Month: July 2016

Phoenix Park — Dublin

On By EmilyinEarnestIn Dublin, Ireland, TravelLeave a comment

Like any girl of my generation, I grew up thinking I was going to be a princess after watching Disney VHS tapes. My mind was filled with images of tame woodland creatures that would flock to me and be my friends. Unfortunately, reality set in as I aged when I realized that no, the coyotes do not want to hear me sing. No, the squirrels do not want to sit on my shoulder as I twirl in my full skirt. And no, the birds most certainly don’t want me to stroke them as I hum in perfect tune to no one in particular (except for the handsome prince conveniently lurking within hearing distance).

BUT, all of those dreams came rushing back when I visited Phoenix Park this past week. Phoenix Park is an absolutely massive and beautiful area on the north side of the Liffey. It includes huge expanses of greenery, gardens and some monuments/official buildings.

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Most importantly it has free roaming herds of Dublin Deer. When hearing this you might think, well I have deer at home…why would this matter. Well good friends, it matters because these deer are not like your average deer. For one thing, they’re gorgeous, much prettier than Bambi with many of them sporting white coats and massive antlers.

For anther, they’re tame. While you may see many signs telling you not to approach them, they are very used to humans roaming about the park. When my friend and I held up some of the freshly cut grass (there are football fields in the park which are maintained and mowed), a few of the deer came right up to us. They ate the grass and padded around us for awhile, obviously used to people bringing them food (we saw other people giving them carrots).

While there are warnings that they’re wild, they do seem quite friendly with humans. If you’re anywhere near the park or visiting Dublin for the day, stop by, it really is magical. The Dublin Zoo is also within the park grounds, so if you’re out for the day with your family, its a good place to explore. Though word to the wise, don’t chase the deer or scream at them (this sounds like common sense, I know, but we saw some pretty atrocious behavior by some over-enthusiastic park goers). They’ll be much more likely to come up to you if you hold out food to them from afar!

Cell Phones in Ireland

On By EmilyinEarnestIn Ireland, VisasLeave a comment

Hello friends…

So, I’m entering week number two of my Working Holiday Authorization in Dublin and I thought I’d go ahead and talk about cellphones. Not only because I’d be lost without the guiding light of Google Maps, but also because Pokémon Go just came out and I know you’ll all want to keep up with your teams (#BlueTeam4ever).

The first step is to check on the status of your phone if you have one. If you want to use your current cell phone, you’ll have to make sure it’s “unlocked” or, in other words, that it’s not still attached to your contract. If you’ve had it for more than 2 years, you should be able to contact your network provider and have it unlocked for you, which essentially takes your phone off of their network.

If you, like me, have a more recent phone that is still on the 2 year contract, there are a few options, all of which are not too fun or convenient. The first is you can pay off the remainder of your contract and the price of your phone. That means you’ll have to pay them what you would have had you continued using their service. If you’re close to the end of your contract this isn’t that bad, but if you recently got your phone, this could be too much.

In the more unfortunate case, you’ll have to either use a different phone (I used an older generation iPhone that I had lying around the house) OR you could buy a cheap smart phone when you get to Ireland and just use that.

**Bonus third option: if you buy said cheap phone and activate it, you can make that phone a “hotspot” and sync your newer phone to that so that it can still receive messages and such. That’s just if you insist on having your phone that’s still locked into contract.

Once you have the unlocked phone, all you need to do is get a sim card from an Irish phone company and top up.

One of the many reasons to love Ireland is their lack of long-term cell phone contracts. Once you get the sim card you can “top up” — or add money to your account — and be done with it. I’ve been using a brand called Three which I like quite a lot. For 20 Euros a month I get unlimited data, unlimited texts and free calls to any network on the weekends, which has worked well enough for me since I use FaceTime to call people most of the time.

There’s other options as well, however, which you might want to check out. Companies such as Meteor, O2, Postfone, Tesco and Vodafone all offer plans that may suit your particular situation better.

As long as you remember to top up on time, you’ll be free to Tweet and Tinder to your hearts desire!

GNIB Registration — AKA Hell on Earth

On By EmilyinEarnestIn Ireland, Visas5 Comments

Hello all! As I’ve just gotten onto the right sleep schedule, I’m ripe and ready to crank out the blog posts on all I’ve learned in the past few days. One topic being the dreaded GNIB or Garda National Immigration Bureau. When you receive your Working Holiday Authorization, it informs you that you have to register with the GNIB within 90 days of entrance by going to their office in Dublin, which is over by the Liffey. Once you do this, you’ll be given a GNIB card, which is necessary to have as a form of proof of ability to work. What they don’t tell you is that this process is by no means as easy as it sounds.

First of all, the GNIB is only open Mondays and Tuesdays from 8am-9pm. While this time period seems long, you have to get there VERY EARLY in order to be seen. Each day, they give out a certain amount of appointment numbers and if you arrive too late, you may not be able to get a slot.

While the office opens at 8am, it is extremely important you get there early to procure a spot in line. I would suggest arriving at 6am or earlier if you want to get in and out before they close. I know this sounds absurd, but people sleep overnight to get spots, and many arrive between 5am-6am.

