Adventures in car insurance (a Classic Expat Tale)

So we decide to buy a car; a small used one, something we can explore the countryside with, and it follows the normal process…research, decide what car you want, visit the car dealer, test drive, negotiate, make a deal. All we need to do before driving the car off the lot is obtain car insurance and get the money to the dealer. Shake hands, thanks, see you soon. Simple, right? Hah. Here is my diary of the days that followed:


Day 1: Contact insurance carrier recommended by co-worker. Email exchange; set up call for next day and give agent my office phone number. This is going to be a piece of cake.

Day 2: Morning…no call. Afternoon: See on phone display that I missed a call. Only then realize I haven’t set up my phone answering system yet. My mistake. Email agent, suggest call next day.

Day 3: Email from agent, asking if I have "requested proof of driving experience" from my previous insurer. Email exchange ensues; what exactly are you asking for? Answer: You need to request a "No Claims Bonus Certificate." OK, I say; must be something insurance companies know about. I email my previous insurer; they reply they can get prior claims information, but have no idea what a "No Claims Bonus Certificate" is.

That evening, we process a wire transfer to move funds for the car from U.S. bank to Irish bank, something we have done successfully twice before.

Day 5-6: Weekend

Day 7: Receive five years of claim data from my U.S. insurer; forward to my Dublin agent. Agent calls: Not what she was looking for; needs additional data. Email U.S. agent with request.

That evening, discover the bank wire transfer failed. Hmmmm. Decide we made a mistake, and resubmit.

Day 8: Receive email with data answering every question the Dublin agent asked, forward to agent. Receive email reply with still new questions. Email U.S. agent, who emails revised letter; forward to Dublin agent who doesn’t understand the letter; get yet another version of the letter from the U.S.; forward to Dublin agent.

Day 9: Dublin agent thanks me for all the information; I think, yahoo!, it's over!; then she says now she must call the U.S. agent to verify everything. I think, you have to do what? I provide the phone number, but with a five hour time difference I see problems ahead.

Day 10: Notified by U.S. agent that no contact has yet been made. I send email to the Dublin agent offering to help arrange call; receive "Out of office until Monday" reply. I slowly begin to tear my hair out.

That evening, discover that the second attempt at a bank transfer has failed. I tear more hair out.

Day 11: Make calls to each bank; no immediate success in solving the problem.

Day 12-13: Weekend

Day 14: Send emails to both insurance agents; no apparent progress made.

One glimmer of hope appears regarding the bank transfer, however. Potential problem discovered; turns out the banks use different terminology for the same thing; U.S. bank form asks for "Account Number"; Irish bank wants the "IBAN", which is an entirely different thing. Seems about par for the course. I make a third attempt at a transfer, and pray.

Day 15: Hallelujah! The two agents actually connect by phone, and, surprise!, Dublin needs yet more new information.

That evening, the bank transfer worked! There is great rejoicing.

Day 16: Oops, something is still missing. One more piece of data required that has not to this point ever been requested. How is this possible? I start to doubt if I will ever drive a car in Ireland.

Day 17: All the data is in! Forms emailed to me for signature. The agent calls to go over everything. We walk through the documents one by one, additional questions, check, check, and then she says: "And the car is registered under Sandra, right?" And I say no, actually it is under both our names. Silence. 

"Well", she says, "In that case we need a little more information…"

Day 18: I have gathered the new data, signed the forms, scanned them and emailed them to the agent. She calls me, everything is in place, I pay my deposit with a debit card (everything is debit and direct wire here), and it is over! I’m insured!!! I email the car dealer who has been waiting patiently for almost three weeks…I’m finally done! I’ll transfer the funds for the car and be down this afternoon to pick it up. Great, he says. I log in to my Irish bank account, open up the wire transfer page, complete the first page...check...the second...check...open the third, and see these words:

"You require a Card Reader to use this Service."

