Who lets their dog s*** on the sidewalk? I mean really!
They do have laws about picking up after dogs, but like many things in Ireland, it is not particularly well enforced. I am starting to think they teach the dogs to aim for the concrete…
Sunday, January 28, 2007
The First Weekend
I took a nice, deep breath…
There wasn’t much to it. I finished unpacking my clothes and getting them put away on shelves and in the closet. Irish bedrooms are very small compared to the US standard (especially secondary bedrooms – usually small enough that you can’t get a bed bigger than a twin inside, or a double would be very tight) and the one I am staying in, though I was offered the larger of the two available, is no exception. It is about 6ft. x 13ft. with a good 9ft. of closet, which is more than I need, furnished with two twin beds, a small table with a small TV, and a small night stand. I can use the kitchen/dining space and living room whenever I need to, but I spend most of my time (when I am here) on the bed watching movies or typing on my laptop (Ireland is also not particularly warm, especially with an older radiator based heating system in the house, so being in bed under the blankets is often the best choice). (I will get some pictures when I can and try to put them up here.) So, most of my weekend was spent doing just that.
I did take a few trips to the shopping center to email and make internet calls. Eventually I will look around and see what other options are avaialbe for internet connection, but for now this will suffice (of course when we get our own place we will have a full time connection). In the same shopping center there is a 24-hour grocery store called Tesco (actually owned by the Walmart corporation, but fortunately there are Irish laws preventing them from doing what Walmart does in the US), so I took my first swing at buying some real food to make myself. At the house there is, oddly enough, a George Forman Grill, so I decided to get ingredients for some simple toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. I also bought some Ramen type noodles (different brand name here), some apples, bananas, bag salad (because I am lazy), and some granola bars. Generally you can get just about everything in a grocery store that you could in the US, though some things have more or less a variety of options. Many of the brands are the same, but some things are completely different, or the same product under a different name.
The food in Ireland is traditionally very basic meat and potatoes types of food, and typically a bit more bland than an American palate might expect, but I would predict that the more and more international Ireland gets (with so many different people moving in), the better the food will get in this regard. So far I haven’t delved too deeply into traditional Irish cuisine, but then again, I never ate “American” food while I was in the US, so why would I eat Irish food in Ireland…
Somehow the days feel a bit shorter, but I think that has to do with the window of time I have available to call the US when people will be awake being fairly short – especially on weekends. They close the mall at 7pm, if you can believe that, so I am only left with a few hours to try and call people, assuming they aren’t sleeping in.
The bulk of my time, however, was just spent watching a few movies, a little PSP game playing, and trying ready myself for the throng of interviews that faced me during the week ahead.
There wasn’t much to it. I finished unpacking my clothes and getting them put away on shelves and in the closet. Irish bedrooms are very small compared to the US standard (especially secondary bedrooms – usually small enough that you can’t get a bed bigger than a twin inside, or a double would be very tight) and the one I am staying in, though I was offered the larger of the two available, is no exception. It is about 6ft. x 13ft. with a good 9ft. of closet, which is more than I need, furnished with two twin beds, a small table with a small TV, and a small night stand. I can use the kitchen/dining space and living room whenever I need to, but I spend most of my time (when I am here) on the bed watching movies or typing on my laptop (Ireland is also not particularly warm, especially with an older radiator based heating system in the house, so being in bed under the blankets is often the best choice). (I will get some pictures when I can and try to put them up here.) So, most of my weekend was spent doing just that.
I did take a few trips to the shopping center to email and make internet calls. Eventually I will look around and see what other options are avaialbe for internet connection, but for now this will suffice (of course when we get our own place we will have a full time connection). In the same shopping center there is a 24-hour grocery store called Tesco (actually owned by the Walmart corporation, but fortunately there are Irish laws preventing them from doing what Walmart does in the US), so I took my first swing at buying some real food to make myself. At the house there is, oddly enough, a George Forman Grill, so I decided to get ingredients for some simple toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. I also bought some Ramen type noodles (different brand name here), some apples, bananas, bag salad (because I am lazy), and some granola bars. Generally you can get just about everything in a grocery store that you could in the US, though some things have more or less a variety of options. Many of the brands are the same, but some things are completely different, or the same product under a different name.