I personally arrived at about 5:45am, and ended up with the appointment number 95, which was lucky as I saw others who got numbers in the 200s.

When the GNIB opens, they’ll slowly start letting people inside. You’ll queue up in order to get your appointment number, and once you have this, you sit and wait until the screen flashes your number. This can take a very long time. I was in the door at 8:10am and was in the second group of people they let in, and I wasn’t seen until around 12:30pm.

Once your number is called, you will walk up and speak to a representative. Make sure you have…

  • Your passport
  • Your Working Holiday Authorization
  • An Irish address and phone number for them to have on file
  • A credit card/debit card to pay the €300 fee

From there they’ll have you pay the fee and take your picture for your GNIB card (which looks just like any sort of identification card). They’ll hold on to your passport while you go back to the waiting room.

At this point in the process you’ll have to wait until they call your name over the loudspeaker. It is good to sit in the far corner of the room during this process (over by the entrance to the bathroom) because the speaker is the best there and it’s easier to hear your name called. It took about 2 hours for this to happen in my case, with them presenting me with the card (and returning my passport) at about 2:30pm.

All in all, I spent 9 hours at the GNIB in order to fully complete the process. You are allowed to leave while everything is processing, however if you miss your appointment that would be on your head. I was personally too nervous to leave during my time, but a very kind friend brought me coffee, which was a relief. Definitely bring a book, your iPod or a laptop to use, because the waiting is basically like the DMV on crack.

So, in conclusion, the GNIB is like the 9th circle of hell, but once you do it you’ll be home free (JUST DON’T LOOSE YOUR CARD!!). So when it comes to the Immigration office, may the odds be ever in your favor…

**Side note – Avoid the bathroom at all costs as it is terrifying. The whole thing is lit up blue with a strobing light overhead in order to apparently keep people from shooting up (?????!!!!). Excuse me while I continue to have stress nightmares about peeing there.

***Second side note – I went on the 4th of July and never have I enjoyed the concept of freedom better than when I walked out of the GNIB doors, I literally almost kissed the dirty pee-stained sidewalk (I didn’t though, for the sake of dental hygiene).

 

Dublin Week 1 – First Impressions

On By EmilyinEarnestIn Ireland, Travel, VisasLeave a comment

After planning and worrying endlessly about my gap year, I’ve finally arrived in Dublin and settled in. I’m living in an area called Portobello, which is a pretty hip and generally nice area of the city near the canal. So far I’ve frequented a few pubs and coffee shops and set myself up nicely (however, spoiler alert, normal filtered coffee is very rare around here, the closest you can usually get is an Americano).

The Stint housing is absolutely amazing. If you’re thinking of doing a gap year in Dublin or even an internship (as they coordinate those as well) I would highly recommend contacting them about their program. Not only is it centrally located, its decked out. When I arrived last Tuesday, completely disheveled from my long flight, I walked into the house and immediately felt at home. The kitchen and living room are nice and spacious, perfect for movie nights or casual hang outs in the evening. There’s a nice little back patio with furniture to sit about and a grill, which we used successfully for our Fourth of July party! My room has a terrace outside where I can sit out and relax, that is, when the weather isn’t being bipolar.

Stint arranged a cab to pick me up at the airport and bring me to the house, which was a relief, and the driver gave me a very handy update on the Brexit (which is all anyone is talking about around here). Then I was met by Melanie, the head of the Stint program, who gave me the tour and a little swag bag that had a water bottle, some much needed instant coffee, a map of the city and other little odds and ends. She was very kind to me despite my deliriously tired state, which I was thankful for because I looked like a garbage person I was so bedraggled .

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I’ve found the best place to shop for groceries around here seems to be Lidl, which is just down the street a ways from the flat in another younger/hipper area called Rathmines. There’s also Tesco Express, which is good but a tad bit more expensive.

One of the things that struck me, especially in the few days of adjusting, was how hard it is to find certain things in the shops around here. It took me about four days to find a place that had notebooks, pens and tape. There’s also a very limited selection of shampoo/bathroom essentials at the grocery store so it’s best to try to find yourself a pharmacy. No Walmarts to be found in Dublin!

Here’s a little guide that I made to where to buy different items around Portobello…

Groceries: Lidl, Tesco/ Tesco Express, Aldi

**Helpful tip – you have to bring your own shopping bag or they charge you for one

Shampoo/Conditioner, Bathroom Essentials: Boots, pharmacies (there are a bunch of privately owned pharmacies around that usually carry all your basic items)

Office Supplies: Eason

**Eason also has books

Clothes: Penney’s (very cheap, kind of like Forever 21, they also have homeware), TopShop, H&M

Makeup: Boots, Penney’s (cheap but a pretty large selection, with some toiletries as well), Lush (more expensive)

That’s my mini guide to shopping, but if there’s anything I forgot shoot me a comment. I’ll be posting about my experiences registering with the Garda Naturalization and Immigration Bureau (or GNIB) and getting my GNIB card, which will be a doozy of a post because it was a hellish experience. More to come!