Fasting

I was never fascinated by Indian teachings or philosophy. I'm more Confucius or Lao Tzu's type of person.

It doesn't prevent me to listen to Indian guru's. Many things they teach resonate with my soul. Like fasting.

We live in a society where eating is a substitute for many things. You are lonely so you eat, you feel depressed so you eat, you think about yourself as ugly, fat, stupid or any other negative belief and what you do? You eat. Even Hobbits can't cope with you. You have more meals a day than they. It is important that you eat something all the time. 

Unfortunately, many times this is junk food. Processes, heavy on E things, dead food. I don't want to preach, it is hard to turn away once you get hooked on all taste enhancers. I'm not even vegetarian or vegan. On the contrary, I don't support it. I believe in balance, not extremes. 

But we often eat the food without any nutritional value, like various snacks (me included), and very fast feel hungry. So we take more. And more. And suddenly, we are looking older, feeling even more tired, we get fat, and this fat is not easy to get rid of. 

I found out that in yogi tradition, there must be at least 8 hours between the meals. I was shocked. How many times I would eat something in 8 hours. Meal, side dish, snack (regardless is it a fruit, vegetable chips, rice cakes or anything else labeled as healthy), cookie or cake, chocolate or similar. Ok, I did cut on unhealthy food and sweets, but still, I feel hungry if I don't eat every few hours. And all western medicine doctors will tell you that you have to have at least 5 smaller meals, instead of 1-2 big ones. 

This is completely opposite to what Indian tradition teaches. So I gave myself a challenge, to try to eat only 2 meals a day. Maybe, I'll take a fruit or two in between and a lot of water. I want to see what will happen if I succeed to do it for 2 weeks as gurus promise miracles and 90% of disease to go away. Let's see. If you want, you can join me and try it for yourself. Who survives starvation will tell how was it.      

Renting in Ireland

I had the luck to find a great book about renting in Ireland in my local library.

Book is called "Renting in Ireland - The Tenant Survival Guide" and is written by John Leahy. You can check more at www.renting.ie web pages. 

Book nicely guide you through the most important things when renting a home in Ireland. It gives you tips on where to look for a home, on what is important concerning the location of your new home even what is rent supplement and tax relief on Rent payments. Not that the majority can use it, but it is good to know.  

It guides you through a viewing of properties, warns you of possible scams, gives you a checklist of what to inspect in the home, explains that fully furnished is in Ireland, and gives advice for students.

You can also learn about types of tenancy and lease, standard lease clauses, terminations of a lease, and rent a room scheme. One chapter deals with deposits, warning you how to keep/protect your deposit and what can be deducted from your deposit, with insight at wear and tear. 

The additional chapter deals only with students who usually share property, advising what to keep an eye on, to avoid conflicts that can occur when several unknown people share the same property.  

You can also learn about your rights as tenant, repairs, right to privacy, neighbors, and things that are usually rarely allowed by landlords like sub-letting or pets.

John explains standards and safety, which is a very big issue in Ireland, particularly compared with some other countries. He also gives advice about moving out in order to get your full deposit back and finishes with a chapter about disputes with a landlord. I hope you won't need this info, but it is good to know a bit about legal stuff here in Ireland. 

Even if you are tenant for some time in Ireland, this little book can give you some advice about things you were not even aware of.     

Secret of Joy

I was lucky to watch a nice video of a highly spiritual but also crazy funny man called Sadhguru. I won't write to you about him, as you can easily find about him everything you want on the Internet.

What I want to talk about is the secret of joy. I have been practicing this throughout my life (not constantly, unfortunately) and somehow I seem to practice it more here in Ireland than anywhere else.

But let's return to the story. Sadhguru was telling about famous philosopher Lao Tzu, whom everyone who ever heard for Zen knows at least as the founder. People were asking him about the fact that every day he's joyful. What he said was so simple - "I have an option. To wake and be the miserable whole day and to wake and be joyful all day. Until this day, I have chosen to be joyful."

This is a simple but awesome truth. Everyone can make this choice. I did it many times. One of my friends even gave me a compliment that I was the most positive person he ever met. Don't know about it, I still haven't learned to take a compliment without rethinking.

Sometimes we forget this choice in the morning. Or we convince us that this is pretending. Faking. No, choosing to be happy doesn't mean that you will not be sad or mad at some moment in a day, but if you honestly choose to be happy, most of the day you will be. And more you practice it, more reasons to be happy will come into your life.

