The home quest continues.  After a week hiatus from the search with a trip to a cold and snowy Paris from the 12th to the 19th we returned with a resolve to redouble our efforts to find a place.  I returned from Paris with a head cold so the past several days have been challenging.  In addition to not feeling very well, the bad weather from Paris continues here, except the snow is rain.  It's just cold, wet and dreary and without a car, it's not fun at all to try and look at two or three different properties per day.

First a little about Paris.  I've been there twice before and Alan once.  We were excited to just be there in the small apartment we rented and imagine ourselves living there for a while.  This is something we both like to do and for a while we thought that after our time here in Dublin we'd spend some months as vagabonds in some of the European cities we've liked.  So far Palma in Mallorca, Madrid and Amsterdam have been considered in this context.  I could see Paris as well but the past week there was pretty miserable weather wise and that so affects the mood of a place.  We really like to walk and the cold, biting wind, with snow, sleet and freezing rain made that hard to do.  Still, I visited the Pompidou Centre http://www.centrepompidou.fr/en and saw two really good exhibits, actually one really good exhibit (Eileen Gray) and the other really crowded (Dali).  Eileen Gray was an Irish woman who practiced as a designer in Paris during her professional career. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Gray

Unfortunately, in addition to bad weather there, we missed our first St. Patrick's Day here.  When I booked this really cheap flight, I didn't take that into account.  We had dinner with our friends last night and they went to a party that they said was awesome and we could have gone!  So all in all not so good a choice for Paris.  But, in the spirit of St. Patrick, here's a funny story about his history done by the RTE http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10122521/

So, now to the hunt for a new home.  We've seen several properties since returning and have really liked two, that couldn't be more different.  One is in Ballsbridge, which meets the criteria of closer to the city center.  The other is in Terenure, which meets all the other criterion, including a much more Irish experience, an extra room in addition to a guest room, convenient access to public transit.  Both are the same price, the one in Terenure is huge and really, really well done, also just around the block from my dear friend Mary, the only problem is that its much further from the city center.  We've made an offer on both and will let the fates decide.  It's an interesting process here in Ireland, a let (or rental) is negotiated just like buying, in that the price is not really the price.  Anyway, it depends on the demand for both because sometimes people go up instead of down, so if someone offers more than us we won't get either.  Fortunately we still have time because I don't think this place is going to sell fast, still, I don't want to be part of that process for very long.

In a renewed effort to try and find something other than my traditional work, I've signed up for a memoir writing class in Sligo at the end of the month.  It's my 65th birthday present and the start of my new resolve to get a memoir about our time here published somewhere (see last post if you want more on that).  I'm looking forward to it.  I have a trip to Lisbon coming up where I will be presenting the results of some work I did for ASAE that's just wrapping up, but after that I'm really going to try and plunge into learning to write a "lively" account of this experience. 

Since I arrived here, I've been thinking about how I might write this experience in something in addition to the blog.  All along I've thought of it as a memoir.  But now, after getting a tiny bit of encouragement from a book editor, I am thinking a little differently, something more along the lines of a 'how to retire to Ireland' book. 

Before we came, I was searching for such a book and came acorss three, all of which are old and none that were really helpful since so many things have changed since the recession and the further establishment of the EU:

• Living & Working in Ireland, 3rd Edition (2009) by Joe Laredo http://www.amazon.com/Living-Working-Ireland-Survival-Handbook/dp/1905303718
• Living Abroad in Ireland, by Steenie Harvey (no date but must be the 1990s)  http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/living/livingabroadin/living_abroad_in_ireland.shtml
• Moving to Ireland, Brendan Connolly & Peter Steadman, 1998 http://books.google.ie/books/about/Moving_to_Ireland.html?id=VcYAAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

 AND NOW, I have a lead sentence: 

There aren’t a lot of street signs in Dublin so you kinda have to know where you are to get where you want to be.

I was further motivated this past weekend to go with this lead.  We've starting looking for a new place to live.  The current apartment is about to be put up for sale and I just don't want to go through all the disruption, especially when there's nothing in it for us to have to (a) keep the place clean all the time and (b) let complete strangers tromp through periodically.  It was hard enough doing it when we were selling our condo.  I just couldn't face it again, particularly since I really like to move anyway. Alan not so much, but he got convinced with the impending sale and is now looking forward to getting something closer to the city center.  Sandymount is nice but it's a suburb really and we both want more vibrancy.  If we could find Dublin's version of Chinatown, like our place in Washington, that would be perfect.  So far, Irishtown (which there really is one) is the closest we've come and that's a possibility since we are looking at a house there tomorrow.  I'm also hoping for some outdoor space, but find that a second bathroom is more important so I think there will have to be compromises.

Anyway, back to my lead sentence.  This weekend we looked at 5 or 6 places, riding through the city on our bikes.  The absence of street signs really made it hard.  Sometimes there would be a name on the map, sometimes not, so that was a challenge too.  The analogy works for so many things since we arrived:  the banking, the health system, the use of words and turn of phrase, the social mores, the metric system and so much more.  Can the book be far behind?  I've identified a need and have the sentence to begin.  That and follow through are all that's needed.  

So the book editor that's been a little encouraging, says my writing has to be 'lively' if it's to be published by her house.  That's my next quest, learning to write "lively." If you are a regular reader of this blog you might think that's a tall order.  

Next post will be about our upcoming trip to Paris...