One Year

We marked our first year on Irish soil at approximately 11 a.m. on August 9.  To celebrate, we partook of one my favorite celebratory activities:  Going out to eat.

In the Carrickmines shopping centre, there's a restaurant called Barry & Browne.  It's quite small but even so, it would always be packed whenever we saw it, which is typically a good indication of the quality of the food and ambiance.

I had as yet to experience a full Irish breakfast, and I figured there was no better time than our one-year anniversary.  A "full Irish" can have a few variations but it typically consists of eggs, toast, beans, potatoes, bacon, sausage, white pudding, and black pudding (sometimes there are mushrooms but my version did not include this).  I also ordered some garlic parmesan fries to round out the meal.

Here's a photo of my feast:

Hidden beneath the eggs is the bacon.  In Ireland, bacon is called a rasher (rasher can also indicate the amount of bacon, e.g. one piece).  It's a slice of back bacon and different from a strip of bacon (here, the strips of bacon that most Americans are familiar with are called "streaky bacon").

The two round sausage-patty-looking items are the white pudding (which is brown) and the black pudding (which is black).  As you have no doubt guessed, "pudding" means something different here as well.  The word is thought to be derived from the Old French word "boudin" which referred to encased ingredients like a sausage.  Pudding typically consists of oatmeal, onions, spices, suet/fat, and sometimes pork.  Black pudding has an extra ingredient:  Blood.

Yes, they add blood to the mix for black pudding.

I eat meat which, of course, contained blood at some point.  However, unless I were eating prime rib, my hamburger or steak would not be drenched in blood.

As I was eating the black pudding, the thing that kept going through my mind, getting louder and louder, was "They add blood to this.  They add blood to this.  THEY FREAKIN' ADD BLOOD TO THIS!"  That turned my stomach a bit, and I only wound up consuming half of the patty.  But now I can say that I've tried black pudding, and I know I don't want to eat it ever again if I can help it.

Apart from that, my meal was really good.  I can't comment on the beans, however, because those got shuffled over to the vegetarian at the table (Eli).

After we got home, we talked about our successes and challenges of being here for a year.  We also talked about what we've liked so far.  (My friend Leanne once asked me what my favorite thing has been so far and what I'm looking forward to doing in the future, so I'll also answer that here.)

My biggest challenge was probably my relocation depression.  Everything was alien to me, I was cut off from any nearby supports (besides Eli), and I felt as though I were trying to take root in hostile soil.  Nothing felt familiar or safe.  In looking back through my blog, I remembered being terrified to ride the tram one stop to the small grocery store in our sister building.

I recall with great clarity one evening in December, nearing the holidays.  I was alone in the apartment (Eli was still at work).  It was about 4 p.m., and it was dark.  (I'm not kidding - in the winter, it gets dark here very early.)  I started to feel suffocated by my isolation.  As I sat on the couch, I looked out the window, across the courtyard.  In the building opposite my position, one of the apartments had their blinds open so I could see people sitting around a table.  The lights of their Christmas tree twinkled across the darkness, and I noticed one person playing with a toddler.  And...I don't know.  For a moment or two, I suddenly didn't feel quite so alone.  Granted, I still had many more weeks of working through depression and feeling unsettled but ever so briefly, things were okay.

More mundane challenges have been trying to find a job.  A few weeks after we arrived, I actually had two interviews with the local Make-a-Wish chapter which is 10 minutes away via tram.  I felt pretty good about it - but they went with another candidate.  I'm being a bit more discerning about my job hunt.  I'm trying to find a position where I'll actually enjoy the job - not just do it because I CAN do it.

I also sometimes have great difficulty understanding someone with a heavy accent.  This has always been an issue for me, and I hate talking on the phone because that increases my inability to figure out what someone is saying.  I'm hoping that as I'm here longer, my comprehension will improve.

