* There are so many cars that if you don't cross the street whenever there's an opening, you'll stay put for quite a while.
* Most regular stores close at 7pm, which is insane, and most pubs don't get busy til 9 or 10pm.
* Even the access panels in the streets are gorgeous!
* The sun will come out, at least after the rains go away. But the sunlight is very bright, so buy shades.
* It doesn't get dark until after 10, which is cool.
* Every store will eventually play mid-90's american pop. This is inevitable. Suck it up and deal.
* There are more American fast food stores than there are real sit down restaurants, unless you go to a pub, which is probably twice as expensive as fast food.
* Other than TG4, every tv station has either American or British shows on it. I'm not really sure why.
* The Gardai (Police) don't have guns. Just so you know.
* The tax here is extremely high, but it is included into every price that is listed. However, if you're a non-EU citizen, you can claim something like half of the tax back at the airport. This does not count on food or services (hair cuts, etc) so save most of your receipts.
* It's more expensive to fly out of Ireland than it is to fly into Ireland.

We've now been in Galway almost a full week, and it's been lovely. We've done quite a bit of looking around the city and trying to experience everything that's here. The stores close down quite a bit earlier here than I'm used to, but there are pubs everywhere that are open almost all the time. We've made some kind friends here through the Galway Gamers group. We also went to a lovely concert last night, which was pretty cool. It was in a bar called Róisín Dubh (Row-shin dove) and it was a pretty nice place. VERY loud. The lead singer looked a bit like Badger from Firefly, only younger and a bit taller.

We've had a few disappointments since we got here... Mainly considering that I won't be able to apply to school until 2010 and that means we've got no way to even try to stay here. It'd be almost impossible for me to find a real job here - I'm qualified for absolutely nothing. At least in the states I'd be able to get a substitute teaching job. It's so beautiful here, and I want to stay here so badly... It's absolutely gorgeous, even if it is super crazy expensive here. Almost all of our money has been spent on food, which is not surprising. We've been trying to buy groceries instead of going out to eat, but for some reason there's only one anywhere close and it closes by 7.

It is beautiful here, though, and we still don't know completely what we're going to do. Life is very complicated and everything is all up in the air. Tomorrow is Salem's birthday, so we're going to try to do something interesting for that. After that, we'll probably go to Dublin... It looks like we might have to come back to the states sometime in early June. Trust me, I'm kicking and screaming about that. If there was any way to stay, I'd be all over it. We're still hoping for a miracle.

Hi everyone, time for my first update from Galway.

We're in Galway now, we got here yesterday. It was a looong day. The drive from Bport to NYC was so long, and our friend's car was insanely smaller than necessary. The flight itself wasn't too bad, though for some reason I started panicking when we were waiting... We wound up waiting over an hour actually in the plane because no one could make decisions about how should go first. The landing was actually awesome, it was very gentle and really easy. We went through the whole checking in process, which was somewhat slow, but fine. There was no one at customs when we got there, so we just walked through. Talk about slackers. We missed our first bus from the airport, so we had to take the second one. We arrived in town somewhere around 10:35 or so. We booked a room at our hostel - that's where we are now - and spent most of the day napping and wandering the city. It's actually not that big of a city... There are tons of crazy streets that wrap around each other and twist and turn and all that. It's a very confusing layout! We've booked the hostel for a week, so we'll be here at least until the 27th. We might go somewhere else, it all depends.

We went down to the school today, talked to some folks... Apparently, they don't teach primary school education at NUI Galway and the schools which do teach it are mostly in Dublin or in Limerick. Kind of obnoxious, but that's the way it is. The other thing we discovered is that the programs run a year and a half, so I can't even begin to apply until next year. I also need to pass an interview in Irish. I knew that I would need to speak it, but I didn't realize how important it would be that I speak it fluently. So... yeah. We're not sure what we're going to do next, but I'll keep you updated. We are looking into apartments, but I don't have any idea if we'll be able to get one. We shall see.

