Another Reason To Miss Target

I'm attending a potluck meet up of Americans tomorrow with the theme of Mexican food.  We're all so excited because, Mexican food here?  Not good. 

While shopping for ingredients to the cucumber salad and the avocado and goat cheese dip I'm making, I had a brainstorm... margaritas!  Woohoo!!  What would make Mexican food even better?  Tequilaaaah. 

Unfortunately, I quickly came up on another roadblock placed by Rip-Off Ireland.  One pint-sized bottle of tequila = 35 euro!  What??? 

I soooo miss the Margarita Bucket mix from Tar-gay!  Add a bottle, freeze to slushiness in the (full-sized) freezer, and voila!  Good times.

Am I spoiled?

In preparation for my apartment move in 2 weeks - YEAH! - I popped over to An Post at lunch yesterday to pick up a change of address form.

Imagine my surprise, shock and outright horror at the realization that there's a charge for this service! Really? You need to rip me off for €55 just to transfer my mail for a measly 3 months?!!

I can understand this for businesses, but I may get 4 pieces of mail a week given the wonderful dearth of junk mail here. Why do I need to get charged in the first place?

I hate to resort to the "this doesn't happen in America" mantra, but.... Am I just spoiled? Does this make sense to anybody else?

Girls, what's missing from this picture?

Nothing makes it clear to you that you're in a totally different country, and culture, than getting an inside view into it's healthcare system. And, when you're a woman, the contrasts can be quite stark.

Let me start off by saying that this is not a complaint. In fact I've been relatively happy with the healthcare I've received so far here in Ireland. But, today ladies, I bit the bullet and went in for my "women's exam" and let me tell you, Ireland is a very different place than I'm used to.


I think it would help if I highlighted the differences by phrasing this in terms of what was absent or missing from the usual (i.e., American) picture:

• No demand to see your insurance card, because there isn't one.
• No paying up front before you even get in to see the doctor. (Yes, you do have to pay afterwards. This is Ireland, not paradise!)
  
• No huge sheaf of papers to sign and disclaimers to approve in the vain hope of avoiding the inevitable lawsuits.
• No waiting around while your doc rotates between you and 3 other people at the same time. One at a time, baby!
• No extended contact with the nurse prior to your precious few minutes with the doc. No nurse, the doc does it all!
• No being forced to wear a ridiculous paper gown that leaves you exposed, shivering and feeling grossly inadequate... because nothing but the most minimal stripping occurred (I was wearing a skirt so only undies went).
• No privacy during the stripping that did occur. She just turned her back. (Now picture me with dumbfounded look on my face and quite a few seconds delay while it slooowly occurs to me what I'm expected to do).
  
• No nurse in the room as the doc's insurance and proof against possible accusations. Ahh, the innocence. The trust!
  
• No stirrups!
• No fancy wipes afterward :-(
  

What was there was a kind yet authoritative demeanor by a skilled clinician with a fantastic bedside manner. All in all, an interesting but generally positive experience.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm....

The longer I’m here the more I get used to the strangeness of things. Then something happens to remind me that I’m in a foreign country and I have to go “Huh?” Here are just a few that have come up lately.

1. Different standards re what counts as private information: listen to any news broadcast and you’ll hear it; when talking about the criminal of the day, the reporter will come right out and give the poor schmuck’s full address. No glossing around with just the name of the town or the general neighbourhood. Nuh uh. House number and everything. I’m not sure if it’s about shaming him in front of the whole country or what. I guess nobody’s afraid of being sued over here.
2. At the last minute I found out that my Certificate of Registration from the Gardai was about to expire. What does this mean? I have to go stand in another queue, show the same papers I showed a year ago, and pay another €100. Why can’t they issue this thing for the full period I’m allowed to be here on my work permit instead of shaking me down for cash every year?
3. It took me awhile to figure out, but there’s no such thing as prepaid credit cards in Ireland (I wanted one because I’m tired of having to use my US credit card when shopping online). Why not? Because the government tacks on a €40 tax per year for each card! This means no combo debit and Visa/MC cards either. Aaargh!!
4. Another financial thing that gets my goat is the weird rules about savings accounts over here. No such thing as an account that you can sock money away in whenever the urge strikes. You have to set up a regular/monthly account debit and even then most of them have strict rules about how often and how much you can withdraw, and with how much notice. I’m not sure if this helps make the Irish better or worse savers than the U.S.
5. One thing I do like about the financial/banking system here vs. the U.S. is how easily you can electronically transfer money to accounts not your own. All you need to do to send money to somebody (e.g., pay rent) is to have their branch’s Sort Code and the account number and you’re good to go. No charge either!
6. Another cool thing? VAT included in all prices. This means no frantic calculating and guesstimating in your head about the total price of an item or how much your whole shopping cart is going to be. What you see is what you get.