Trying to get accustomed to the weather has been interesting.  Sometimes it's windy as hell here.  One time, Eli was coming home from the grocery store.  He got off the tram and as he was walking toward the apartment building, one of his bags of chips (sorry, crisps) got sucked out of a shopping bag and was gone in a flash.  In the summer when the sun is out, it feels like it's right on top of you and any warm day is difficult since houses don't have air conditioning and some, like ours, don't even have a blower to move air around inside.  It's been amusing because at times, I'll be out in a T-shirt and shorts and some of the people around me are wearing heavy puffer jackets or parkas.

My successes have included not being terrified of riding the tram anymore!  When there's been a glitch in tram service while I've been out and about, I have a momentary flash of panic and then I start looking for an alternate way home.  I'm not as comfortable in regards to the bus as trying to figure out routes can be a little confusing.

I'm also starting to feel more settled here.  Things don't seem quite as foreign.  Of course, moving to a new place set me back a bit because I'm having to learn the rhythms of a new home and new surrounding.  However, I don't have the added stress of learning my way around a new country so that's helped the process go a bit more smoothly.

As for the things I've enjoyed about being here, first and foremost is that I'm not in the US right now.  Don't get me wrong - I am still very much impacted emotionally by the clusterfuckery that's going on across the pond, but it's nice not to be stuck in the middle of it.  There are racist idiots everywhere, including Ireland, but I'm not inundated by it here.  Also refreshing is the fact that "gun culture" is not a thing here.  Random violence can happen anywhere, but I don't really fear being gunned down at the store or the library.

Another nice thing is that we're very close to the sea.  On our walk to/from the tram platform, we can look out and actually see the expanse of water.  That's pretty cool.

Ireland has very good island-wide transport and, with it being relatively small, you can get from the east coast to the west coast by train in about 2.5 or 3 hours.  One of the things I'm looking forward to is being able to do more exploring and learning more about the places and history that make up this country.

Our journey here seems like a fuzzy blur or, as Eli has said, seems like it happened to someone else.  I'm glad we both documented the move, but I admit it gives me some anxiety when I re-read those chronicles, brings back the immense stress we endured to get here.

I do miss my home state from time to time.  I follow some Minnesota folks on the socials, and I feel a little pang when someone posts a photo of Lake Superior or talks about all the great food at the State Fair.

It was still dark when I got up this morning.  I pulled the window shade aside and glanced up at the lightening sky.  There was Orion, shining brightly in the inky blue-black darkness.  I remember standing outside in Minnesota, looking up to see the stars, always happy when I could find Orion.  Seeing the same constellation here reminded me that I'm not as far from home as I think.

Not Enough Salt in the World

Things have settled down a bit (knock wood) but when we were first moving into this house, it felt like the place was cursed and that there wasn't enough salt in the world to cleanse it.  I'm basically recounting this to have a record, even though the worst of things seems to have passed (wood knocking intensifies).

Our official move-in date was July 11 - one of the hottest days of the year.  It was near 80 degrees.  While I realize that doesn't sound terrible, you have to understand that the heat here is different.  And that houses are built to retain heat.  And that houses don't have air conditioning.  And that some houses - like ours - don't have a ventilation system to help move air around.  And that the blinds on our five southern-facing windows block the sun but seem to magnify the heat, so it feels like a blast furnace when you're standing two feet away.

It was 95 degrees inside the house when we moved in.  We had no fans because up until this point, we hadn't needed them.  Our apartment had constant air movement and was on the north side of the building, protected from the sun.

Eli and the cats stayed at the house that night; I, however, knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I headed back to the apartment, which we had under lease until July 31.

I came back over on Saturday morning (July 12), and it wasn't long before I was headed back to the apartment with cats in tow.  It was just too hot, and we were fearful it would impact the cats' health.  Eli took a long, hot slog around trying to find some fans but, with the heat wave, there were none to be found.

For the most part, Eli stayed at the house while I was at the apartment with the kitties.  There was at least one night where he went back over to the apartment to escape the heat and have access to internet, since we didn't have that set up yet in the house (more on that later).