The food in Ireland is traditionally very basic meat and potatoes types of food, and typically a bit more bland than an American palate might expect, but I would predict that the more and more international Ireland gets (with so many different people moving in), the better the food will get in this regard. So far I haven’t delved too deeply into traditional Irish cuisine, but then again, I never ate “American” food while I was in the US, so why would I eat Irish food in Ireland…
Somehow the days feel a bit shorter, but I think that has to do with the window of time I have available to call the US when people will be awake being fairly short – especially on weekends. They close the mall at 7pm, if you can believe that, so I am only left with a few hours to try and call people, assuming they aren’t sleeping in.
The bulk of my time, however, was just spent watching a few movies, a little PSP game playing, and trying ready myself for the throng of interviews that faced me during the week ahead.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
A Note For Blog Readers
On this blog you are able to post comments on each article by clicking the "# comments" link towards the bottom of the article. If anyone has any questions about the experiences I am having or would like to hear more about a specific thing, please post a request in the comments or shoot me an email (please also remember this is a family oriented blog when you are posting o.O ).
The same goes for any errors you might find need correcting in it...
The same goes for any errors you might find need correcting in it...
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The First Interviews
My first interview was at 11am with a firm called McNally Design, which is largely a interiors based firm as I discovered looking at their website. They focus primarily on leisure buildings such as pubs, restaurants and nightclubs. This is a firm that didn’t really seem like it would be the right fit for me, but I still wanted to do my best to land the job in case it happened to be the only firm interested.
To start off, I took the LUAS out to a growing “industrial park” only a few stops south from where I am staying, which was a nice enough area, but soon presented a fairly significant problem: None of the streets were labeled with signs. In Ireland, it is more the standard for street signs to be posted on the walls of buildings at the corner of two streets rather than being shown on a sign at the sidewalk. Unfortunately in this industrial park I found very few buildings that actually had the street names posted. The directions I received from my recruiter on this one were fairly vague, so after 10 minutes of looking I decided to give the company a call to let them know I was having a hard time finding it and see if they could point me in the right direction. They were happy to give me a few directions, which I proceeded to take in exactly the wrong direction…
After a while of wandering, completely lost, I gave the company another call and discovered that I was far from where I was supposed to be. They reassured me that everyone gets lost coming to this place, but that didn’t make me feel better about being late for the meeting. The woman on the phone talked me through walking to their office based on my description of the buildings that were around me. This time the directions were very detailed and I managed to get straight to the building I was supposed to be at a half hour before. When I saw it, I had the sneaking suspicion that I had already walked by it once earlier on, but shook that off and prepared to make up for the folly with pure charm…
The woman I was meeting made me wait a bit, which was only fair since I had made her do the same. When she came in she was very nice, but essentially opened the interview by telling me “I don’t think you’re my guy, but I agreed to see you anyway.” She didn’t put it exactly like that, but that was the gist. Her reasoning was the same as mine in not thinking this was going to be the best fit for me, but I was still determined to win her over.
Because I didn’t have much in the way of interiors experience I focused the discussion more on how the process of design is fairly similar across the board with any creative endeavor and that a good designer could design just about anything given the more finite knowledge of the subject. She was involved in the interview and we had a good discussion, and at the end, she seemed much more interested. I still didn’t expect her to offer me any position, but I felt good about how the interview ended with her considering me at all.
For my second interview with HKR, I made my way back to the LUAS without issue and took the train into city center. The firm was located very near St. Stephen’s Green, in a building that they had redesigned themselves. This was an excellent design, which had me excited from the start (it’s not often that architects really get to work out of a building they design, let alone one that really shows off what they are capable of).
This interview seemed to go very well. I interviewed with one of the company’s directors and he seemed like he would be a great person to work for, great personality and someone I could learn a lot from. His descriptions of how the firm worked sounded like an excellent fit for me, and the whole interview seemed to go off very well. At the end he seemed very interested and this became one of my top picks out of the group of firms that I was interviewing for. (I have yet to hear back from them, so I can’t yet say whether his interest was genuine or not.)
I finished there feeling like I had not come to Ireland for nothing – that there was a firm out there that I could really get something good out of (one of my primary goals for coming to Ireland was to find a really good design environment to work in, and I was seeing this a lot in this particular firm).
I ended the day heading back to the shopping center to do some emailing and chatting and then headed home. This also marked the first night that I ate anything very significant…a piece of pizza… From the flight and my generally unsettled nerves I hadn’t really felt much like eating. At this point though, I decided that the discomfort in my stomach might actually just be extreme hunger and not just stress and indigestion…
The weekend was now ahead of me and I would have time to re-center and take a nice, deep breath.