Two-faced

One of the major lessons that's really been brought home to me through this process of moving country and setting out to live the dream is that, even in the midst of adventure and excitement, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) has both an upside and a downside. Case in point - while I very much enjoy the one-on-one nature of my interactions here (my bank's customer service rep recognized me the 2nd time he saw me 2 weeks later!), that person-to-person style of business goes hand in hand with what feels at times like a massive lack of efficiency.

That's probably my biggest complaint right now, and one I have to remind myself to take in context, but NOTHING seems to get done quickly here! It took me three weeks to get a bank account. Why? Because of just how non-streamlined the banking industry seems to be here. Everything needs to go through your original branch. Even if you see a branch on the side of the road and think, "Oh, I'll just stop in there and take care of a little business", that so convenient stop will cost you, my friend! I went in to do an international transfer to my U.S. bank account. After all the forms, etc, etc, were completed, what did I hear? "Thank you Ms. Expat, we'll send this on to your branch and you'll hear back from them tomorrow." What the .....?!! What did I waste my time for with you then?!!

On the other hand, I do really enjoy customer service people on the phone talking to me as if we're buds and the odd bus-stop companion engaging me in conversation and somehow rooting out quite a bit of "personal" info in what seems to be record time!

Plus, I have to say, I've never met a more generous and giving group of people. And I don't think it's the fact that I'm in a social services field or just that I'm a single woman, alone, who apparently looks a good bit younger than her age I've been driven places, taken out to dinner, offered loans and places to stay when my 1st paycheck got messed up then sent somewhere else, and generally had people put themselves out like you wouldn't believe just because they felt it was needed (even when it wasn't). It's actually been overwhelming at times because it's not what an American frame of mind leads you to expect from virtual strangers at all.

I think it's called the silver lining :-)

Saga of the Monkey Cat and other updates

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted an update. Sorry folks, I've just been busy, busy, busy!

OK, so as of our last installment, I was happily anticipating the end of work at the Job From Hell (JFH) and of starting to get packed up to make my move. Thankfully, the end of work came quickly enough for there to be no dead bodies, though it has been pretty surreal being unemployed. It's only been 3 weeks, but I've never been out of work for so long before! It's been a real battle to not wallow in self-imposed guilt for not packing fast enough and for "wasting time". In my own defense though, it's pretty hard to push myself to pack consistently when I haven't known exactly when my leave date is. This also makes it hard to deal with people's excited but frustrating (because I just don't know!) and inevitable question - "So, when are you leaving?"

My understanding of the time frame had been that I would be getting my Irish work permit just about.... oh, like NOW! And, had been expecting to buy a ticket to fly out at the end of June. However, I've fallen afoul of the bureaucracy gods, and I can't even blame the government this time! I got a call from the recruiter yesterday letting me know that the Work Permit Authority didn't receive the application till June 7th and so anticipate that it will be another month!! That is so not what I was expecting to hear. What this tells me is that my new agency's HR department sat on it for almost 4 weeks (!) between when they got it from the recruiter with all of my information, accompanying documents, and Fedexed signature and when they deigned to submit it. What the heck were they doing with it all that time?

So, I'm probably not going to get the work permit for another 4 weeks!! What do I do with myself that long? I certainly didn't plan for this long of a "vacation" and, if I'd known they were going to sit around scratching their ***, I would have stuck around at the JFH for another 2 or 3 weeks and made some much needed money! That's the other big problem, I thought I was being cautious in my estimates, but did not budget for this kind of delay.

So, long story short, yesterday was a bad day. Today is better - I vented to my sister and cousin, and did a not so quick and quite intense supplication to the man upstairs for some major guidance (and maybe a nice lottery windfall). No windfall yet, but I have decided on a couple of things. I'm going to take some friends up on their invitation to their beach house for a couple of days next week, will now be packing like a madwoman to completely clear out my house by the end of next week and leave it available for new tenants starting July 1st (I'm already selling off some stuff through Craigslist - the dining room table goes tonight), and plan to trek down to Miami for the week of July 4th (Independence Day) to hang out with family and friends and eat cheap :-) In the meantime, there's still a million and one things to do. I think I'll be taking up my friends on the offers of packing help in the next several days and making a few trips to the storage place.