Make your choice every morning and live with you have chosen.

   

Victims

Are we creators of our circumstances, or are we, helpless victims?

There are people that will convince you in first, and others convincing you that we are victims. The wise man would say that they are all correct.

Are we the ones that summon noisy neighbors that make so much noise at night that we can’t sleep and are feeling ill, or are we just victims of coincidence/destiny?

Let’s say that we are summoning such toxic people. Wouldn’t it be hard to believe that we are such subconscious masochists that we did not when we have the power to do all we want, summoned kind and considerate neighbors, with which we can be friends and enjoy?

But, to quote a book title – What the f@§* do we know?

Maybe we attracted such neighbors from Hell so that we finally learn to stand for ourselves? So we will have to ask them for peace and silence.

But what if they don’t listen? What if they attack us? Maybe this is happening so we can learn to lean on others? As we will not go to darkness or give up. We will call a landlord if they are renting or police. In most cases, it will be enough.

Why are other neighbors not doing anything? Maybe they are foreigners, of a different religion or skin color, afraid they will be one that will have to move if they complain against natives. Unfortunately, this is often the case. Locals can have links to a landlord and accuse you. Or they can be in the police. Or they know police officers so that the police won’t do a thing.

What then? Well, there is a chief of police or local media. And if neighbors are good with them also? Well, then we were wrong in the beginning, and our lesson was simple – we have to move. That could be a move we always wanted but always found reasons not to do it. So when God/Universe/Flying Spaghetti Monster/You Name It did all nice things to make us move, and we ignored it, He/She founded a way to kick us in the butt and sent us on a voyage we desired but we to inert to do it.

Or we are just not lucky. And we will have to endure it until we don’t get broken. It is not always possible to move (maybe you just moved in and have a year contract or bought it and have no money to find something else). If we don’t want to be victims and slowly get intoxicated by the venom that neighbors produce, we will have to go out of our comfort zone and just do it. Whatever we find best.

Power of positive friends

The power of positive friends is priceless.

Let me tell you two stories.

Story #1

When I first moved into my new apartment, I was taken down how old it looked. The last one was much more modern. So even though in my soul, I felt it's warmth, my ego was saying that I moved to worse, not better. 

Then friends came and said, yes it is old, but it is quite lovely. And slowly, I started to look at it with different eyes. 

My view of the location was also negative. I used to live in the center of the town, a short walk distance from anything important. The new site is far from it. So I was dissatisfied until another friend said, "Look, there is BMW parked there. And look at that luxury car. You are living in a wealthy neighborhood." And I realized this is true. There were many expensive cars parked in yards or front of the houses. So I started to see myself living in a castle on Beverly Hills. As this place is on the hill as well, and building I live in is bigger than any other with 11 or more big apartments. 

So, sometimes we are just into a negative emotion, not seeing rationally, and our friends can change this perspective. 

Story #2

I had a problem with the curtains. I tried to fix it by myself but failed. So I asked a friend for advice. And he gave me an idea. But still, I couldn't do it by myself. So I have asked another friend for help. A moment he started to help, I realized that the idea of using glue wouldn't help. It turned out that I'm right. Just by sheer presence, my friend opened my eyes, and I saw a solution. Solution that was there all the time, in front of my eyes. But I was blind to it. I did it, and even to his surprise it worked. I solved a problem because I had a friend willing to help next to me. He didn't have to do anything, only be there. 

This is the power of positive friends. Using their willingness to help us, we discover ways to help ourselves, doors that would not be opened if we didn't knock, and our friends didn't open the door. 

Ignorance is a bliss

Yes, truly, ignorance is a bliss.

After years of intensively following the media and knowing most of the things happening all over the world, I become aware how much poison a modern media produces.

So I stopped following any media.

After a year of self-imposed isolation of media, today, while waiting for a friend, I took a newspaper to browse it for fun. Murder, killing, mafia, criminal, stabbing, beating, clashes, no money, poor, deprived, handicapped, fraud, missing, property damage, theft, and the list goes on an on.

I started to search for any good news. I scanned first 20 pages, but couldn't find any. Out of at least hundred news, not a single good or positive one.

But how about a person that waited more than a year to have coffee and a nice chat with a friend. Or about a person who was, out of the blue, invited by a friend for a lunch and "glass of conversation".

