House Hunters International
10 Days: 2 concerts, 3 bridal showers, 4 nights in Dublin. My new mantra lately is "What a wild ride!" Are we exhausted? Yes. Are we riding high on life and loving every minute of it? YES!
There has been a lot of interest in our latest house hunting trip to Dublin -- or as it was called, our "familiarization trip" [which, btw, I'm hoping I never have to say or type the word "familiarization" every again ;)] -- so here is a recap of what these last 10 crazy days have looked like and a peek into our new home in Dublin!
Saturday, August 12th:
Saturday morning kicked off with a lovely shower put on by my mom's three sisters and herself! It was a beautiful sunny day and it was so much fun celebrating with all the tremendous Schneider and Engelhardt women!
After the shower, Chris and I met our close friends Jason & Alyssa downtown for dinner at The Local before heading to the Coldplay concert!
COLDPLAY
Talk about a life changing, bucket list, dance your face off moment! We bought these tickets back in November of 2016, so this was an highly anticipated show for us and they did not disappoint. I've seen Adele, Beyonce [Queen], Gaga, Prince, etc., and I'm [fairly] confident this was the best concert I've ever been to. Chris Martin danced and sang his face off, we all had light up bracelets timed with the show, and they put on a show. I need to know what their confetti budget is. Seriously.
Sunday, August 13th:
Travel day to Dublin! Nothing to report here other than we flew Aer Lingus for the first time and we were served shepherd's pie for dinner -- not too bad!
Monday, August 14th:
We arrived into Dublin at 5:00 a.m. Monday morning and were completely wiped. When we got to our hotel, the Spencer, we were hoping a room would be available, but alas, it was not. So we had no shame and slept on some couches in the hotel lobby. In between cat naps on the couches, we ventured out to see the sites. Chris' new office was just a couple blocks down from the hotel and the iconic Spencer Bridge was right outside our doorstep.
It down poured most of the day and once we were able to get into our room, we cozied up and relaxed for the most part. With everything going on, it was so needed and so appreciated.
Here are a few photos from our walk!
Tuesday, August 15th:
Tuesday was a big day! We got down to business and started our international house hunt! We were picked up in the morning by Maeve, our wonderful Ireland relocation specialist, who was taking us on six property showings.
We saw several properties down in Ballsbridge, Blackrock, and Booterstown, which are all towns or villages outside of Dublin's city centre. I likened it to South Minneapolis. These neighborhoods were incredibly quaint and had community feels. One property was near embassy row and another was right by Aviva Stadium.
Ultimately, we ended up falling in love with a 3 bedroom/3 bath apartment right in the Docklands -- right behind the Spencer Hotel and a 3 minute walk to work for Chris. The building was constructed in 1994, but the owner of the unit just gutted the whole apartment and it's stunning. The Docklands also reminds us of where lived in the North Loop in downtown Minneapolis. We will be one block from the river Liffey; there are markets, coffee shops, and a pizza place run by an Italian family right outside our doorstep [yum!]; and it's the financial district in Dublin. It's a bustling area from 9-5, but quiets down at night.
Here is a look at our new place -- plenty of room for visitors! :)
Our place comes furnished as is, which makes packing that much easier! We are thrilled that it comes with a dishwasher and a washing machine. No dryer -- pretty typical for Europe, but that's okay because we will get a drying rack and utilize our balcony to dry our clothes.
The LUAS, Dublin's lightrail, is right in front of our building, and we are within walking distance of Grand Canal, which has the theater, Facebook, and Google, and we're also just a few blocks down the river from Temple Bar.
Tuesday night, we celebrated with typical Irish libations in Grand Canal at a fantastic restaurant called HQ and enjoyed the beautiful night.
Wednesday, August 16th:
We woke up Wednesday morning feeling relieved and excited to spend the day getting to know Dublin and our new neighborhood. Around mid-morning, we walked into town and saw the famous post office, the Ha' Penny Bridge, and Temple Bar.
Later in the day, we had the opportunity to meet a bunch of Chris' new colleagues for happy hour! A big group of them made the long 3 minute trek from the office to our hotel and met us for drinks and apps. They were all so lovely -- I am so excited for Chris to be surrounded by such fantastic people and to have them has a support system while we're there. We celebrated finding a place to live, Chris' promotion, and our move to Dublin! There was lots of rose to be had! :)
We also got a quick lesson in how to pronounce a few Irish words:
- Dun Laoghaire = done leary
- Quay = key
I'm sure we will be having a lot of pronouncing learning moments!
Post happy hour, Chris and I took a walk to Grand Canal to enjoy the beautiful sunset.
Thursday, August 17th:
Thursday morning, Chris had to head to the office, so I took the opportunity to go for a run. I'm currently training for a 10k and hope to keep up my running when we live in Dublin. I was curious to see what kind of route I could find and also to explore the city in a different way. I got a great view of Aviva Stadium and found a really nice park along the way!
Before lunch, we met with Maeve again to discuss timing for certain appointments that Chris and I will have to make. We need to register with the PPS, which is the social security office in Ireland, set up bank accounts, get cell phones, and also register with the Garda, Ireland's police, to get our resident cards.
For the afternoon, we headed to Dalkey, a small coastal town, just south of Dublin city centre. We took the DART, Dublin's train, for the first time. It was a quick 30 minutes with great views of the coast the whole ride. We had lunch at this cute pub called the Magpie Inn. I had fish and chips [cause duh] and Chris had chicken tacos [?? idk]. While we were enjoying a pint, we had a phone call with our wedding coordinator in Germany and got lots done! We are feeling confident with that aspect of the wedding and look forward to wrapping up plans in the coming weeks. After our chat, we walked the town a bit and then headed back up to city centre to rest up for our travel day back to Minnesota the next day.
Friday, August 18th:
We packed up early Friday morning and said "goodbye for now" to our new home. It was a long 16 hours home, but it felt good to be back in Minnesota and gear up for our upcoming civil nuptials and send-off party!
Saturday, August 19th:
This pictures capture all we did Saturday. We were so happy to be home with our nugget!
Sunday, August 20th:
On Sunday, I was fortunate enough to spend the morning celebrating our upcoming wedding with Chris' side of the family and his mom's best girlfriends. His aunt Maureen and friends Jan and Chris were the most gracious hostesses. Karen's friends couldn't be a better group of women and I am so lucky to be marrying into such a great family!
[also, yes, I wore the same dress to both showers and fun fact: i'm wearing it as i type #targetboutique #thisisnotanad]
Monday, August 21st:
By the time Monday came around, Chris and I were exhausted. It was hard getting up for work, but we were both super excited to get to our respective offices and update all of our work friends on our great trip! It's safe to say we both had a bit of a social day!
That night after dinner, we finally sat down for the night and I knew Lady Gaga was in town and thought just for a second it would be fun to go. So I opened up my SeatGeek app and found some pretty great seats at a much lower cost than they had been going for previously. I turned to Chris and said, "you wanna go to Gaga?" He got a huge grin on his face and told me to pull the trigger! So at 8:00 p.m., we got on our concert garb and raced to St. Paul to see her at the Xcel Energy Center. This was Chris' first time seeing her and my second and needless to say, Mother Monster slayed.
Tuesday, August 22nd:
To round out the craziest 10 days, my Thomson Reuters work family threw Chris and me and a bridal shower / going away party at Lone Oak Grill in Eagan. Deb, Tracy, and Holly organized the "Lucky in Love" themed party and invited not only our TED team, but also my close friends in the Client Management Department. I seriously have the best colleagues around and am going to miss them every day.
To say we're lucky is a gross understatement...
Cheers!