And it all comes back to me. Three months ago, opening the bank account, learning about the processes and requirements for banking in Ireland, and the bank representative talking about the card reader – a mechanical device you have to use for doing certain transactions, something to enhance security. You can’t just type your account number into an online form, you need to physically put your card in the reader and obtain a unique password. Something we were supposed to order when we arrived in country. Something we didn't do. And now the website is telling me I can order one and receive it in the mail in a week. And an image comes to mind; it looks like this:

But then the Lord brings something else to mind, a favorite verse from Romans, chapter 8:

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." 

And I'm reminded that my so-called problems are not REALLY problems. And I take a deep breath, and I call my Irish bank, and it turns out that way back when we were opening the account, at the same time they were telling us about the card reader, they also had us sign up for the ability to do phone call wire transfers. You'll probably never need this, they said, but it might be nice to have just in case. And the woman on the phone asks if I would like to do one? And I say, bless you my child.

And on the 18th day, a car is purchased.

Adventures in pub food

I'm not sure whether to be concerned about this or not, but I've noticed something about the pub food here. We were at a pub a couple weeks ago, sitting in the middle of a group of energetic women screaming and hollering while watching a women's rugby match on the big screen, and I ordered lasagne. Seems like a pretty basic item, right? When the order came, this is what I saw:

Notice anything odd? Yes, that's a side of French fries ("chips") and cole slaw with my lasagne and garlic bread.

OK, I can deal with that. Fries are good with most things, after all. But then, last Friday night, we were at a different pub, one we're thinking of making "our" pub, the kind where they know your name, and I ordered enchiladas. I hadn't had any Mexican food in Ireland yet and it sounded pretty good. When the order came, it looked like this:

Notice anything familiar? That's right, French fries under my enchilada!

Is this something to worry about? I'm not sure. But don't you think there is at least a possibility that this is a conspiracy to make me gain back the weight I have shed from all the walking I'm doing? Makes you wonder. Stay tuned.

Adventures in conversation

One of the joys of living in a new place is discovering differences in the way people communicate. This will be just the first of a series of posts concerning Irish words and phrases that we pick up along the way. We'll see how many of these make it into our vocabulary.

Given the Guinness commercials that were aired for a while in the U.S., it's almost required that we start with...

• "Brilliant" - Yes, we hear this one all the time. It is the most common way of saying great, excellent, good idea, cool, awesome, I like it, etc. We hear it at work, church, restaurants, pretty much everywhere we go. But there are other ways of saying the same thing. The next most common is...
• "Grand" - Can't tell if this is any different from brilliant; seems to be used in all the same ways. Sandy actually thinks she hears this as often as brilliant. But wait, there's one more variation on this theme...
• "Lovely" - I don't hear this one quite as often, but Sandy says she hears it lot. It is used more to mean very nice, or beautiful. Could be somewhat gender specific. Other items that have caught our attention:
• "Dear" - Means expensive. Those linens are a bit dear (meaning they are pricey).
• "Bits" - used in lots of ways; means things of any type. Here's one place I saw it in writing:

Real bits of WHAT, one wonders?

• "Bobs and bits" - We have only heard this one time, but it was awfully cute. You need to get your bobs and bits together, meaning your possessions or things.

• "Gone away" - What the postman told Sandy to write across the name on a piece of mail we received addressed to a former occupant. "Write 'Gone Away', he said, "and toss it in the mailbox." We loved this one. 

And lastly, our favorite food label so far:

One bite of this and a person might die from cuteness.

That's enough for now. Until next time - cheers! (meaning both goodbye and hello, interestingly.)