Or about a clumsy kid that so much wanted to belong so went for a sport and had an excellent coach who saw that kid will never be really good in it but give the kid a place and a sense of belonging and kid won 9 medals since. Only because the coach was human and understood the kid.

Or of another kid who was so good in a sport that everyone was so jealous and had a lousy coach who cared only that most of the parents are happy. But as God closed one door, another has been opened so clever coach came and invited the kid to another club. And all kids, and their parents and the whole community was happy because they understood how much this kid can help them all achieve their best.

Will you read about it in media? No way.

So ignorance is a bliss, stop taking poison thru radio, TV, press, portals, and Internet in general (social networks particularly).

Unfriend all negative people, people spreading poison and misery, those that feed on negative emotions, and surround yourself with positive ones.

And as you become more positive, you'll attract into your life even more positive things. Trust me, it is easy if you try.     

Planning Ireland - "I just call to say I love you"

If you are not a turist and like roaming a lot, a minute (or a next day) when you arrive in Ireland, you would like to buy a SIM card. As a VIP user in Croatia, for me it was logical to buy Vodafone (found some action for 35€ per month). But anyway, I decided to contact some of Croatians living for few years in Ireland (Facebook group admins and members) to seek their suggestion. 

It's nice to think how smart you are, but smart people ask for advice. So they suggested 2 other popular communication providers: Three.ie and Meteor.ie. Meteor looked nice because of Unicorn logo, but offer from Three was better. For 20€ (discount from 30€) you can have "Free All You Can Eat Data" (unlimited data), unlimited Any Network texts (SMS), unlimited Any Network weekend calls (not very good, but it is as it goes), free Three to Three calls and free 4G Access (most of the providers charge you for 4G access. In general, it is bit less good than what I've used in Croatia, but minimum salary 3 times bigger in Ireland, prices are at least twice cheaper than in "Out beautiful". 

So, when you chose provider, find closest shop. Mine is some 50 m from B&B I'm staying in, so first thing in the morning is to buy a SIM card. 

If you move from Croatia, be sure to unlock (decode) your smartphone first. Otherwise, you won't be able to use your new SIM card. It is now free of charge if you are mobile subscriber in Croatia (or if you have a bill that you bought your mobile in official store). Count on a fact that it takes up to 15 days to unlock it. You can always unlock/decode your smartphone at service but it will cost you around 20 €. You can do it in the shop or online, and be sure to follow instructions when you put your Irish SIM card. Have in mind that every service provider has some phones already unlocked, so check it first. 

Planing Ireland - "I've been a Wild rover for a many me years"

When you plan your trip, it's good to plan how will you go from Dublin Airport to your accommodation (hostel, motel, B&B, etc.). 

Why? Well, you don't want to be stupid and behave as if in a 20th century. If you can buy transport tickets online you can not only save the money but also avoid spending your cash on a street. 

Good place to look to (if you are living outside The City (read Dublin) is getthere.ie or national.buseireann.ie web pages. I prefer getthere.ie since it gives you all kinds of transportation between cities (bus, train and very importantly lift sharing where you can offer someone a ride or ask someone for a car ride to your destination). Some prices will be visible immediately, but for some you have to visit bus or train web pages where you can buy a ticket. 

To illustrate this a bit. I needed a bus from Dublin Airport to Athlone bus station. Regular cost is 14 €, but with online booking it's 13,30 €. If you become member of Buseireann, you get extra points for each online purchase. If you spend 10 € you get 100 points and if you have 1000 points you can change it for a 10€ ride. So if you travel often to Dublin, every 10th fare is free. When I've joined, there was another surprise - 5€ discount on first travel. So, instead of 14 € in bus, I printed my ticket at home (you can send it to your smartphone as well) and saved 5,7 €. Try to imagine this in Croatia. 

If you are staying in Dublin area, I recommend buying Leap card with which you can use almost all Dublin transport system (bus, tram, city rail - DART) and on average is 20% or more cheaper than buying your ticket on the spot. Also, you can use it in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. 

It has something called capping which is ingenious thing. You can use any combination of Dublin Bus/ Luas/ DART/ Commuter Rail per day for a fix cost of 10€. Knowing that adult ticket for a 4+ stations outside inner Dublin center is about 2,5 €, 1 zone by Luas is 1,8 € and DART 1st distance category is 2,1€ and one plans to visit many possible employers in a day, this card can save you a lot of money (see: www.leapcard.ie). 