To start off, I took the LUAS out to a growing “industrial park” only a few stops south from where I am staying, which was a nice enough area, but soon presented a fairly significant problem: None of the streets were labeled with signs. In Ireland, it is more the standard for street signs to be posted on the walls of buildings at the corner of two streets rather than being shown on a sign at the sidewalk. Unfortunately in this industrial park I found very few buildings that actually had the street names posted. The directions I received from my recruiter on this one were fairly vague, so after 10 minutes of looking I decided to give the company a call to let them know I was having a hard time finding it and see if they could point me in the right direction. They were happy to give me a few directions, which I proceeded to take in exactly the wrong direction…
After a while of wandering, completely lost, I gave the company another call and discovered that I was far from where I was supposed to be. They reassured me that everyone gets lost coming to this place, but that didn’t make me feel better about being late for the meeting. The woman on the phone talked me through walking to their office based on my description of the buildings that were around me. This time the directions were very detailed and I managed to get straight to the building I was supposed to be at a half hour before. When I saw it, I had the sneaking suspicion that I had already walked by it once earlier on, but shook that off and prepared to make up for the folly with pure charm…
The woman I was meeting made me wait a bit, which was only fair since I had made her do the same. When she came in she was very nice, but essentially opened the interview by telling me “I don’t think you’re my guy, but I agreed to see you anyway.” She didn’t put it exactly like that, but that was the gist. Her reasoning was the same as mine in not thinking this was going to be the best fit for me, but I was still determined to win her over.
Because I didn’t have much in the way of interiors experience I focused the discussion more on how the process of design is fairly similar across the board with any creative endeavor and that a good designer could design just about anything given the more finite knowledge of the subject. She was involved in the interview and we had a good discussion, and at the end, she seemed much more interested. I still didn’t expect her to offer me any position, but I felt good about how the interview ended with her considering me at all.
For my second interview with HKR, I made my way back to the LUAS without issue and took the train into city center. The firm was located very near St. Stephen’s Green, in a building that they had redesigned themselves. This was an excellent design, which had me excited from the start (it’s not often that architects really get to work out of a building they design, let alone one that really shows off what they are capable of).
This interview seemed to go very well. I interviewed with one of the company’s directors and he seemed like he would be a great person to work for, great personality and someone I could learn a lot from. His descriptions of how the firm worked sounded like an excellent fit for me, and the whole interview seemed to go off very well. At the end he seemed very interested and this became one of my top picks out of the group of firms that I was interviewing for. (I have yet to hear back from them, so I can’t yet say whether his interest was genuine or not.)
I finished there feeling like I had not come to Ireland for nothing – that there was a firm out there that I could really get something good out of (one of my primary goals for coming to Ireland was to find a really good design environment to work in, and I was seeing this a lot in this particular firm).
I ended the day heading back to the shopping center to do some emailing and chatting and then headed home. This also marked the first night that I ate anything very significant…a piece of pizza… From the flight and my generally unsettled nerves I hadn’t really felt much like eating. At this point though, I decided that the discomfort in my stomach might actually just be extreme hunger and not just stress and indigestion…
The weekend was now ahead of me and I would have time to re-center and take a nice, deep breath.
NEWS FLASH!
At the risk of breaking this lovely timeline, I just wanted to throw in an important information update, for those of you who are watching this blog with baited breath…
So far the job search score is:
2 Job Offers
Traynor O’Toole
Henry J. Lyons & Partners Architects
2 Rejections
Oppermann Associates
RKD
Traynor O'Toole a firm that is lower on my list, but still a good solid firm that I would get good experience from. Henry J. Lyons is one of my top three firms, and I will likely take their offer unless one of the others comes in with more money. (For some of you architecture geeks that had looked at my interview list, check the HJLyons site out because they weren’t on the list earlier on. The guy I would work for, worked for a year under Thom Mayne at Morphosis.)
Opperman was also one of my top three firms. RKD was somewhere in the middle. Both of these rejections were based on the experience level needed for the positions available being more than I had to offer. Had they had positions open at a lower level they would likely have been more open to taking me on (IE, they liked me a lot, but don’t have a spot for me at the moment).