St. Patrick's Day in Dublin

So many people back in the U.S. expressed curiosity about how the Irish celebrate St. Patrick's Day we decided it was our duty to provide a first-hand account. A number of people, for example, told us they had heard the Irish don't celebrate it at all, or at least don't make as big a deal of it as Americans do. We also heard the parades here were made up mainly of American high school marching bands, and attended mainly by American tourists. With all that in mind, we headed out around noon on March 17th, and made the two mile walk from our apartment to St. Patrick's Cathedral, the end point of the parade. Here's our report:

First, let's be clear. St. Patrick's Day is a major national holiday in Ireland. It was made a national holiday in 1903, and it was placed on the liturgical calendar in the 1600s. So there's a long tradition, and it's an important day in the country. However, what seems to be more recent is the advent of festivals and parades associated with the day. These date to the 1990s, with the first official St. Patrick's Day festival occurring in 1996 - part of a government campaign to showcase and celebrate Irish culture. This year in Dublin the festival was three days long, possibly because St. Pat's was on a Monday. But starting Saturday, there were various events around the city, including an amusement park, music, tours, and, of course, an Irish Craft Beer and Food Market.

The big event was the parade on Monday. There was lots of talk about it on TV and in the newspapers. But I have to say that not a single Irish person we talked to said they would be attending. Still, when the day came we set out across the city to see what there was to see. 

Arriving at St. Patrick's Cathedral, I figured we needed one selfie with the cathedral in the background. 

The crowd seemed plenty big. The streets were lined many people deep on both sides. The papers next day estimated the crowd at half a million. That seemed plausible based on what we saw.

As we waited for the parade to begin passing by, we enjoyed the people-watching. The crowd was decked out in St. Pat's garb, with a particular focus on hats. We also noticed the number of children in the crowd. There was a clear sense of this being a family event, as opposed to an excuse for drunkenness (though we heard there was quite a crowd in the Temple Bar area later in the evening). Here are my favorite people shots.

The one additional observation we made was that a large percentage of the people we encountered did seem to be tourists. As we walked around we became conscious that almost every group of people we passed seemed to be speaking a language other than English. We saw only a few who seemed to be Americans.

So we'll end with one pair who we are quite certain are Americans. And I want to add that I'm including this photo under protest. Slan go foill! (Bye for now)

A few "firsts"

Sandy here again...So I've shared some of these observations with a few people the last few days, but I thought I would pass them on.

The other day I had 2 firsts in my life, both which were of a very different nature.

1) I ironed our bed sheets.  Yes, ironed sheets.  When the realtor mentioned in passing ironing her sheets, I thought to myself she must be a neat freak or something.  Well, it was not the case.  As it turns out the washing and drying machines are much smaller than I am used to and so when I pulled out the sheets they were a wrinkly mess.  And I immediately understood why one would actually iron a sheet.  However, since this observation I have found another use for the ironing board.  Today, I dried the duvet cover until damp, pulled it out of the dryer and then folded it once and proceeded to drape the duvet cover over the ironing board, so that it could air dry.  I believe this will be my method of drying linens hence forth!

2) I ordered groceries on-line and had them delivered to my house for a mere 4 Euros!  Now any of you who know me well, know that doing anything on-line is not my preference, but having tried to stock my house with food without a car to haul things, the idea of someone bringing things to my house was pure delight.  And as it turns out, the delivery charge is cheaper than me taking a taxi home, and a lot less energy!  Of course there is a give, some of the things i ordered were not exactly what I thought they were.  But as I get more familiar, I think this will be a HUGE blessing!

Another first (at least for Ireland): Yesterday I thought I'd try taking a bus.  It went quite smoothly, but is not really practical as a way to come home from grocery shopping.  I just had 2 bags with me, but carrying them from the bus stop to our place was just a little too much and kind of put me in a grumpy mood.

So Steve and I have been here a week now and in a week's time, twice I have been rained on when the sun was shining and I had my sun glasses on.  Just a little shower in the midst of sunshine!
There's a reason Ireland is so green!

Adventures in cable installation

Way back at the beginning of all this I concluded that getting our internet up and running would be a key to our settling in. The ability to connect with family and friends, access familiar web sites, stream NFL football...all very important for one's happiness and general well-being. So long before we moved I did the research and signed up with UPC, Ireland's largest cable provider. I opted for a bundled service with the fastest possible internet speeds, and scheduled installation for March 12, the day we were to arrive. 