We moved the cats back on Sunday, July 20.  They seemed a bit more comfortable, not as skittish upon arrival, since they'd already spent some time at the house.  Norris started panting a bit but otherwise he was acting normally; eventually, his breathing normalized.

Patrick somehow got on top of the kitchen cabinets AND he got up on the banister overlooking a drop onto the stairs.  And at some point, Norris got up on the banister.  Because I wasn't stressed enough without worrying that they were going to plunge off the side and fall onto the stairs.

I went back over to the apartment to get some of my things.  I started up the dishwasher to clean up the dishes from the morning and cried a bit as I was feeling overwhelmed.

The house windows in the dining area and living room face the sidewalk, and Patrick especially enjoys sitting on the sill.  More than one person walked by and smiled when they saw him.

I felt quite uneasy being at the house by myself.  I think I felt the same when we were first at the apartment.  Part of my issue at the house was that there's no air handler here making a constant white noise.  With that missing, I felt very edgy and anxious.

Now I'm going to launch into the nightmare we endured while trying to get internet connected.

At the start of July, Eli called Virgin Media and signed up for their internet/TV package.  They shipped the necessary equipment, but said someone needed to come out and do something so things would work.  Our tech appointment was scheduled for Tuesday, July 22 between noon and four p.m.

At 5:30 p.m. on that date, it became clear that no one was going to show up.  I called Virgin Media to ask where in the hell the tech was since no one showed up and we received no email/text/call stating they weren't coming. Wait time to speak with someone was 30 minutes, and they shut down at 6 p.m. I tried to do a chat, and that sent me into an endless loop of nothing.

Gunning for bear, I called them Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., planning to ask what the hell happened and when I could expect someone to come out THAT DAY to get this hooked up. But since I'm not the account holder (Eli is), they wouldn't talk to me.

So Eli called (keep in mind, reader, that this particular week was his busiest week of the month at work).  Virgin Media uses a third-party tech service for their installs and according to the person Eli spoke with at this third-party company, Virgin screwed up while placing the order so the tech service never got it.

Eli then called Virgin Media (because, again, no one was going to talk with me as I wasn't the account holder).  The representative he talked to refused to take responsibility for fucking things up and refused to make things right by getting someone out to us ASAP - she said their next tech appointment was August 5.

Furious with their disregard, we canceled our TV/internet order, not wanting to give them one more cent.

You would think this would be the end of the tale, wouldn't you?  That we'd go to another provider and get things set up, no problem.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  You poor sweet summer child.

I contacted Sky Media to get TV/internet service and placed an order for these services.  However, the Sky rep told me that Virgin still had an active line to our address and until that was released, they couldn't hook us up to their internet service.  The rep asked if we could provide our Virgin Media account number so they could try to do a transfer.

Eli had to talk to Virgin Media a thousand times, trying to get our account number and trying to see when they were actually going to release the line.  Allegedly that was going to happen within 24-48 hours of cancellation, and 48 hours was end of day on Friday.  They said they'd send Eli an email confirmation of the cancellation - to date, we are still waiting for that email.

Friday (July 25), I got a text from Sky Media telling me there was an issue with the internet order.  I contacted Sky and they said the internet portion of our order had been canceled because the account number Virgin provided wasn't working.  Rep put the order in again to see what would happen, and it was rejected again.

Monday (July 28), I got another call from Sky and the rep asked me to contact Virgin to ask for more information (which, of course, would've meant that ELI would've had to have contacted Virgin to ask for more information).

Reader, I was done at that point.  Simply done.

I told the Sky rep to cancel the internet order (which was moot since it had been rejected and wasn't really in play anyway).  I said I was tired of being in between Virgin and Sky, and Virgin wasn't doing what we needed them to do, no matter how many times we called them.  So I was done.

I placed an order with Vodafone to get a mobile broadband device.  Those, you just plug into an electrical outlet and nobody needs to come out to our house to do a damned thing.  I received emails that the order was successful, saw that Vodafone put an authorization to take money out of my bank account....and then I got an email that my order was cancelled because my order "didn't meet the online ordering criteria" while never explaining exactly WHAT the problem was.

