Almost two years after signing up to move to Ireland, we finally made it. The kids were awesome travelers. They survived the flights and layovers without incident. Everyone started to melt down waiting in line for passport control (myself included.)
Our latest domicile is in Newcastle, County Dublin. (There are a few other Newcastles on the Emerald Isle -- so you must specify the county.) The estate name is Aois Earrach which roughly translates to "late spring." We are about 10 minutes to a decent sized grocery store, 15 minutes from Intel, 25 minutes from the city centre (I'm totally going to adopt British spellings) and a two minute walk to the school here in town but an eight minute drive to the school that had room for the kids. So it goes.
We live right across the street from St. Finian's Church of Ireland and a block down the street from St. Finian's Catholic Church (above.) Because why wouldn't you name two different churches in the same town after the same patron saint? It's not at all confusing. Newcastle has a school, two churches, a pub,a fast food place, a butcher's shop, a gas station, Chinese take away that also sells pizza, a hair dresser, a pharmacy and an acupuncturist -- just the essentials.
The house is nice enough. Plenty of room, I need to attach GPS trackers on the kids to find them. It is an older house so things are a bit sensitive. Each toilet takes just the right touch to get it to flush. All the doors have different locks and you have to hold the handle up and push the door in while twisting the key at just the right angle to unlock the door. I leave myself an extra five minutes to lock the door when going anywhere. I have completely abandoned the idea of exiting through the laundry room because I can't get the blasted door unlocked. Not using the laundry room door normally wouldn't be so bad except my dryer is in the garage. But I am not complaining (too much) about the dryer being outside, because at least I have one. They have a room where the water heater is called the "hot press" which is where many people dry their clothes.
The yard is fabulous though. Kids have plenty of room to run but are enclosed so I don't have to worry. We get a few cows that graze behind our hedges but the smell isn't too unbearable. We have had an exceptional amount of problems getting settled. Moving is always hard but the incompetence/indifference of the relocation company has been more than slightly frustrating. Over six weeks to get internet...not cool. In Israel we had to live in a hotel for over a month, so it is all relative.
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