Matt & Kat

Our Internet connection went live today which means that we’re now completely settled in our new apartment in the Christchurch area of Dublin. We’ve been here for two weeks now and we are very happy with our decision to move across town.

I have added some photos to the gallery so you can get a feel for what our second home in Dublin looks like:

• Photos from our 2nd Dublin Apartment

The apartment was freshly painted before we moved in, and all the kitchen appliances and lounge suite are brand new! Kat has a much shorter walk to catch her bus in the mornings, and my commute is only about 10 minutes longer, although I now catch a bus rather than walk which means that I might have to stop procrastinating and sign up for the gym at work. Maybe.

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We’ve been kept busy the last few weeks with moving apartments. We’ve moved across town to a slightly older but more ‘homey’ apartment right in the heart of old Dublin. We look out the bedroom windows onto a sea of red brick and out our lounge windows to Christchurch Cathedral just across the road. Its nice to be really central, close to some great restaurants and shops. We have a local bakery and the ‘best chipper in Dublin’ just round the corner.

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I arrived back in Dublin safely on Sunday afternoon following 40 hours of travel from Sydney via Auckland (5hrs), LA (1hr) and Heathrow (another 5hrs). The best part about all the travel is that I haven’t really had any jetlag, I was back at work at 9:30 on Monday morning, and I’ve been back to normal sleep, wake, work, play, sleep routine without any ill effects.

My two weeks in Sydney were very enjoyable, the Google office there is very nice, looking out directly over Darling Harbour from nearly the 20th floor and with a fairly laid-back and relaxed atmosphere. I also caught up with our friends from Auckland, Sam and Manuela who have been living in Sydney for the last year or so and we swapped some stories about our various experiences living overseas and away from family which was interesting.

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What a busy first week back in Dublin it’s been!
I had such a fun time in New Zealand. I think it goes without saying that I loved seeing all our friends again and treasured the time we got to spend with our families. I only wish we got have stayed for 3 weeks more! There was a strong feeling of relaxation and comfort at being ‘home’ when we arrived in Auckland and as we drove the familiar road from Auckland to Hamilton. I’m loving being here in Ireland, the travel and the new places and people but it’s also helped me to see how much I appreciate NZ and all that we’re blessed with there!

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Starting tommorrow we’re on the move again!

This coming week I’m in Austria on the annual Google EMEA Engineering Conference and then the Ski Trip. Both of which are fairly action packed and tiring from what I can make out.

I get back to Dublin at 6pm on Friday evening. On Saturday morning at 9am Kat and I are back at Dublin Airport to begin our trek to New Zealand where we’ll stay for just over 2 weeks.

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Hello from the Emerald Isle! It’s St Patrick’s Day today, a national holiday and a day off for us. As I look out the window I can see lots of blue sky and sunshine, a good start to the day. We’ll be off soon to see the St Patrick’s Day parade and to join in the celebrations.

St Patrick’s Day is historically the Feast Day celebrating the Patron Saint of Ireland – St Patrick. These days it’s used as a day to celebrate all things Irish – the color green, shamrock and leprechauns and especially Irish stout and whiskey! Dublin makes a week long festival out of it with a fun fair, music and performances around the city and the big parade on St Patrick’s Day.

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I’ve been watching the construction of what I suspected was a new bridge over the river as I walk to work each day for the last 6 months and this week they’ve finally put up signs confirming that it is actually a bridge that they’re building. Unfortunately it’s not going to be finished until 2010, so I’m not sure whether we’ll still be around to enjoy it’s benefits.

It turns out that there is a big master plan for the development of this whole area, which used to be pretty scummy warehouses and docks. The link below gives a very cool interactive aerial view of the whole area:

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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’

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Wow, over a month since we last let you know what we were up to! We’re getting slack, sorry!

Anyway, it’s 12:42am and we’ve just walked in the door after a brief weekend trip (36hrs) to Luxembourg, which seems like a very nice city. A good blend of old and new Europe. We’ve got heaps of photos, and hopefully a few interesting anecdotes, but I have to work tommorrow, so they’ll have to wait for another day.

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Thought I would blog a few of the things I like and dislike about our new home city.

I like:

1. Taking the train south to the beach on the weekends. Ireland is small – about 1/3 the size of NZ which means its also only a short drive or train trip to go basically anywhere in the country! Perfect for weekend trips 🙂
2. Cool old architecture and public spaces – Victorian brick buildings, Georgian squares, quaint little cottages, cobblestone streets…
3. Shopping. Henry St and Grafton St are the two main shopping meccas in Dublin and both have plenty to keep me occupied. At the moment the Dublin Summer sales are on!
4. Plenty going on in the weekends. There are lots of restaurants and pubs around and also a lot of ‘events’ around the city. A few weekends ago was the Maritime festival, then the International Street Performers Competition. A big music festival this weekend. Lots to do and see!

I dislike:

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