The day we landed, we picked up a rental car at the airport and drove in a convoy (me and the boys in a taxi van) to our temporary digs. Alfred started in on the paperwork, going down and applying for a PPS number, the Irish equivalent of a Social Security number and opening a bank account. My first task was to have a look at the apartment, get the maintenance men in to move furniture around, and make a shopping list.
The apartment they provided was in a complex on a luxury golf course on the outskirts of Dublin. We had asked for this area because it was roughly equidistant between the boys’ two schools and near the freeway that led in both directions. Our only other request was broadband, since we knew we were going to be researching just about everything. The apartment was small but new, shoddy construction, and only two bedrooms and two beds: one double, one “king” (about the size of a queen in the US). They provided a rollaway for Danny, but it only fit in the room with the king, so Marcus scored the big bed and we squished.
The Internet connection did work, but there was only one cable, and we have three computers. We had brought our wireless router, but foolishly didn’t have a 220V power adapter for it, so we had to share the cable between us until we found the equivalent of a Radio Shack. Waiting for us was an email from Danny’s teacher; anxious to have Danny join the class, on Monday if possible, though she wanted to meet him first. We set a date for Saturday afternoon, and planned to start him Monday, assuming he was relatively recovered from jetlag.
The first morning, I awoke very groggy to find Alfred had decamped during the night. A common occurrence, as he often has trouble dealing with jetlag. What woke me though, was a thumping music-y sound. Yup, 6:30 a.m., and the neighbor was listening to music, and we discovered just how paper thin the walls are.
In addition, the constant chirping of the motion detector also drove Alfred up the wall, and woke me a couple of times, though I didn’t know what it was. When we called maintenance, they sent someone who managed to set off the alarm, and we had to leave in a hurry. After two days of complaining, maintenance finally just clipped the offending wire and disabled the bloody thing. Clearly we needed to get out of this place.