So yeah, here are some pictures to tide you over.

Tomorrow we'll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store!
One more dawn
One more day
One day more!
~ "One Day More" Les Miserables soundtrack

So, it's true, only one more day until we're on the plan, headed out to Ireland. How exciting is that! Still, I'm getting butterflies in my tummy... -_- But things will be great. It'll be as beautiful as I ever could imagine. Hundreds of pictures will be taken and we'll have a great deal of fun. Wish us luck! Wish us good things! Hopefully my next entry won't be until we're already in Ireland, so I can tell you all about the cool plane ride and the awesome six in the morning arrival... :-D

Lots of love!

Wow, can you believe it? Only 7 more days until it's time to get going. Almost everything is packed, 99% of what we're saving has been shipped to my parent's house (thanks mum and da!) and we currently have more money than we thought we were going to have... Of course, we don't have a place to stay because of that psycho who stole our money, but we at least have more money to live on... We also got a lovely, beautiful digital camera from mom & dad, complete with a 4gig(!) memory card and international plug converter so we can charge it up.

Our current itinerary is as follows:
Party on Sunday night! EVERYONE who's ANYONE will be there. ;)
Leaving on Monday morning - we're shooting for 6ish am.
Drive to NYC - hopefully this takes 7 hours, we're hoping to arrive in NYC about 1pm.
Spend two or so hours looking around NYC (why not? Neither Salem or I have been there before, so it'd be cool).
Be in JFK by 3:30pm at the latest (hopefully 3pm), to navigate through the mounds of security.
Catch plane at 6:30pm.
Arrive at Shannon Airport by 6:30am local time.
Take the bus from Shannon to Galway by 8am.
Go to hostel and SLEEP.
Spend 1st day taking pictures, having fun, and being young and glorious.
Get more sleeeeeep.
Spend 2nd day trying to find a place to live and/or work.
Go from there.

Doesn't it sound so exciting? I know I'm getting nervous. I spent all night dreaming about the trip to NYC and then getting confused and winding up somewhere else, lol. Strangely, I haven't had a single dream actually in Ireland yet. I guess even my subconscious can't believe we're actually going to do it. ^_^

But, until then, I have to write one last essay for my Sci-Fi class, which is due tonight. I also have my Sci-Fi final tonight. Then I have work on Tuesday & Thursday, then I have my final final on Friday (at 8am...) then I work, and that's pretty much it. The rest of the time is doing laundry, packing clothes, trying to find homes for a few scraggler books, emptying our apartment, dodging our landlord, and hopefully saying goodbye to friends. (TTFN, not bye bye forever)

So, yeah, that's all I have to say right now, other than... Isn't my new icon pretty? It's a picture of Galway Bay. ^_^

WARNING: If someone tries to contact you using the names Tabitha Wildfire, Salem Wildfire, or Lynsey Douglas, please ignore them unless you know us. Lynsey Douglas is the "name" of the person who is actually a practiced defrauder. She has defrauded several people in several different countries and is a complete liar and thief. We are currently in the process of attempting to sue her within an inch of her life, but if she's not actually the person known as Lynsey Douglas, then we're going to have a hard time finding her. We do have two addresses, however, so we're hoping that we'll be able to somehow track her down. *crosses fingers*

Also, we are idiots and sent her scans of our passports, so she might use them to try to be us. Which... well, I don't know how far she'll be able to go with it, or even if she'll try to do it, but I really am not happy with the whole thing. I did however crop out most of the information in our passports, but it's very possible that she could use them to try to do any number of things. The good thing is that she doesn't have our SS# or anything quite that important. She also knows that we're poor, so hopefully she won't try to scam any money out of us that way. Either way, we've notified Western Union and we're notifying our bank in the morning.