Also, for those of you who had heard of my visa process changing woes, I am happy to report that the new Green Card system finally released by the Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment is going to work for me, so there should be no trouble there. This was something I was stressing over even more than the offer situation, so I am feeling a bit more at ease.
Down stomach acid, DOWN!
All of this together pretty much clinches it (barring some unknown roadblock) that we will be living in Dublin for a few years and this thing is actually going to work!
So far the job search score is:
2 Job Offers
Traynor O’Toole
Henry J. Lyons & Partners Architects
2 Rejections
Oppermann Associates
RKD
Traynor O'Toole a firm that is lower on my list, but still a good solid firm that I would get good experience from. Henry J. Lyons is one of my top three firms, and I will likely take their offer unless one of the others comes in with more money. (For some of you architecture geeks that had looked at my interview list, check the HJLyons site out because they weren’t on the list earlier on. The guy I would work for, worked for a year under Thom Mayne at Morphosis.)
Opperman was also one of my top three firms. RKD was somewhere in the middle. Both of these rejections were based on the experience level needed for the positions available being more than I had to offer. Had they had positions open at a lower level they would likely have been more open to taking me on (IE, they liked me a lot, but don’t have a spot for me at the moment).
Also, for those of you who had heard of my visa process changing woes, I am happy to report that the new Green Card system finally released by the Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment is going to work for me, so there should be no trouble there. This was something I was stressing over even more than the offer situation, so I am feeling a bit more at ease.
Down stomach acid, DOWN!
All of this together pretty much clinches it (barring some unknown roadblock) that we will be living in Dublin for a few years and this thing is actually going to work!
The First Day
This was fairly uneventful. I met the woman I am staying with, who is very, very nice and we talked for a while about a variety of things over tea. Once that finished up I took a shower to help me feel like it was really morning and headed for the nearby shopping center (AKA mall – though mall’s in Ireland are much better designed than US malls) to see if I couldn’t find an internet café.
As it turned out I was able to find a small shop in the mall that actually had a free, open wireless connection. I was expecting to have to pay for internet access every time, so this was a nice surprise (most of the other places I have found so far do require a paid log-in of some kind to use them). I checked some things on the web, shot off some emails to let everyone know I made it, and started doing research on some of the firms I would be interviewing with.
I had a meeting scheduled that afternoon with my recruiter (fortunately no interviews on the first day) and when it was time to leave for that, I gathered up my things and headed for the LUAS station. Fortunately there was also a LUAS stop nearby (both the mall and the LUAS are about 15-20 minute walk from where I am staying). The LUAS is very much like the MAX, in that it is an above ground trains system that is currently fairly limited in where it connects to, but eventually will cover a great deal of the metro area. I bought a ticket and got on the next train. From the last stop at St. Stephen’s Green, which is the south edge of city center, it was about a10 minute walk to my recruiters office.
A note on recruitment: They often use recruiters in Ireland, which are kind of like realtors – they help you do something you probably could have done yourself if you had the time and connections, but having them makes your life much easier. In this case, though, you don’t have to pay them. The company that finally hires you pays them based on a percentage of your salary. I assume the companies are willing to pay, because they didn’t have to put a lot of time and money into screening applications and the like. In any case, it seems to be working for me so far. More on this later…
The first meeting with my recruiter, John Duffy, went well enough. It is strange setting something like this up without actually meeting the person. Somehow it always seems a little disappointing – never what you expected. I had contacted about six different recruiting services and the one I am working with (Big Fish Recruitment) happened to jump on the opportunity with the most vigor. By the time I arrived in Ireland he had eight interviews lined up for me. (Over the course it would end up being ten in total and out of ten interviews you’d think someone would be interested…Time will tell.)
Even though he wasn’t exactly what I had pictured in my head, John seemed a good guy and set me up with the information I would need to get to my first interviews, which in Dublin is a task in itself (street names change at just about every intersection, so a map is a must, and often not really enough). He also gave me a bunch of print outs from the companies’ websites so I could study up and be prepared, along with some basic pointers on interviewing, which seemed fairly universal. Rather than trying to go through every interview at once, we decided it would be easiest if I just came in and saw him every few days to get more information. So, with the first two interviews in site, I headed home to get some much needed rest (I ended up staying awake for about 33 hours in total, which is great for getting settled into the new time zone, but a bit rough on your system).
