Name: Amy Paul; Address: Ballsbridge, Dublin 4; Dwelling: Bedsit; Here since: 2005
I live in a studio apartment, or bedsit as they're called here, in Ballsbridge. It's an old house that's been divided into a few flats. I love the high ceilings, and I love the fixtures. It looks out over the RDS, so it feels like there's a bit more space, because you don't have to look right out the window at another building.
I'm from Oregon, in the US, and I promised my parents when I lived so far away that I would live somewhere safe, so I chose Ballsbridge. I have lived in apartments, houses, condos, all kinds of dwellings back in Portland and Seattle, and also in Korea and Australia for a while. But I do find it restrictive living in cities, because I grew up in the countryside, and I'm used to so much more space. Living in the city is hard when you can hear and see your neighbours all the time. You never really feel like you have your own bit of space.
Where I grew up is very different from Dublin. I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, an hour from any major city. My parents live on 300 acres, so you can't see any neighbours. When you live on a farm you're a part of something that's living and growing and changing. You can see the work you do is part of a circle. When you live in the city you're a consumer all the time. You're not giving back the same way you do on the farm.
Dublin feels quite a bit smaller than Seattle. It's more similar to Portland, easier to get around. There's no massive high-rise buildings - it's so low-rise it doesn't feel like a major city. It feels more like a town that has grown up around itself. You get people who have lived here forever, who wouldn't dream of leaving, whereas most people in the US are used to moving more often, and so everyone is from somewhere else. You don't think anything about city hopping, whereas here it's a huge deal to move from Galway to Dublin. That's a huge move, but it's only three hours away.
The hardest thing that I have found is that, as a transient, I tend to hang out with other immigrants. I have relatively few Irish friends. Because people stick with the friends they grew up with or met in college, they don't change their friend groups. There's no need for people to make new friends here.
I'm going home soon, and I'll miss the friends I've made here, the community of immigrants - Canadian, Kiwi, Polish, Brazilian, French, Spanish - and some Irish. I'll miss that crazy hodgepodge of friends that came together in a short space of time. It makes the world so much smaller.