Bought a Car, The Search for Accommodation Begins.

Its now Wednesday morning 7th December.  We have been in Ireland 3 days now.  I extended our stay here in the hotel by another 3 nights and that cost over 500 euros but I need some time to plan our next step.

The last 2 days have been good.  On Monday morning less than 24 hours after our arrival in Dublin I went and picked up a rental car from the Europcar depot here in Dublin.   We rented the car for 24 hours, and I paid the extra fee so that we could take it into Northern Ireland if I needed to.

Renting a car here is expensive, and an unexpected issue when collecting the car was that the car rental firm needed confirmation that I have a reservation for a flight out of Ireland.  That seems odd, but they said its required for non-irish with an overseas address.   Lucky I had details of the return portion of our flight, which I do not intend to use.  Good thing we booked that return.

The rental car was basic, a Skoda.  We collected the car and I had already looked for car dealers online with cars that looked suitable, se we headed to one that was north of Dublin.  In the end, I realised that it was going to be difficult to register or insure an Irish car, so I drove to a dealer in Portadown, Northern Ireland because I can easy insure and register a NI car using my UK address and drivers licence.

We went to look at a 2008 Citroen C4 Picasso Diesel, it was in great condition and I could not really fault it in any way.  I agreed to buy it, and I realised that I only had Euros with me.  The garage owner offered to take me to the bank to change the Euros to UK Points and thats what I did.   The price of 2800 pounds was agreed and I changed the Euros and paid for the car.  I agreed to come back the next day to collect it, giving me time to Insure and tax the car.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to Portadown on the train and collected the car.   I called my UK insurance company and got the car insured, but in order to tax the car (at a post office) I had to show proof of insurance.  I went to the library in Portadown and printed the insurance certificate that the insurance company had emailed to me, that was OK.

Driving the car back from Portadown to Dublin was OK, I am still getting used to the car but it seems very comfortable and very spacious, which is good as we need to put all our luggage in it when we check out from our hotel on Friday morning.

Now that we have the car sorted I am looking at flats and houses to rent in Dublin.  Many of the ones advertised are with agents and they all seem to want email contact rather than phone calls, which is annoying as I really wanted to speak to someone.

A couple of the ones I contacted have sent me a form requesting details of my employer and asking for previous landlords references.. this is before I have even seen the property, which seems a bit odd.

I am starting to suspect that getting a home to rent will be our biggest challenge yet.