The Lederman Kitchen

April 2nd marked 1 year of living in Dublin for us.  So much has happened in this last year, it's been a tough year, and a great year, and most definitely a year we will remember.   St Stephen's Green, Dublin Admittedly, living in Ireland was not been as easy of a transition as I expected.  But, I had formed expectations for living here before I had ever even stepped foot in the country.  I thought, how different could it be?  We were moving to a European capital city where the native language was English.  Turns out, it can be very different. Ha'Penny Bridge in Dublin It was a big decision to start with.  It meant a lot for Brian and I.  Besides the material things like leaving behind all our beautiful wedding gifts we had received only a few months earlier, we were leaving a strong network of friends and family. We left our dog (don’t worry, he is living with family), we left our Nephews when they were not yet 1 & 3....

I've been working in Ireland for exactly 4 months on Thursday.  These 4 months have flown by and I'm soaking up every minute I can. Working here has been an incredible experience, and I'm so lucky to enjoy my company, co-workers and job. Here is a glimpse of what my days are like. We change seats about once a month, so I now sit by 5 different colleagues  The photo above is where I (used to) sit.  My seat was the open one in the middle.  To my left was Antoine, from France.  Across from him, Mohamed, from Egypt.  Then Letizia from Italy, Saoirse from Ireland and Caroline from Sweden.  It's incredible.  My boss is Dutch and his boss Canadian. My colleagues are from all over Europe and even beyond.  I'm constantly impressed with the number of languages some of them speak and am insanely jealous that probably half of my team speaks at least 2 languages well enough to do business in them. Speaking only English is easily the most e...

I start my new job on Monday!  It was quite the process to get to this point. April 2nd - Arrive in Dublin May 10th - Offered my job May 18th - Paperwork sent off to Irish government for my Work Permit June 7th - Work Permit granted! June 8th - Updated my status at the Immigration office (yay for a better photo on my immigration card) June 25th- First day of my new job! Although this seemed like the longest process in the world, they originally guessed my start date would be July 23rd, so things happened about a month quicker than expected. So, here goes nothing.  I'm excited, a little nervous, but mostly, just ready.  I am not going to lie, I will miss sleeping in, hitting the gym before, or after, lunch and meeting my friend Abby for an afternoon coffee on the canal.  The last few months, I have developed a surprising ability to fill a day with these small tasks.  I did volunteer ~15 hours a week for the last 3 weeks, which really helped get me bac...