Okay. I’ve found a place to let. It’s in Athy, County Kildare, and that’s pronounced “Athigh”, not “Athee”, despite how Americans read it. Athy’s about 45 miles southwest of Dublin, is about 55 minutes on the train, is large enough to have community theatre of its own, and has a swimming pool across the street from where we’ll be living. The train station is also across the street. The town’s at the convergence of the Wiver Wiffey and the Grand Canal, and is quite pretty.
I don’t have pictures yet, but the house is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a decent kitchen and a nice back yard, which they call a back garden, and it’ll be ready to move in on the 1st. It’s further out than I’d initially planned, but as I looked both at houses and at potential Tedjobs, it became increasingly evident that unless we wanted to live in Dublin proper, we were very probably going to need a car no matter what. So getting a place in a cheaper town, even if it was further out, seemed practical, and it’s a nice town.
And I’m very relieved to have a place. There’re about five … wow. I have no idea at all what I was going to say. Oh. Five trains in and out of Dublin a day, during hours that are reasonable for normal commutes, so that’s all good. The only real problem is whether or not we’ll be able to get broadband access, which is just an incredible crapshoot in Ireland, despite the country being promoted as the IT center of Europe. There’s no phone line in the house, so when I call to have one put in, I will *specify* that it needs to be DSL-capable (because apparently if you don’t, a new phone line will not necessarily be, and frankly I’m not sure specifying it will do the trick, but it’s all I can try), and hopefully there won’t be a broadband issue. It would be quite a shock indeed to go cold turkey on net access after all these years.
*closes eyes* That’s taken care of. I can concentrate on writing, now. Thank *God*.
Congrats on finding a place. I hope it works out, especially the internet part. ;)
Well, many congrats! I know this a great relief for you! We await pics!
Robin
Just to make you feel better about the IT-with-it-ness of your town: they do in fact have a website.
Unfortunately, if you click on “Community Groups” for their directory of community groups by category, “Information Technology” is the one category link that doesn’t work.
That site does however mention the “Athy Writers Group” in Portlaoise. (And you can get the actual details from kildare.ie, which seems more functional than athy.ie)
Yay place to live! And good luck with Internet.
Can you keep giving pronunciation notes, please? It always annoys me when I’m reading something and *know* I’m pronouncing the names incorrectly, so I’d love to absorb some clue about Irish pronunciation from you. :)
I’m glad you found a place. Good luck with getting broadband Internet access. :)
I’d be delighted to keep giving pronounciation lessons, Jennifer. The annoying thing to me is that the Gaelic for Athy, which is Ath Í, *looks* like it should be pronounced “Athigh,” so I get frustrated when my American brain sees “Athy” and turns it into “Athee”.
*grins at Daniel* Yeah, I know. The Kildare site is better than the Athy site, but I’ll probably at least try to find the Athy writer’s group. That’d be good. :)
BroadBand *snort*
Thank you, Mad Miss, that really fills me with confidence. :)
Woohoo! A House!