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5 Things I am loving about Dublin

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We have lived here for a few months, these are things that I love about Dublin, Irelandlovin dublinHaving been living in Dublin, Ireland for a little over a month, I am well aware that I haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of what it has to offer! However, here are 5 things I am loving about Dublin right now (and in no particular order!):

1. All the Christmas Craic

Side note: Craic is a term the Irish use here for vibe/atmosphere/fun. For example, That pub was really good craic.

There is something to be said about winter and Christmas, they just go together. Growing up my mum used to always tell us that Christmas wasn’t Christmas without snow. I guess it wasn’t Christmas for her when we were lounging in a pool and having a braai outside. Granted I grew up in Durban, and most Christmases were overcast and grey back home. But, it was never cold!

37 dawson streetSince I have arrived in Dublin, the atmosphere around this holiday is just electric. Christmas music playing, homes heavily decorated, families going out and picking fresh, live Christmas trees. It really feels like Christmas should be, and I am loving it. Best of all, I think it has turned Rob from a proper grinch to someone who wears matching Christmas sweaters and wears his Rudolph beanie out in public on any random day.

2. The Sunsets

If you follow me on Instagram you will know that I post a lot of pics of my view on our walks and travels around Dublin so far. The sunsets here can definitely compete to the ones in Joburg. I used to think nothing could beat a Jozi sunset, but I am starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, Dublin can.

A photo posted by Meg (@getfithappy) on
Note: this is unedited, #nofilter, pure Dublin sunset (perhaps the only downside is that this was taken at 4pm).

3. Recycling

Recycling is a BIG thing over here. Our street is too narrow to have big wheelie bins, so we have to leave our garbage out in colour-coded bags. The bags have very clear instructions on what can and cannot be put inside them (for example – no glass in the recycling bag, you have to take it to a glass depot, located in your town. The closest one to us is about 1 km away near the stadium). The one big shock to both of us was you have to buy these special branded garbage bags – you have to use them – or they won’t take our rubbish away. Not sure if that is because we don’t have the wheelie bins, but I think this is standard practice regardless. The yellow bags cost about €3 a bag (that’s R 50!). The clear bags with green writing are for recycling (paper, plastic, tins etc – just not glass). The recycling bags are a bit cheaper, around R 30 a bag.

It is so great that we can recycle quite easily – back home our specific neighbourhood didn’t have an option for recycling pick up, so it made it hard to do. Although having said that, now I walk to recycle. I am beginning to think I was actually quite lazy back in SA. Anyways, we are getting use to recycling now and it is really one of the things I most enjoy about being here.

4. Public Transport

Ok, so I am sure you knew I was going to say this. But let me surprise you – the buses here are not great. In fact, they do not always run on time. The app is super frustrating and unless you know exactly where you want to go, its difficult to navigate. The train is wonderful, but two swans can delay the trains (seriously, that happened a few weeks ago). The tram is great – it has two lines – problem is, the two do not connect, so you have to walk in between. *update: as of December 2017 the tram lines now connect and the green line has been extended further north – hooray!

The one thing Dublin has gotten right is their bike system. It is AMAZING. And that is why it is on my list on things I am loving about Dublin lately. You pay €20 a year to subscribe to the use the bikes (you need a thing card a leap card – which is like a Gautrain card expect you can use it on trains, buses, trams and bikes). There are bike stations all over the city, and one thankfully very close to us. You swipe your card at the bike station, select your bike, and viola! The best part is that if you return the bike to any one of the bike stations around town within 30 minutes – its FREE! Thereafter its like 50c for an additional half hour. Its super cheap for commuting to places and Rob uses this as his main mode of transport to and from work.

dublin bike

5. Tesco’s

I am my mother’s daughter and Dublin has certainly unleashed this bargain queen! I love a good bargain. Since we are on a bit of a tight-ish budget with my salary coming in as Rands, it works out to be about 10 euros (ha! slight exaggeration for effect). So I am always watching the specials and finding bargains. Our firm Friday fave is to buy 99c Tesco double pepperoni pizza – seriously that is under R 16 for a full pizza – ridicoulous!

tesco

I. must. buy. all. the. pizza. (now you know the reason why I NEED to run!)

One of the things Rob and I promised we would NEVER do was compare or make SA sound worse than Dublin. It is not. It never will be. The two just can’t compare. South Africa is where our hearts will always be, but we have big hearts, and I think there may be a little space in there for Dublin too.