As it turned out I was able to find a small shop in the mall that actually had a free, open wireless connection. I was expecting to have to pay for internet access every time, so this was a nice surprise (most of the other places I have found so far do require a paid log-in of some kind to use them). I checked some things on the web, shot off some emails to let everyone know I made it, and started doing research on some of the firms I would be interviewing with.
I had a meeting scheduled that afternoon with my recruiter (fortunately no interviews on the first day) and when it was time to leave for that, I gathered up my things and headed for the LUAS station. Fortunately there was also a LUAS stop nearby (both the mall and the LUAS are about 15-20 minute walk from where I am staying). The LUAS is very much like the MAX, in that it is an above ground trains system that is currently fairly limited in where it connects to, but eventually will cover a great deal of the metro area. I bought a ticket and got on the next train. From the last stop at St. Stephen’s Green, which is the south edge of city center, it was about a10 minute walk to my recruiters office.
A note on recruitment: They often use recruiters in Ireland, which are kind of like realtors – they help you do something you probably could have done yourself if you had the time and connections, but having them makes your life much easier. In this case, though, you don’t have to pay them. The company that finally hires you pays them based on a percentage of your salary. I assume the companies are willing to pay, because they didn’t have to put a lot of time and money into screening applications and the like. In any case, it seems to be working for me so far. More on this later…
The first meeting with my recruiter, John Duffy, went well enough. It is strange setting something like this up without actually meeting the person. Somehow it always seems a little disappointing – never what you expected. I had contacted about six different recruiting services and the one I am working with (Big Fish Recruitment) happened to jump on the opportunity with the most vigor. By the time I arrived in Ireland he had eight interviews lined up for me. (Over the course it would end up being ten in total and out of ten interviews you’d think someone would be interested…Time will tell.)
Even though he wasn’t exactly what I had pictured in my head, John seemed a good guy and set me up with the information I would need to get to my first interviews, which in Dublin is a task in itself (street names change at just about every intersection, so a map is a must, and often not really enough). He also gave me a bunch of print outs from the companies’ websites so I could study up and be prepared, along with some basic pointers on interviewing, which seemed fairly universal. Rather than trying to go through every interview at once, we decided it would be easiest if I just came in and saw him every few days to get more information. So, with the first two interviews in site, I headed home to get some much needed rest (I ended up staying awake for about 33 hours in total, which is great for getting settled into the new time zone, but a bit rough on your system).
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The Flight
Of course I was still packing for the flight at 10pm or so the night before. I mean, how else do you get ready to leave the country for a few years…? In truth I was fairly well prepared and it wasn’t too difficult getting ready, though still nerve wracking. Lots and lots of deep breaths! I will come back around to packing for things I would have done differently.
Breathe.
Arriving at the airport I ran into my first small bump. I had packed an extra bag (the 3rd) and expected there to be a charge. What we didn’t expect was that instead of a $50 charge (I think Mariah was quoted this), it ended up being a $127 charge. It was probably $50 for in state flights and the $127 for international. This thought did not really make me feel better… At $50 for 50lb. it was a good deal, but at the larger cost, I think shipping some of these things would have been cheaper and I could have done without them for the immediate future. This is not to say I got everything I own in three bags. The rest was already going to have to be shipped later.
In any case, I paid the fee and moved on. Leaving Mariah at the security gate was quite hard, as you might expect, but we managed through it after a few tears (mostly mine) and I headed into the mix. It shouldn’t have been so hard, given the semi-short time period and the happy reasoning, but it was.
Some of you might know that along with my laptop I brought with me my Mac Mini (which is a small computer that measures about 10in x 10in x 4in high) and I am happy to report that I took it through security without difficulty. I had it wrapped in a towel in one of my carry on bags and just took it out into a bin at the scanner like you would with a laptop. No questions asked and I didn’t even manage to break it in the process (they are made of laptop parts, so I wasn’t too worried about its portability).
After that, it was just a matter of waiting and trying to get myself together (I was still reeling from having to leave my beautiful lady behind). I flew to Chicago from Portland and would leave for Dublin from there. Last March we flew through London on our way to Dublin and back, and had a bad experience with timing and security in doing that, so I was hoping to avoid the extra complication of traveling into a separate country and going through security multiple times. As it turns out, this time it was…different...but worse in a lot of ways. I had tickets for a completely separate flight on Aer Lingus from Chicago to Dublin, which meant I had to check in separately with Aer Lingus in Chicago. Once I figured out I had to go to a completely separate terminal for international flights (which seems to be the common for anything heading out of the country) I found my way to the Aer Lingus check-in desk.
