Sunny Day

As opposed to yesterday's blizzard, today it was actually quite sunny, and when the sun is shining it's actually not that cold out!  It makes motivating this usual homebody a lot easier to get out and get stuff done.

Today's to-do were mostly administrative:  fill out paperwork for the office, fill in forms for the home rental in  Fort Mill, read through legal mumbo-jumbo of the new lease agreement.  After that, get suited up and head to the post office to mail it all off!

At this point since I know I'm going to be living in Raheny, I went ahead and purchased a Dart pass; this will make getting through the turnstiles a lot easier, and you can 'top-off' pretty easily at any station when needed.  All in all, it's probably going to cost me about 100 euro per month for the train, but that's far cheaper than the train in NYC, about $300USD back in the day, it's probably more now.

I also asked the leasing agent if I could take one more look at it before we sign the lease on Tuesday.  It really is a nice place, I'm just used to more . . . space.  Space in everything, as in bigger rooms, ovens, washing machines, and water heaters.  Here, less is the norm, so we're going to have to get used to it.

After talking to the letting agent a real problem presented itself.  There's no way I can get all the stuff I'm going to need inside the house on the first day of rent, April 2.  That's my first day of work, and I'm going to be working all day and have no car.  How am I going to get all my luggage to work, then up the dart to the house that day, not including all the household items like towels, sheets, pillows, blankets, plates, cups, silverware, and so on?

I suggested that I could bring some stuff incrementally over the weekend, but the agent wouldn't go for it.  Part of was Dublin basically shuts down for the next four days over the Easter weekend.  Banks have both Friday and Monday off.  I'm not going to have a lot of options.

Then I remember a brother from Church had offered to help me out if I needed it and gave me his number last Sunday.  I thought I'd call him and see if he were still up for that.  To my relief and my most sincere gratitude, he was willing to take me shopping on Saturday to buy all the household items I'm going to need, and keep them at his place until Tuesday, then drive them all up to Raheny at the end of the day.  Massive problem solved.  Again, amazingly thankful, this is a huge break; I honestly don't know what I'd do if Tom hadn't offered to do all this for me.

The day as starting to drag on, but I wanted to get something touristy in before I called it a day . . .

The Natural History Museum of Ireland! Hooray!

Actually, very cool.  They stuffed so many animals in there (pun definitely intended) it was hard to see them all. Since it's free admission, I might actually go back to get a closer look.

I didn't take a lot of pics, but here's a couple interesting ones.

Liz's favorite primate, the Tamarin. However, this little guy doesn't look too pleased.

And the most interesting animal of the day?

The Sunfish!  Seriously, the pic doesn't capture the scale of this thing, it's like a giant maritime Picasso.  According to the Internets, it's the largest bone fish on the planet, sometimes reaching weights up to 1,000 KG.

And that's about it.  Did a little shopping to tide me over the next few days, ordered a pizza to tide me over the next few hours, then the highlight of my day:  an hour-long phone chat with Liz.