Thankfully, my sweetie, the above referenced Monkey Cat (as a kitten, she looked just like a lemur), does have a place to stay for the 6 months before I can bring her over to Ireland. It's not free (my cousin's daughter "decided" to get asthma, so no free family visitation for the MC), but is still cheaper by far and a whole lot more humane than the worst case scenario, which would have been placing her in a kennel. Small wire cages and once a day free time, what a nightmare that would have been for her! In the meantime, I've gotten the initial microchipping and extra rabies booster done (more money draining from the overloaded wallet) and we're now waiting a couple more weeks before I have to take her back to the vet to get the blood sample, which I have to pay to be sent to a special Kansas (?!) lab to verify that her blood levels are optimal. After that, nothing to do but wait out the 6 month holding time before I can finish up the paperwork to bring her over.

Here's a picture of my baby. It's a little blurred, so it doesn't really do her total and complete cuteness justice!



Pretty much the last thing that's still hanging in the air for me is my car. Still no takers for assuming my lease, so I went ahead and listed it for sale yesterday. I would probably make enough to cover VW's payoff amount. Even if not, the remaining amount shouldn't be higher than it would be for me to continue to pay for the lease for several more months. We'll see.

Thankfully, not everything has been stressful. I have had a couple of extremely fun Bon Voyage parties (yeah, me!) and had a chance to hang out with some great friends at the local Irish pub "practicing" :-) I actually have another party on Saturday. Eating deep fried whitefish and hushpuppies while sitting out on the deck in the middle of the country. Darn, I really love the South sometimes! :-)

Things I Hate!

1) Companies that withdraw my favorite products/items. Am I that odd that nobody else likes the things I'm addicted to? I still miss, crave (and complain bitterly about every chance I get, even after almost 10 years) Ben and Jerry's Dastardly Mash ice cream. A combination of New York Super Fudge Chunk and raisins. Mmmm, creamy goodness! What is it about raisins that just makes the world a little brighter place?

Panera Bread also episodically will remove my favorite salad, the Fandango. And, now, Quizno's Subs has decided, in some flash of stupid corporate reasoning, to phase out the Cabo Chicken sandwich. It's the best thing in there you stupid, bureaucratic numbskulls! OK, maybe it's only my opinion, but there must be someone else out there who agrees with me? Tell me I'm not crazy and that that combination of chicken, bacon, chipotle mayo, cheddar cheese, spring mix and guacamole doesn't completely do it for you?!

2) Drivers who don't use their indicator. It's basic courtesy and consideration for everybody else on the road. Didn't your mother teach you any manners?

3) Unprofessional behavior. Getting back to someone in the timeframe you specifically promised, or at least letting them know that things are delayed, is also simple, basic courtesy. I got an email today telling me that the Saudi Arabia job I'd applied for 2 months ago is now approved. For all the money I could have thought to ask for! $97,000 in a country with no taxes would be equal to about $126,000 (gross in the US) + free housing and no transportation costs. If I'd received this offer 2 months ago, when they were supposed to get back to me, I would have been hardpressed not to accept. Of course, I would be having some second thoughts now, what with Iran rattling it's sabers and the rest of the Gulf states buying up weapons at an increased rate. But still, it would only have been for a year or two! Hmmm, and I've only accepted the "temporary" offer from Ireland, nothing's permanent yet.... I can almost hear my mother crying out, "Nooo!!!" Don't worry mom, I remember what you taught me about keeping a promise :-) Plus, now I'm already emotionally committed to Ireland. And, really, what's a few more bucks anyway?

I have to think that this is the Lord's leading, telling me that Ireland is where I'm supposed to be. And, in a way, I guess I get the best of both worlds - after years of feeling like I had so few options in terms of job availability in the U.S., now I know my skills are wanted somewhere!

OK, so I know there are only 3 things on this list, but it is Easter, so I'm trying to be thankful for all my gifts. Still, these 3 had to be said.

Fool me once

I have egg on my face. I am so not up on numbers and money issues! It turned out that the amount VW had listed as the residual owed on my lease isn't actually the "payoff" value. That's $10,000 more! So, selling it isn't an option. I'm going to have to go with the swap-a-lease option. Not as easy. More fuss. Sigh.