Matt and Kat Brown

Hello all. I realised today it’s been quite a while since I wrote anything here. So, I hope to bring things up to speed now and I really will try to keep up-to-date better in future!

We’ve been in Dublin for half a year already now. I’m surprised to think that we’ve been here that long – it’s gone so fast! We arrived in April, found an apartment in central Dublin in May. In June I accepted a job offer with a small IT development company as their ‘Web Designer’. Since then we’ve had several visitors over from NZ, we’ve found a great church here – St Marks, we’ve made a our first sightseeing trip across to continental Europe, and we’ve made plans for several more trips in the coming months. All in all we’ve been keeping pretty busy and we’re enjoying life here in Dublin. As the Irish would say – ‘it’s grand’

I’m enjoying my work. I’m the sole designer and only female in an office of IT guys. I’ve got plenty to do and I enjoy the variety and the challenges that come with the job. I was offered the job after an unbelievably short job hunt – only 2 days from when I started looking to when I got the offer! Finding a job so quickly and finding a job that fits so well with my skills and interests was a real blessing! The workplace has a fun and laid-back feel and I’ve found it great getting to know the guys at work and hearing all their stories and insider info about Dublin and Ireland. The one drawback to my job is the travel time. My work based in Dublin 24, outer area of Dublin. That means about an 1 hour 20 mins of travel each way for me. Not so cool.

Matt’s work at Google seems to be going well too. Google is keeping him busy but also looking after him well. Matt will be off on a trip to the US later in November with Google to spend time at the Head Office in Mountain View (but I’ll leave it for Matt to tell you all the details of that).

I’m so thankful that we’ve found a church here in Dublin to go to. We’re going to St Marks which is a church of 2 or 3 hundred. For those who find the labels helpful – the church comes under the Pentescostal/evangelistic/Assembly of God sort of denomination. There are a good number of ‘young working professionals’ like ourselves and it’s been great to start meeting some of them and find some fellowship at St Marks.

Coming up for us:

1) Winter. I fear it’s going to get much colder than I would like here. Apparently lots of people buy little hot water bottles they can wear under their jackets when they go out I may have to find me one of those!

2) A trip to Paris in November. Paris – could there be a more romantic, cheesy, cliche place to go for your wedding anniversary? I think not!

3) Matt’s trip to Mountain View and Whistler.

I’m pretty sure that we’re living in Ireland these days. I hear funny accents when I step out the door every day, the streets are dirty and it’s starting to get pretty cold when I would normally be expected summer to start. Despite all of this, the postal system doesn’t seem to have caught up with the fact that we live in Europe now.

Twice in the last month, Kat has ordered things from US online stores and when the package has arrived it’s had a NZ Post, Auckland sticker on the front. Despite the address being clearly marked as “Dublin, Ireland” and the package arriving here in Ireland relatively promptly it appears to have travelled through Auckland on its way here!

The first package was from Threadless which you may remember from a previous post as Kat’s favourite clothing shop. The sticker puzzled me, but I didnt’ think much more about it.

Late last week a second package arrived, this time from Amazon, but again displaying evidence that it had been through Auckland on it’s way from America to Ireland. This time I had to take a photo to share (click the photo for the fullsize version).

Kat had created her accounts with Amazon and Threadless well before we left New Zealand and had received several deliveries. My hypothesis as to what is going on is that these companies are bulk shipping orders to foreign countries based on the location of the user before inserting them into the local postal system. However they’re obviously doing this in a dumb way that assumes that once you’ve created an account you won’t move countries. Any other theories?

To finish up, The award for ridiculous postal contortions and privacy violations this week goes to the National Bank. We came home last night after going to the movies with some friends from church to find a letter addressed to Kat from the National Bank in the letter box. The letter was postmarked in Hong Kong (no sign of having originated in New Zealand at all) and contained a single page printed on plain white A4 paper (not the standard light green statement paper) which was a statement for a company called ‘NRGMAG’ based in Birkenhead!

I have no hypothesis for why the National Bank printed an address label for Katalina Brown on a printer in Hong Kong and then attached that label to a letter for a company in Birkenhead. In fact, I have no idea why the National Bank is even sending letters from Hong Kong at all. See for yourself below, I’ve blurred out or hidden most of ‘NRGMAG’s details that National Bank has so conveniently revealed to us. Again, click the photo to see the fullsize version.