The check-in went fine…except… It seems that Aer Lingus puts a weight restriction on carry-on items (6kg for the larger and 4kg for smaller). The US airlines restrict carry-on bags in size only (which makes quite a bit more sense to me, but…), so I had loaded up my carry-on with a few of my heavier and important objects. The weight restriction meant that I had to check my larger carry-on and shell out $100 for another excess checked bag. Before I checked it, I pulled out my Mac Mini and now got to carry it around, wrapped in a towel, in a plastic bag… This was stress that I could have done without…
I did have to go through security again, because in changing terminals I found myself now outside the security area. Fortunately, I again cruised on through security without any difficulties, aside from the general chaos of an international security station (somehow they just seem more frantic and stressful). Once through security I realized…there is almost no food available on the gate side. At the time I didn’t care because I just wanted to get through the stressful part and get on my way, but later I ended up eating part of a pre-made, plastic wrapped sandwich, which wasn’t so pleasant. Note to self: Eat before going through security…
Especially when you have a 3+ hour layover…
Beyond that, the flight from Chicago was actually very uneventful. We had almost no turbulence despite the very windy weather that Dublin was getting. This was an upgrade from our flight last March when we had a few patches of steady air with our turbulence, which made our plane jump and shout and dance an Irish jig. I dozed a little bit towards the end of the flight, but didn’t get any meaningful sleep (which is pretty typical for me). The in-flight movie was garbage (something with that girl from Mean Girls and only the one) on what looked like 80’s tube TV’s. This was a downgrade from our previous flight where we had seatback screens and a fairly extensive selection of flicks. Fortunately I had a few decent movies on my laptop, so I went that route. This flight had very few people, so with no one sitting next to me I was able to spread out a bit more. This I considered a plus, considering the size of your average coach airline seat.
Coming into Dublin early in the morning when it was still dark was quite nice (still dark at 7am amazingly enough). They use the orange (sodium based?) street lights that you can find in Springfield, and the city was beautiful stippled with thousands of these orange dots. Landing went fine and we were all funneled into the immigration lines. I got none of the questions that I expected from the immigration official. He pretty much said, “have a good stay,” and I was on my way (I had been told that I would have to show a lot of documentation proving I had health insurance, money, etc.).
On the flight I had done a few prayers, to whoever it is that regulates Karma, that my bags would actually come through and be in one piece (especially considering I paid well over the worth of half the items just to get them there). These seemed to work for me, because my bags were first out of the chute and I was on my way. It took a taxi ride to get down to where I am staying (the airport is in north Dublin and I am staying in South Dublin), which cost me a mean 52 Euro. The traffic of the morning definitely increased the fair, but it was well worth the price rather than lugging more bags than I could carry onto a bus or something of that sort.
I arrived at the house at around 9:00am Dublin time working on 20 hours awake and was ready to face the first day…
The moral of this story is: Make sure you know the baggage requirements and costs for all the airlines you are taking, or shipping is cheaper than checking, or just make sure your airlines are at least partnered (our first flight was United to London and then BMI, which is a partner to United, over to Dublin), so you can check in for the whole flight at the start (but make sure your layovers are longer than an hour, just there's a lag at security).
Breathe.
Arriving at the airport I ran into my first small bump. I had packed an extra bag (the 3rd) and expected there to be a charge. What we didn’t expect was that instead of a $50 charge (I think Mariah was quoted this), it ended up being a $127 charge. It was probably $50 for in state flights and the $127 for international. This thought did not really make me feel better… At $50 for 50lb. it was a good deal, but at the larger cost, I think shipping some of these things would have been cheaper and I could have done without them for the immediate future. This is not to say I got everything I own in three bags. The rest was already going to have to be shipped later.
In any case, I paid the fee and moved on. Leaving Mariah at the security gate was quite hard, as you might expect, but we managed through it after a few tears (mostly mine) and I headed into the mix. It shouldn’t have been so hard, given the semi-short time period and the happy reasoning, but it was.
Some of you might know that along with my laptop I brought with me my Mac Mini (which is a small computer that measures about 10in x 10in x 4in high) and I am happy to report that I took it through security without difficulty. I had it wrapped in a towel in one of my carry on bags and just took it out into a bin at the scanner like you would with a laptop. No questions asked and I didn’t even manage to break it in the process (they are made of laptop parts, so I wasn’t too worried about its portability).