There is also visitor card 10€ per day, 20€ for 3 days and 40€ for a week (Monday to Sunday). 

Best thing is you can buy your leap card at the airport T1 (Terminal 1, planes from Croatia) help desk (near exit/entrance to the terminal and close to Dublin Airport Taxis and Bus station (Red 10).

Planning Ireland - "Wherever I lay my hat is my home"

Once you plan your flight, buy your ticket and check in, you have to plan where to stay. 

I've started by looking for a apartments and houses looking at Daft.ie and Rent.ie pages. 

Properties in Ireland are different from ones in Croatia. While in Croatia, when you say 1 room apartment you really have one room, 1 room apartment in Ireland means that you have 1 bedroom plus kitchen plus living room (in many cases as one space). But you'll always have at least one room more than in Croatia. 

Some wise people steered me into looking for 2 bedroom apartment rather than single ones. Why? We'll if you rent a single bedroom apartment you can hardly share it with someone (well, some of people I contacted like to share a 2-person bed (what is in Croatia known as wedding bed) with complete stranger, but I'm not that type). But if you rent 2 bedroom apartment, you can rent a room to someone else (and if they want to share a bed, no problem). So you can divide your rent to 2-3 persons. This is particularly handy if you fail to find a job in a first month and you're running low on money. 

But shouldn't it cost much more to rent? Not at all. Price is in average only 100 € more. And with average price for a rent (outside of Dublin) between 600-900 € it can be a significant thing in planing your life in Ireland.

So first thing I did was to check for apartments and since I chose a smaller town and end of student year, I found that adds for apartments stay online (no rent whatsoever) for a month or more. Nevertheless, since I wanted to be in a contact with my family, my priority were apartments with Internet. Central heating and about D status of energy consumption was also good, with as many house utilities as possible. Cable TV? Well it is just a bonus! 

Then, when I found several apartments I'd really like to live in (checking neighborhood on Google maps is advised), I've contacted sales representatives, stating I'm interested party and try to organize a visit on a second day of arrival. This is good also to show that you are serious and to have a contact in case apartment is rented but new one showed on a grid. 

Also, when I found out my day of departure (planing bus to Zadar, plane to Dublin, bus to Athlone, where I plan to live) I checked with Booking.com (most of travel pages will send you to it), to find B&B or a hostel (I slept in many hostels and I don't like 'em at all, so I avoided it) and book for several nights (if you didn't look for accommodation and did as I with sales representatives). It could take you week or two to find suitable accommodation, and if you don't want to throw your advance (in a first month of rental, except rent money you have to pay the same amount of money as backup option for owner so plan it!) in the wind because you decide to move somewhere else after few weeks in apartment, this is good thing to do. 

So I booked a B&B for several days, arranging to see apartments I like on a first day after arrival (coming to Ireland in the evening), to be sure to rent apartment before I have to leave B&B. If you can, contact other Croatians in town or region to have a contingency plan if you have to move out and could not rent apartment on time because they can maybe help you sleep overnight or for a day or two at their place. During summer is relatively hard to find cheap accommodation in Ireland in a short notice, so plan accordingly. 

Planning Ireland - flying "on the rocky road to Dublin".

When you plan to go to Ireland, date of your departure is very important. Why?

First of all, your plane tickets can vary significantly - in June 2016 only Ryanair tickets vary from 120 € to 260 € (of course, without the cost of luggage). The same is with other low-cost air companies. Luckily, you have direct flights from Zadar to Dublin (Ryanair) or from Dubrovnik to Dublin (Aer Lingus) with a price range from 170 € up to 422 €.
(2017 Update: you have Aer Lingus flights from Pula and Split as well).

If you want to fly from Zagreb, cheapest (but more expensive than low cost) is by Turkish Airlines. But there is a huge glitch - flight takes you some 20+ hours since you first go to Turkey and then to Dublin.
(Update 2017: you can fly from Zagreb to London or Manchester by Monarch (in September 2017 Monarch was in serious problems) as a low-cost company.) 

