3/8/2015

I recently moved back to Europe from New Zealand at the end of May and was trying to decide where to base myself and what sort of jobs to apply for. Here are the next steps in the decision making process.

I contacted about twenty Irish tour operators and a few English/Scottish ones. I got some good feedback about my C.V. but the answer was mostly the same: they had all their staff for the summer and weren’t recruiting again until December or January.

The third option was then trying for Receptionist/Office work through job agencies. I had applied for a few tour operator and office jobs but unfortunately they didn’t work out. It was coming up to the first week in July and I wanted to stick around Kilkenny for another few days for my older brother’s 50^th birthday. I was also waiting to hear back about a Receptionist job in a school in West Yorkshire. I was living in my parent’s house in the countryside, with no car and wasn’t getting anywhere with applying for jobs online. When I didn’t hear anything back from the school, I decided then that I had better just move somewhere where I could be available for work. Cork, Galway or Edinburgh were some of the places where I thought I’d like to live.

I find Ireland very expensive to live in on a daily basis and medical costs there are very high too. The exchange rate between the Euro and Sterling isn’t very good at the moment and although I know I’ll be losing some money changing over to Sterling if I move to Scotland, I’m hoping that in the long run it will work out cheaper economically once I get myself a job.  I’d been to Edinburgh about five or six times already and liked the feel of the city. I had already registered with a few job agencies there in 2012 so I thought that might give me a head start. I also wanted to be somewhere where there would be plenty of Irish music. Scotland has a lot of that and so, even though I know it can be cold and wet there in the winter, I thought I might as well give Edinburgh a go.

I got my passport back on the 6^th July, booked a flight to Edinburgh and arrived here on 21^st July. I spent about seven weeks in Ireland. It was longer than I anticipated but it gave me more time with my family and I was glad of that.

Find out more about how the next part of the journey goes in “Moving To Edinburgh”.