WHAT IS THE BEST THING THAT YOU LOVE ABOUT THE CITY YOU LIVE IN?

Live Simply & Travel Slow,

~Meg~

p.s. If social media is your thing (snap! It’s my fave too!), you should totally follow me on Instagram.

p.p.s. I try post varied content once or twice a month, to be sure you don’t miss out on the new post you should sign up and get all the news straight in your inbox – Sign up now!

Take a look at what a home in Dublin looks like

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Take a look at what a home in Dublin looks like - expat life - living abroad - living in Ireland

Take a look at what a home in Dublin looks like - expat life - living abroad - living in Ireland
Dia dhaoibh*, friends from a chilly Dublin, Ireland!

[* This is a gaelic term for hello to more than one person; the direct translation is ‘God be with you’]

It has been one week since I arrived and I am really feeling like I am home. I thought that once I got here it would feel like a bit of a holiday – not permanent, and just for fun. In true Rob and Meg fashion we have jumped in head first and we are loving every minute of it. Last week alone I walked over 67 540 steps; a total of 49,4KM. I am super chuffed I bought a fitbit. It drives everyone around me crazy because I sync and update them regularly but I love seeing how active I am and I am really hoping that once I start running again too, I can finally lose all this weight I have gained over the last few months. Yes, I am in fat mode. Yes, its because I got injured, and I got stressed and moving countries is hard work. But it kills me looking at pictures of how fat I have actually gotten. But I have a plan – watch this space.

I thought today I would share a few pictures of our new home, and what I love/don’t love about it.

For starters, this is our little house:

dublin house

We live on a small but busy street, within walking distance of two parks, and even the beach! We are also walking distance from the Lansdown stadium (where all the rugby happens); this also means we have some pretty great pubs close by (but that’s a given for any true Irish town).

We live in a suburb called Irishtown. It is right on all the main bus routes, so travelling into the city and out is pretty easy. Rob works in the city, he leaves for work at 8:20am (starts at 9am!) which means we get to get up early and walk Jack together, have breakfast together. I am the good wife who packs his bag for him and sends him on his way before I settle down to work myself.

Here is a pic of my little home office:

dublin home office

I work in the lounge/dining room area of our house. The house has two fireplaces: one in the lounge and one in our bedroom. It is an old house, like very old. Rob has termed it the rusty bucket. I like to think of it as a quaint elf cottage. It is not suited for tall people.

dublin lounge

Our house has the lounge area, kitchen and courtyard on the ground floor, then a staircase as you come into the front door that takes you up to the bathroom and two bedrooms.

dublin kitchen

The kitchen has a low ceiling, and its small. The appliances are very old – atleast 50 years old but they work, so we can’t complain.

dublin bathroomThe bathroom has a gas shower in the bathtub. Thankfully the water is always hot and the pressure is pretty good. But we have to bend our heads while showering, as the skylight and ceiling are pretty low (hence my thinking it’s better suited for elves).

The bedrooms are full of natural light, which is actually beautiful. Here is a pic of our bedroom (Jack’s fave place is on the bed with the sun coming in):

dublin bedroom

The house also comes with a lot of storage space and plenty of cupboards – this is unlike most places here, so we are pretty thankful for the extra space. Our bedroom is my fave place, it is so airy and light.

The house came with all the furniture, it is not the best stuff, but it has saved us a lot of money not having to buy anything just yet. It even came with cutlery and plates etc – so we have all the basics and can get by while we wait for our 3 boxes to arrive. I am told the boxes could be anytime in December… but I am not holding my breath. We decided against buying a TV. We are currently watched series off the computer, because the one thing I love about our house is the uncapped wifi – how we did life before high speed internet is beyond me.

Most people in Ireland don’t really have that homely vibe like people in SA. Here, you generally try to get out of the house and visit people at pubs or parks – not like in SA where you are always going over to a friend’s place for a braai. I think Rob and I will be the same in that the house is small, and we will go crazy if we don’t get out when we can.

Another great plus to having a small house is that this is less of it to clean! So you would think it wouldn’t take too long to clean – you would be wrong. We learnt quite quickly that our view on cleanliness is VERY different to here. I am not sure if it is how Rob and I were raised, but our mother’s would have heart failure at the thick layer of grime and dirt that has just built up all over this house over lack of cleaning. We got stuck in and literally cleaned the house all of Sunday, and I still feel as though its not clean enough. It will take a lot of days of deep cleaning to get it looking and feeling the way I want it to look. I feel like I may be classified as an extreme cleaner – but I would rather be called that then live in filth.

