Our first few days in Dublin have been packed! Trying to get oriented and see things, get to know the neighborhoods so we can see where we want to live, and also do some logistics for being able to live here. Since Jeff doesn’t start work for another few weeks, everyday kind of feels like the weekend, and we have nowhere specific to be so have just been exploring and doing spur of the moment things.

We’ve been walking a ton! Our temporary housing is in an area of Dublin 4 near Grand Canal Dock, just across the street from the Google offices. It’s about a 20 minute walk west of here to get into the center of the city. Not yet knowing the trains or buses, and with the weather being gorgeous and sunny, it’s been great to walk everywhere.

Our first full day, we walked to Ballsbridge, an area south of the city where a lot of the embassies are located. It’s got lots of tree-lined streets, beautiful brick homes, and a cute main street with restaurants/pubs. We found Herbert Park, which has big grassy areas, tennis courts and croquet fields, and a nice playground. Isaac got to run around for awhile, and especially loved this one big slide that he went down over and over. After that, we found a pub in Ballsbridge called Crowe’s, where we sat outside and had fish and chips and Guinness. It’s interesting how kids are welcome in pubs here!

The next day, we met with our realtor, Veron, who is going to help us find a place to live. She is super friendly, has a good sense of what we want, and also used to be a preschool teacher, so she said she can also give us insight into various preschools once we settle on an area. I’m really glad we have her to help us streamline the process of looking for a house!

In the afternoon, we made our first attempt to get our PPS numbers (which is like a social security number that everyone here needs). You need it to open a bank account, rent a house, enroll in school, etc, so it’s pretty much the first thing we have to do. We walked 35 minutes to the office, but once we got there were told they weren’t giving out anymore tickets for the day. We would have to come back tomorrow. We had been warned that things like this often take 3 attempts: 1st time it doesn’t work, 2nd time you get really close but have one piece of paperwork missing or something, and finally the 3rd time you get it right.

On our way back from leaving the PPS office, we decided to walk down Grafton Street, the main pedestrian mall here where people shop, meander, and listen to the many street performers (many of whom are actually quite good). If you’ve seen the movie Once, Grafton Street is where the guy plays guitar as a busker. As you come out of Grafton street, you get to St. Stephen’s Green, which is a big green park in the middle of the city. It reminded us a bit of Boston Common, with duck ponds, flower beds, and fountains. Plus, there’s a nice playground there where we played with Isaac and Rafi for awhile before heading back to our place. 

Next day, we got up and out early so we could try to get to the PPS office right when it opened. Thank goodness we did! The line was already pretty long just to get a ticket. We were prepared to wait for awhile, but luckily, the guy helping Jeff saw that he had two young kids with him and (just like the customs officer at the airport) let him skip the line, which saved us 2 hours. Phew! 

With that errand out of the way, we decided to walk over to the Temple Bar area. It’s an old cobble-stoned part of the city, which is considered the cultural center. At night, it’s kind of a raucous crowded area with lots of pubbing and clubbing, but during the day, it’s a nice place to walk around, grab a bite, see art galleries, and there’s even a children’s cultural center there called the Ark, which I plan to check out. It seems like there are tons of different ethnic restaurants — various Asian cuisines and lots of falafel places! We ended up eating lunch at a fun kind of hipster place called Crackbird, where they only serve chicken! It’s served many different ways (fried, with different sauces, etc.). There were a few veg options, but mostly it’s chicken, chicken, and more chicken!

We headed back to our place to take a rest, and somehow along the way, ended up telling Isaac we would go out later to take a double-decker bus ride, which he was super excited about. So later in the afternoon, we embarked on our double-decker bus adventure. First, had to find a place to buy a ticket. Then, we had to find a bus to take us somewhere…anywhere. Since it was a Friday afternoon at rush hour, several buses went by that were full, but we finally got on one and rode it a few stops. Got out and then decided to walk a bit to look for a place for dinner, but it soon became clear we were in a residential area and Isaac was getting tired and cranky. We decided to hail a cab and took it to Blackrock, a coastal village suburb about 15 minutes from the city. Grabbed a bite and then decided we wanted ice cream. We were told to take the train to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leery), another coastal village suburb, where we found a delicious and popular ice cream place called Scrumdiddly’s. Then took the DART train (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) back to our place. So bus, taxi, and train were all taken that evening. It had been a busy and vehicle-filled day and we were exhausted!