Many people from Slavonia prefer flying from Budapest, but when you pay average of 60€ for car transport (see Facebook groups about Croats in Ireland, if they are not locked for you), or much more by train/bus (I used to go to Pecs in Hungary and there buy IC train ticket to Keleti and taking shuttle minivans rather than taxi or public transport (I've tried it once, and it is a suicide). This can take you up to a day to reach airport (there are not a lot of buses to Pecs from Osijek, and the last train from Pecs to Keleti is at 1:14 pm). This also involves changing a money to HUF for train and minivan. So having a private driver is ok, but at the end it is not easy to wait and see if car will be available, have enough people to travel etc. and finally, it will cost you more than flying from Zadar. Namely, if you are really lucky you can have a flight from Budapest to Dublin for around 110 € but also for 250 € (very similar to Zadar). 

Ryanair has also a connection from Osijek, Pula, Rijeka to London Stansted Airport, but you'll have to be quick or wait for some time for a flight to Dublin (in the end it can cost you more than to go directly to Dublin). But price starting from only 40 € is appealing, isn't it? And since there are flights to Dublin from 25 to 100 €, this looks quite good. But when you include paying your baggage twice (60-80 €) and all other costs, then this is not so good at all. 

What majority of wannabe air travelers don't know is that low-budget air companies charge you for almost everything: from choosing your seat location, for each part of your luggage, for early access to the plane (to put a cabin luggage you have to pay an extra, since there is a limit to air luggage space, and early bird catches a worm). So when someone tells you that he/she traveled to Dublin for only 40-50 € you know it is a lie. 

My ticket went from 120 € to 180 € with an ease (for example, 15 kg baggage cost 30 € and 20 kg baggage cost 40 € at Ryanair). And if you travel to Ireland for good, surely you'll need 20 kg of baggage. Maybe if you travel to Cuba and bring only T-shirt and swimsuit it would be fine, but since morning temperature on 1st of June were 5-8°C in Ireland, you have to bring autumn/winter clothes even if temperature in Croatia is round 30°C or above. 

One thing you have to be wary is size of your luggage and weight. Every kilo more cost at least 10 € (up to 50€). And, since I'm flying with Ryanair, there is limitation to 32 kg in total. So choose wisely what to bring and weight it carefully. 

Size of luggage is all different story. Ryanair states that it should not be about 80 (height), 110 (length) and 110 cm (width). This is totally confusing since luggage height is usually the longest while width is smallest. And if you want to get info from them, simply forget it. You'll receive links to pages or rules stating what you already know. And if your luggage is above this dimensions, you won't be able to board it into the plane. 

Then, you can buy a cabin baggage priority (allowing you to put your luggage before less fortunate -read: more miserly passenger) and this cabin luggage is free of charge. But if your don't pay it, and there is no space for your cabin baggage, it has to go to cargo hold and you'll be charged for it). Cabin luggage has very strict rules and size must be below 55x40x20 cm. Luckily, one can buy declared cabin baggage in Croatia without problem, and there is always possibility to buy Ryanair approved cabin baggage at the airport. 

Croatia to Ireland - "So why did you abandon it, the reason to me tell."

When you live in absurd country in EU and speak English fluently, sooner or later (unfortunately) you are compelled to go to find a job, or preferably career in Ireland.

Knowing how many Polish people moved to Ireland, and Poland is one of few EU countries that never felt economic crisis, no wonder that so many EU citizens in countries that were devastated by 2008 crisis want to come to Ireland.

As I always had a green heart and fell in love with Irish traditional music 28 years ago, when I lost a job and was forced to close my private trade, moving to Ireland become a reality. 

It is not easy to leave a wife and two little kids behind, but with a prospect that they will have to live on the street because you cannot find a job and don't have a money for paying a rent, all that has left for me to do was a huge leap of faith.

Luckily, since there are some 10-20.000 people from Croatia living in Ireland (with hundreds leaving every couple of weeks), finding a helping hand and information was not too hard. 

Of course, typical for Croats, some formed closed groups on Facebook not to mingle with "ordinary" still in Croatia but "elite" already in Ireland. Such behavior just made me sick, since all my life I was helping others no matter of gender or nationality and it is still a line of my heart and soul. 

Pretending to be a "nobility" while you are just a simple yokel or hick and with a mentality that will always stay on Balkans level and never transcend above it, is actually something pitiful rather than something to hate.

So, knowing how it all started, let's move on.

As advice should be a child of experience, I won't give you advice, but rather tell you my story and all I did to go to Ireland.