our house in order to prove we live there... you know how it is. Disappointed I headed back to the hotel and got our shit together and ready to be loaded into the cab at noon. I got it all lugged down to the lobby and piled in the car and I was dropped at our new place at 12:15pm where I impatiently waited for the landlord to arrive. He let me in, I signed the lease, he left and I was EXCITED. I immediately put the sheets, duvet and pillows lovingly on the bed, hung the towels in the bathroom, washed the dishes and cutlery and set it all up, put the candles around the apartment, etc.. and then headed out to get some groceries, the pots and pans we forgot to buy the day before and some things from the dollar store - kitchen utensils, candles, dish rags.. you get the picture. I attempted to pack everything into my GIANT backpack but it didn't all fit and it weighed A TON so I ended up hailing a cab to take me back to the apartment. What the hell was I even thinking attempting to carry all of it by myself? I got back to the apartment, set more things up, put the groceries away and got things started for dinner so that we could eat after Luke came home from work. Oh, before all of the cooking and stuff I got a little depressed looking around our non-cozy, non-Jess and Luke apartment so I picked up a 6 pack of Heinekin from the off-licence down the street cause I needed one and thought Luke might need one after his first day back at work. We ate a lovely dinner... the first we've cooked in a long while, chatted, listened to music and made plans to make the apartment more like us. We then hit the sack early. Oh ya.. I got a call at some point during the day to go in to an insurance company to interview for a PA position the following day.

Tuesday Luke headed to work and I got up and ready for my 10:00am interview. It went well so afterwards I went home and spoke to Luke and told him it went well (He's so cute... he always calls me after I have appointments to see how they went... he's always been like that... Doctor, interview, etc.... SO SWEET.) He then asked me to meet him at the Social Welfare Office at 2:00pm so that we could apply for our PPS (Social security). Before I met him I took a walk to try to find a pair of nice boots that I could wear to work if I got the job. On my way to the shops I got a call from the recruitment agency to tell me that YES I got the job. I was now officially working! I was to start the following day! Pretty good pay, I'm a personal assistant to the owner of the insurance company, and la-di-dah. NO complaints here. Looks like we may just be able to afford our rent next month! How grand!

Today I had my first day.... Think it should be ok. The girl training me was nice, the rest of the office is nice, the boss seems ok... pretty demanding but I think it'll be ok. I'm a little nervous but what can you do? On lunch Sonia (My trainer) brought me to town to help me find shoes. Very helpful. After work today I came home and Luke had gone to the grocery store, bought some yummy stuff, brought home red wine and cooked dinner... The wonderful husband that he is. I work until 5:30pm and he only works til 5:00pm so it will probably be that way most of the time. After dinner we had a smoke, glass of wine and a chat and now we're here doing this. Afterwards we will go to a nice pub that Luke saw earlier this week where we will have ONE pint and then head back to the apartment to get a good night's sleep.

I'll update the blog next week sometime... I think it'll be easier to update on a weekly basis and I'll do so with less detail cause I imagine things will get pretty busy with work and setting the apartment up and shopping, etc. We'll see.

I hope all of you are well. Luke and I are fine so none of you have to worry about us anymore if you were. We'll be fine and we're NOT COMING BACK anytime soon as I'm sure many of you thought we would. We've done it! We actually pulled it off! We can hardly believe it! YAY!