An Muileann gCearr

“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.”

Welcome to the life of a soon-to-be-expat.

   My name is Aprilia Larsen and I am born and grown in Denmark, more precisely in Skagen.

This is me!

   In 2010 I moved to Frederikshavn where I took a higher preparatory exam.

In July 2013 I moved back to Skagen, back into me ‘aul’ parents crib. Sold some of my furniture, threw a lot of things out, because I already knew I was going to move somewhere else, I just didn’t know when. I boxed my things and dropped some off at my grandparents. The rest are currently up against the wall in my room. My bed was put on top of the one already occupying the room and stuff was basically put in every tiny peephole I could find.

The oh so glorious life of a 23-year-old living at home.

This is one of my tidy days.

   In July 2013 I went to London to attend a four-week bartender course, failed the stupid course, stayed in London for another week with my best friend, took the bus to Amsterdam with my best friend (she lives there), stayed there for around four days, took the bus to Sweden and stayed with my parents in their house for another ten days. And then I finally went back to Denmark and some serious Wi-Fi (which I had indeed been in need of).

   I have always dreamt of moving to England or Ireland and eventually I decided that it was what I was going to do, NO MATTER WHAT. I was going to move to Ireland, end of discussion.

   I began looking for flats around Ireland and decided that I wanted to go to Mullingar. It was the cheapest place I could find, which weren’t too far from Dublin. In Mullingar I would be able to live of my SU (student grants) without a job. A job was something that I had imagined that I would want to have though, so I began searching for something and uploaded my CV on jobs.ie. And one day in the end of August I got a phone call from Manpower. They wanted to know if I would be interested in working for IBM in Dublin. Basically I would have to take customer calls and help them with their IT problems. I would be under a contract for two years and it would be full time with a basic salary on €22,000 á year, which is a lot more than the SU. The opportunity sounded great and I said yes. I had an interview with the guy at Manpower and a few days later I had one with IBM. Everything went great and they told me I had done better than average.

   So instead of looking for flats in Mullingar I began searching for flats in Dublin. In the beginning of October I got a call from Manpower and he said that they had a job for me. Everything was great, but in the end I decided on declining the job, afraid it would be too much with a full time job and a full time study. So I was back at looking for flats in Mullingar.

   Lucky as I was a found a nice bedsit in the countryside but only around 2-2,5 miles outside of Mullingar. And this leads me to where I am right now. I just paid the deposit and booked the plane ticket.

   I’m moving on October 22. Nine or ten days from today!

   I decided to make a blog about my move and experiences in Ireland. I, myself, have researched a lot on the Internet about moving to Ireland. What are the prices compared to Denmark etc.

   What I am going to do is to be open-hearted and tell you all about the best and the worst beer!

Sláinte!