We got to the apartment at 10:30 that morning, met our relocation agent and the broker for the apartment, spent an hour learning how to operate the heating system, kitchen, lights, etc, and then our agent took us to a phone store to get Sandy a new "mobile." With that important task completed, they dropped me off back at the apartment to wait for the cable guy and headed out for an afternoon of shopping. 

I wandered around the apartment trying to remember everything we had just been taught about how things worked. The heating and electrical systems were all unfamiliar, and I could barely keep it all straight. Did he say turn this dial for extra hot water, or to change to the summertime setting? If I pull this cord will the alarm go off? Does this button turn on the radiators, or the floor heat? What was that he said about the oven? I couldn't wait for the cable guy to arrive, set everything up, and get at least one system running smoothly. Maybe he could even answer some questions about other topics while he was working. Like advice on leasing a car, or how to use the bus system.

A couple hours later there was a sharp rap on the door. The cable guy was here! I opened the door with a big smile. Cable man was holding a big box and an electronic tablet. He said to me in heavily accented Eastern European English, "You accept UPC terms and conditions?" I nodded, and he made a mark on the tablet. "You accept cable box?" I said yes and he handed me the tablet. "Sign here", he said. I did. He handed me the box, and without a word turned, ran out to his car, and disappeared.

I stood there in the doorway for a full minute...where'd you go, cable guy? Where's my internet? I can barely turn on a light in my apartment, what am I supposed to do with THIS? I opened the box and set the contents on a table. Here's what I found:

The TV was unfamiliar. Its remote had strange symbols and sticky buttons. The coaxial cable that came in the box had an end I'd never seen before. The coax coming out of the wall was on a splitter that I had to remove but was so tight I couldn't budge it. And my toolbox was on an airplane somewhere. But I was one determined son of a gun. I sucked it up, told myself I wasn't in Kansas anymore, and an hour later, with the help of a can opener that doubled nicely as pliers, proudly fired up my new Macbook and found the wifi signal. 

This may be a hardscrabble land. But I live to fight another day! 

Sandy's first blog post

Hi everyone! Top of the morning to you! We made it safely to Dublin and things have been going smoothly so far. We have a lovely apartment, now I just need to learn how to use the appliances. None of the markings make much sense to me. I have learned how to turn most of them on, but using them to actually do something properly is a whole other thing. For example, the washing machine (clothes) allows you to choose among these settings: 1200, 900, 600, Rinse Hold, and Without Final Spin. Those were my options. I chose 600, because it was in the middle. I have no idea what that was all about, but I had a small load and it seemed clean when I was done so that made me happy! This week one of my goals is to learn how to actually work my appliances!

Cooking is also complicated. It took a while for me to figure out the stove top.  A bit more complicated than one would think. But the oven is still a mystery to me.  I have asked two neighbors if they know how to use it, but neither of them had the brand I have. I finally have a call out to our landlord, hopefully he will return it. Cooking should also improve  when our air shipment arrives. I don’t have a lot of kitchen things coming, but some that will make things a bit easier.  Still, I get the impression people eat out a lot. I don’t want to do that too much. Two reasons for that: Restaurants are very expensive and ultra expensive for a nice meal. Secondly, everything seems very high in fat and salt. Steve doesn’t ever seem to mind us eating out, but I don’t want to leave Ireland with us both bloated with an extra roll or two of fat.

So on the positive side, even though we are in a good sized city the people do seem kind and friendly if you initiate. We went to church today and worshiped singing songs we were familiar with and spoke with a few people including the pastor after church. I met two women who are in the Friday morning Bible Study and told them I would be joining them. Had hoped to go this Friday but we have an arranged to have someone take Steve and I to get our (for lack of better words) Irish Social Security Cards and Register with the Garda (police).  Two very important things, so Bible Study will have to wait another week!

Enough of my musings...tata for now.