If you’ve followed along on my instastory, then you’ll know the first few days were not the greatest experience and pretty stressful when I was transition to life in Dublin. Basically, when I arrived in Ireland my first Airbnb did turn out to be the greatest: it was dirty, communication with the host started to go downhill, and after a long flight I just did not feel comfortable. Basically, I learned the “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” lesson hard. So off to a hotel for the first three nights before going to a different Airbnb for a week (which that Airbnb was great, just so much moving.) So, for the first week I bounced and moved around from a hotel to an Airbnb, and oh boyo, it was stressful. It was a lot to process and was a lot to take in at the beginning. Constantly packing and repacking, lugging all of bags across Dublin every few days, and constantly feeling like I was never getting anything done. But, all transitions are hard and sometimes you just have to learn to adapt (after having a meltdown with some Netflix first, of course.) Most of the first week in Dublin I spent my time hunting and searching for a place to live. My goal was to find a place to live by the end of the first week so I could move out of my Airbnb (one last time) and finally settle in. I struggled at first with searching to find a permeant place in Dublin to live on my budget. Dublin is a bit more expensive than I expected, so it made searching for an apartment a bit of an eye opener. My ideal monthly budget was around €500 - €550 a month, and all I really knew was monthly rent ranged from €400 - €800 for cheaper places. Rent.ie, Daft.ie, and Easyroommate.ie were the sites that I jumped around on, but I ultimately had the most success on Daft.ie once I changed my strategy and stopped looking for apartments to rent and started looking more into house shares. On Daft.ie there is a search section called “Shared Accommodations” where you can search renting a room in apartments and homes. You get a lot more results this way versus just searching renting an apartment or a room in an apartment. Most likely you will be renting a room in someone’s home, but there are a few shared apartment spaces listed if you can find them. Naturally, closer to the City Centre is pricier, but living in a shared home is a bit cheaper so you can be closer to the city. Because almost of the jobs I was applying for were either in the City Centre or close to, I wanted to be as close to it without breaking my budget. I started searching based on my preferences (location and price), but what I found to also be successful was using the map feature after finding a location I liked and looking at the properties in the area around it. It was easier to search that way because I could see the prices for that neighbor and know if it was a good price for rent or a scam. What does a scam look like? A lot of the scams will look too good to be true. A brand-new apartment or house for a bare minimum price. A City Centre apartment half the price as the others around it. Or the current tenant coordinating for you to move in and saying the following reasons why you need to pay before getting the keys: they are out of the county, a family member just died and they can’t be there, and the person that is leaving is still there and it would be a violation of their privacy. Now don’t get me wrong, all of these things can also be true a ligament reasons, but if they won’t let you see the place or give you keys at a signing and want you to pay before ALL of that, it’s a scam. I ended up emailing about fourteen different sources about rooms and apartments and only heard back from three: two were an apartment and one was a house share. After viewing all of them, the house share ended up being the best match for me. It is not super far from the City Centre (about 15-20 minutes by bus or a thirty-minute walk), my own room and bathroom (the bathroom was a bonus), and it’s in a great area near a giant Tesco (food is always a priority on my list). It is a bit over what I wanted to spend a month on rent, but I’m here a year and comfort is import so I’ll just have to be smart with my budget. While I was sending resumes and dropping resumes the first week, I really started to focused on it the second week after I was settled in my new place. I used sites like jobs.ie, the company’s career link on their site, and just walking store to store to ask for managers and hand in my resume. Most of the jobs I found to have a lot of vacancies were in retail, hospitality, and tourism and I felt like those were some of the fields I was personally the most qualified for and had the best chance at getting a job quickly in. I applied for maybe seven jobs on a low day and fifteen jobs on a higher day. Anything that seemed promising I would follow up with after a few days and hope to hear back quickly. I heard back from a few retail jobs, had a few interviews, and after following up with them I did manage to land a retail job my second week in Dublin. It was a lot of hustle, stress, and long days; but I am just that sort of person that needs to be organized and have a plan in order before I feel like I can start to relax and really start to explore Ireland. I just sorta felt like if I was out exploring and I didn’t have a job or a place to live I was wasting time, but the time I was spending looking and not getting results I could have been out seeing the city and having fun. Does that make sense or am I over thinking it? I’m probably overthinking it a bit but that is kinda what I do. A side not I should add is patience. Have lots of patience because nothing is done at a super-fast pace. Whether it is applying for a job or an apartment, if you are interested follow up if you want a faster response and don’t expect much on the weekend. It’s not the 24/7 work week like in the states. Well, as far as transitions into moving to a new country with no real plan it was stressful, educational, and worthy of a drink. Or drinksss. xx A Traveler's Bliss | Grace Anne
2 Comments
|
@atravelersbliss(hey - hey you. click the bliss above... do it.) Categories
All
Archives
June 2019
|