After that, it was just a matter of waiting and trying to get myself together (I was still reeling from having to leave my beautiful lady behind). I flew to Chicago from Portland and would leave for Dublin from there. Last March we flew through London on our way to Dublin and back, and had a bad experience with timing and security in doing that, so I was hoping to avoid the extra complication of traveling into a separate country and going through security multiple times. As it turns out, this time it was…different...but worse in a lot of ways. I had tickets for a completely separate flight on Aer Lingus from Chicago to Dublin, which meant I had to check in separately with Aer Lingus in Chicago. Once I figured out I had to go to a completely separate terminal for international flights (which seems to be the common for anything heading out of the country) I found my way to the Aer Lingus check-in desk.
The check-in went fine…except… It seems that Aer Lingus puts a weight restriction on carry-on items (6kg for the larger and 4kg for smaller). The US airlines restrict carry-on bags in size only (which makes quite a bit more sense to me, but…), so I had loaded up my carry-on with a few of my heavier and important objects. The weight restriction meant that I had to check my larger carry-on and shell out $100 for another excess checked bag. Before I checked it, I pulled out my Mac Mini and now got to carry it around, wrapped in a towel, in a plastic bag… This was stress that I could have done without…
I did have to go through security again, because in changing terminals I found myself now outside the security area. Fortunately, I again cruised on through security without any difficulties, aside from the general chaos of an international security station (somehow they just seem more frantic and stressful). Once through security I realized…there is almost no food available on the gate side. At the time I didn’t care because I just wanted to get through the stressful part and get on my way, but later I ended up eating part of a pre-made, plastic wrapped sandwich, which wasn’t so pleasant. Note to self: Eat before going through security…
Especially when you have a 3+ hour layover…
Beyond that, the flight from Chicago was actually very uneventful. We had almost no turbulence despite the very windy weather that Dublin was getting. This was an upgrade from our flight last March when we had a few patches of steady air with our turbulence, which made our plane jump and shout and dance an Irish jig. I dozed a little bit towards the end of the flight, but didn’t get any meaningful sleep (which is pretty typical for me). The in-flight movie was garbage (something with that girl from Mean Girls and only the one) on what looked like 80’s tube TV’s. This was a downgrade from our previous flight where we had seatback screens and a fairly extensive selection of flicks. Fortunately I had a few decent movies on my laptop, so I went that route. This flight had very few people, so with no one sitting next to me I was able to spread out a bit more. This I considered a plus, considering the size of your average coach airline seat.
Coming into Dublin early in the morning when it was still dark was quite nice (still dark at 7am amazingly enough). They use the orange (sodium based?) street lights that you can find in Springfield, and the city was beautiful stippled with thousands of these orange dots. Landing went fine and we were all funneled into the immigration lines. I got none of the questions that I expected from the immigration official. He pretty much said, “have a good stay,” and I was on my way (I had been told that I would have to show a lot of documentation proving I had health insurance, money, etc.).
On the flight I had done a few prayers, to whoever it is that regulates Karma, that my bags would actually come through and be in one piece (especially considering I paid well over the worth of half the items just to get them there). These seemed to work for me, because my bags were first out of the chute and I was on my way. It took a taxi ride to get down to where I am staying (the airport is in north Dublin and I am staying in South Dublin), which cost me a mean 52 Euro. The traffic of the morning definitely increased the fair, but it was well worth the price rather than lugging more bags than I could carry onto a bus or something of that sort.
I arrived at the house at around 9:00am Dublin time working on 20 hours awake and was ready to face the first day…
The moral of this story is: Make sure you know the baggage requirements and costs for all the airlines you are taking, or shipping is cheaper than checking, or just make sure your airlines are at least partnered (our first flight was United to London and then BMI, which is a partner to United, over to Dublin), so you can check in for the whole flight at the start (but make sure your layovers are longer than an hour, just there's a lag at security).
Operation Dublin In Effect!
Though Operation Dublin has been in the works for quite some time, it now has its own blog. It may take a while for me to get caught up on logging all that has happened, so keep checking back for new things to come.
Operation Dublin in effect...
Roger, roger…
Ready yourself for a barrage!
Operation Dublin in effect...
Roger, roger…
Ready yourself for a barrage!
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