After trying to do everything this woman asks of us, now our landlady person is telling us that her families lawyer for some reason accepted 6 months of rent from some other man and that unless we can pay an additional 2 or 3 months of rent, we can't have the apartment. Well, no, we can't pay that much right now, or we'll have absolutely no money for ourselves. I'm so livid, I can barely make a complete thought. She swore to us, up and down, that if we simply paid the security deposit and the first month's rent, which we have done faithfully, that we would have the apartment. Now she's rescinding on our agreement, and I have no idea what to do. She says she'll be sending our money back, but we're still going to be out $60 for transfer fees. x_x And we still are going, because we have our flight still and everything. So... grar... I don't know what's going to happen. Watch this space for future info.

We are in some desperate need of information on how to ship a large number of books and breakable, personal items internationally. If anyone has any ideas, please let us know. We're looking for some sort of storage that we can pack ourselves that would be shipping ready, but everything we find is either tiny or gigantic. Please lemme know!

After much annoyance with stupid Western Union, the security deposit has been sent. I still have to send the first month's rent, which will be much easier now that I've actually gotten my gorraming taxes back. Still haven't gotten back my passport, but since Salem's got his and I sent my marriage license to them quite quickly, it should be any time now. Several people have asked to stow away in our luggage, lol. Still haven't told the boss mans yet, but I will soon enough. There's only 45 or so days left til we're gone, wish us luck! We still need a camera of some kind, and we *really* need to get some new shoes for Salem.

Oh, and in case you're interested:

We are selling several D&D books and a classic Indiana Jones book on ebay, so you should go and bid! Click here to check them out! We also offer a bundle package, all three D&D for $45, plus shipping.

I've been trying to send the bloody money for the bloody payment to this chick and nothing is cooperating with me. I tried to go to the Western Union on campus, and no one would really help me. First they took only cash, and then they said that I couldn't transfer the money into Euros. So I get home and I'm looking it up on the internet, and they won't let me bloody transfer in Euros either, only in GBP, which is not equivalent. ARRRRGH.

I hope this girl contacts me soon.

Money to save from each paycheck: $115

Total weeks to save: 7 weeks = $805

Current Savings: $710

Total Savings planned: $1515

Total rent for 3 months + Sec Dep: $1,064.16 (If google serves correctly)

Leaving remainder of: $450.84 = 338 euros

Whatcha think? Is that enough to survive off? And none of this includes whatever else we save or don't spend on groceries, plus NYS Tax Refund (estimated $344 which would make it 596e).


Wishlist for while we're in Ireland:
Digital camera for taking pictures to send to family & friends
Cell phone that works, but if not we'll have to use skype, so everyone should add us to their skype!

We've found an apartment in Galway City! Well, technically it's just outside of the city in a suburb, but it's only about a half mile from the campus, which is so helpful, and we're going to be able to rent month by month. It's not a full apartment, we'll be sharing with someone we have never met, which will be hard I guarantee, but it's better than being homeless. It's also only 200euros a month ($266.04), which is cheaper than our current rent and it comes with internet and all that fun stuff. We're just waiting for the landlady to send us a copy of the lease and we should be all good. I'll let you know if anything falls through, but it seems pretty good on this end...

( Follow the cut for some pictures! )

Whatcha think?

This is so frustrating. I can't seem to get ahold of anyone anywhere to ask questions...

*curses the stupid Irish people for not responding*

I guess I'm just going to have to send what I've got and hope it gets there in time.

Well, it's been an extremely long year full of trials and tribulations, but the time has finally come and the tickets have been bought, and everything is just about ready...

But wait! I have to tell you what's happened!

We got legally married on February 23rd, 2009 and we applied for our passports.

I, Tabitha, am applying for NUI Galway as we speak.

And we bought our plane tickets to Ireland. We are leaving on May 18, 2009, and going to Shannon Airport. Hopefully, shortly thereafter, we will be in Galway and finding a wonderful place to live.

I've been contacting people about apartments, but no one has gotten back to me.