So that is our little Irish house, and the start of many great adventures to come.

What do you love about your house? Are you a neat freak or a secret slob at home?

Unlock the simple life,

~Meg~

p.s. If social media is your thing (snap! It’s my fave too!), you should totally follow me on Instagram.

p.p.s. I try post varied content once or twice a month, to be sure you don’t miss out on the new post you should sign up and get all the news straight in your inbox – Sign up now!

Our Big News

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big news

This month has honestly felt like it has flown by but at the same time, stood still. We have been keeping a big secret, some pretty big news and I just can’t wait to share it with you.

And before any of you get all worked up…. I am not pregnant! (seriously, everyone thinks that first. Like do you not know me!?)

Our Big News is that we are going to be MOVING! But here is the kicker… we are moving to DUBLIN, IRELAND!

How Did This Start?

While we were on our honeymoon, last year October, we had a serious heart-to-heart about what we wanted out of life. Where we saw our lives going and what life in general was all about. Over our time dating, we have had a lot of these deep and meaningful conversations, but it suddenly felt more real knowing that we were finally married and now we needed to decide our next big step.

Our Reasons Why?

As most of you know, Rob and I are pretty much on the fence about having children. We are of the opinion if it happens that is cool, if it doesn’t that is also cool. Parenting in general looks like serious hard work and plenty of sacrifices. Rob and I have a great lifestyle of staying up late drinking wine and talking crap, sleeping in or getting up early and going for a run. We both enjoy running and enter a lot of races together. All this would have to change if a kid came onto the scene. We are selfish with our time. So in some ways, in a lot of ways actually, we feel we are not ready to give up our current lifestyle for a new one with kids.

But one thing we both share is our love to experience life and adventure. We both love to travel. We both come from fairly small towns in KZN, and we have always been itching to explore South Africa and the world. When we first moved to Joburg in 2012 we made it our mission to say YES to everything and explore as much as we could of Joburg. I can honestly say we have done a lot, but not nearly as much as we would have liked to.

We love South Africa. Lets first just say we don’t see this move as emigrating or leaving forever. We truly love South Africa. As South Africans we are incredibly spoilt with the kind of lifestyle we have here. The weather, the food, the people, the different places and cultures – it is a melting pot of awesomesauce. We see ourselves coming back home, we just have so much of the world we want to see and unfortunately distance and money right now can’t make that happen as often as we would like to.

our heart is africa

So Why Ireland?

We started exploring our options and seeing where we could live and still explore the world. Rob originally applied for a position in Luxembourg but it fell through. The recruiter he was dealing with gave him a call and they chatted for a while about the reasons for looking at overseas options. He mentioned there was something available in Dublin. Rob and I talked a lot about what that would mean for us.

Our first thoughts were on Jack, our furbaby, who definitely had to come with us. We inquired to see if that was possible with no quarantine time. Tick, no quarantine just some blood work and he needs to be chipped.

We talked about the weather, how it rains so much there and how we wouldn’t have a summer for a while. But then we looked at how affordable and close places were that we could travel to. Spain for 40euros; London for 20euros; Prague for 50euros. Everything was at our finger tips.

We are well aware we are giving up our families being close by, great weather, take out/fine dining, a maid service, and good cheap wine. But we are giving it up for more travel and a different kind of life adventure.

So What Happens Next?

Rob put his CV forward for the job and a few weeks later he got offered the job! The rest is as they say, history. My last month at work will be September. Then in October I will go and spend sometime with my family in KZN. Rob starts his job 1 November so he will go over first to find a place for us to live. Jack and I will follow afterwards. My current job has offered an opportunity to do some contract work for a short time, which will be great while I look for something more permanent over there.

What About The Blog?

So what you might be asking yourself, what will happen to the blog? The blog posts will keep rolling in, my friends! Possibly a bit more sporadically at first while we get settled but now I will have even more things to share with you! How we moved over; our life in Ireland; things to see and do there. There is so much more to talk about and share. So many adventures and experiences to look forward to!

I hope you will stay with me, subscribe to my blog and follow my journey on social media – more than anything I hope you will see this as a positive life twist. We are not leaving, our hearts will always stay here, but our feet have just gone travelling.

love is home

~ Meg ~

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