I did an online chat with a Vodafone rep.  He said he could see that the order had been cancelled but he couldn't tell me what the problem had been - gave me a list of things it MIGHT be but said since that part is automated, they had no clue what the actual issue was that caused the rejection.

It's a wonder that I still had hair left on my head at this point.

Eli stopped by a company called Three on the way home from work, as they also have mobile broadband devices.  No one really came over to help him, so he was attempting to place an order himself.  A staff member finally came over to tell him they were closing soon (it was nearing 7 p.m. - and the store website said they were open until 9 p.m.)  So he went over to the apartment (which had internet) to finish the Three order...and it went under review so we didn't know if it would be approved or not.

Thankfully, it went through and he was able to stop again at the store to pick up the device.  We got it connected, and it was glorious....until about 3:45 a.m. the next morning, when it stopped working.  I did some of the troubleshooting things and finally, I did a hard reset and that seemed to have fixed it.  We had kept the Sky TV package, so we've had internet and TV service for a couple weeks.

In the midst of all that, we had a cleaning company scheduled to go to the apartment on July 28 at 10 a.m. to do an end-of tenancy deep-clean.  I was at the house, planning to head over to the apartment around 9 a.m. to wait for them to arrive.  At 8:30, I got a text that they were there - even though every confirmation email or text I'd gotten said we were scheduled for 10 a.m.  I texted that I wasn't at the apartment and someone needed to call me.  I didn't hear anything for a few minutes, so I threw on some clothes.  I'd just locked the door when my phone rang.  The office manager apologized up and down, stating a new employee had apparently messed something up - my information all said 10 a.m. but the cleaners were told 8 a.m.  They weren't able to return at 10 a.m. on July 28, but they could come on July 29 at 10 a.m.  I actually spent the night at the apartment on the evening of July 28 because with the way everything was going, I half expected them to show up at 8 a.m. again.  Happily, they arrived at 10:05 a.m. and were gone around noon.

Also in the midst of all that, I had tried to access my US bank account (we still have one, in case we have to pay something on the US side) and got a verification notice that they wanted to send a code....to my US cell number that I don't have anymore. I sent an email asking what I needed to do, and of course, I needed to call them. 

So after the cable/internet debacle where I was already stressed, my phone call kept refusing to go through. Or it went through, to the point I had someone answer the phone, and then I got the recorded message stating my call couldn't be completed. And I was like IT WAS JUST FUCKING COMPLETED ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS?! Eventually, I was able to get through to talk to customer service – nice gal named Jenny.

At this time, we still didn't have internet and I had been using my cell phone's hotspot to be able to connect to the internet. It had been working fine all day – except when I was dealing with the bank, and they were sending verification emails that I couldn't see because my damned hotspot was throttling or something stupid. Jenny took all the phone numbers off my account, and she suggested I download an authenticator app so I could sign into my bank account more easily. We'd already been on the phone for 20 minutes by this time, so I told her that I'd try downloading the app and see what happened. Of course, after I hung up with her, my hotspot got over itself and started actually pulling up sites again. I downloaded the authenticator app, and when I went to sign back into my bank account, it gave me a QR code to scan. That triggered the authenticator app to spit up a code, which I entered into the bank website, and I was able to get in.

I know I'm forgetting some details, but that was the gist of what happened during the span of a couple weeks.

For the most part, I'm now dealing with nearly constant construction noise.  Remember that nice field we had right out the front door?  Yeah, a couple weeks after we got here, they basically ripped all of it up, including tearing down some trees (I may or may not've muttered "I hope it falls on you bastards" while I was watching that carnage).  I knew it would happen eventually but it would've been nice to have had more than two weeks of seeing wildflowers and bunnies and birds.  They've since put up a corrugated steel fence so it looks like we're living inside a dumpster.

I think once we've been here for a while, I'll enjoy being here.  It's just been rough getting to that mindset with all the fuckery that's happened.