Salem's made friends with some gaming groups, so that'll be fun.

Come hell or high water, we will do this!

But, we need your help. Financially, things are pretty damnably tight right now and if we're going to make it, we're going to need you to help us out. If you want, you can either simply donate to our paypal account (adime_adozen@yahoo.com being our address) or you can contact me either at Storytellingirl on AIM or adime_adozen on YIM for a psychic reading. I charge $20 for a basic, quick psychic reading and upwards of that for a more indepth. I also do tarot readings and past life regressions.

Please contact me! :-D

Well, we haven't been doing what we should have been doing. x_x We are such total slackers, I tell you. It's too late in the year for me to apply to graduate school, plus the application fee is going to be like... really crazy expensive.

So... we're trying a different tact. My idea right now is that we ride out our current lease until it's up in September (or is it October?) and between now and then we've got to get Salem's name change pushed through (we're like, a quarter or so of the way there), we've got to get legally married, got to get passports, got to get work visa's, got to get jobs, and got to get a place to live. x_x Shouldn't be impossible, right? Well, I suppose we'll see. Then, once we're there, I plan on applying for undergraduate work, maybe Irish language studies, and we'll get all the American financial aid that I should have gotten, hopefully. If not... I don't have any idea what we'll do because frankly I'm running out of ideas.

The plan, though, is to just keep on going. Hopefully I'll be able to get a credit card that will help us pay for the important stuff, like the tickets over there and maybe a down payment on an apartment or something.

Here's our current expenses chart, though, just to make sure I have everything all in one place.

Marriage License: $40
Justice of the Peace: Can't find it! Curses!
Passport (2): According to this page it costs $97 per passport, so that's $194 for the both of us.
Work Visas (2): We need to contact the "Consulate General of Ireland" in New York City. We can contact them via email at: congenny@aol.com. Research says a visa should cost between $50 & $150 per person.
Airplane Tickets (2): Current Cheapest - $266 per person (tax included) from NYC to Dublin on US Airways (found via Orbitz) OR $348 per person (tax included) from Rochester to Dublin on Delta Airlines
MAX TOTAL: $1230 (assuming highest cost of everything)

So... We have a change of plans. Not a major one, and not a definite one, but a potential change of plans. If I don't manage to get into grad school, then I figure I'll get any job I can - more than 1 preferably - and save my money as best as I can and then move to Ireland as fast as I can in order to get a teaching certificate over there so I can learn exactly what Ireland wants of their teachers. And teachers are almost always bound to get a job. *sighs and breathes deep* If I do get into grad school, then hopefully Salem and I will be able to go and visit and decide if we'd like to live in Galway or Dublin. Either sounds fine to me. :)

Alrighty, so here are some of the links I've found so far.
Ireland| Travel Visas & Passport Guide
Irish Jobs <-- This is an EXCELLENT resource for anyone who's looking for a job in Ireland. Except, I suppose, if you want to be a Guidance Counselor, because I can't freaking find anything that specific. Ah well. It's still a great resource.
Citizen's Information Gives you the rights of the citizen in Ireland. Extremely informative.

I've found some other websites, but nothing else that is generally as useful as those. Don't worry, though. I'm still on the case!

And the search begins.

My name is Tabitha, I'm 22 and married - in case you want to know. :-D I'm beginning my search today, officially, for a way for my husband and I to move to Ireland in approximately two years. At that point, I hope to have graduated with an MCE, a Master's in Counselor Education in School Counseling. Hopefully, this will help on our move.

We have been wanting to move to Ireland for a year now, and hopefully we will have the chance very soon. Here's where I'll be putting up information that will help me, and possibly you!, find out information on what is required for an American to move to Ireland. I'm currently looking for LJ communities to see if there's anything here I can find. Wish me luck! I'll update again when I find enough info to warrant an entry.

Shade & Sweet Water,
Tabitha