Possibly moving back to Galway and the beautiful Rain

mayotom

:eek:

I have been away from Galway now for over 3 and a half years during which time I have been based in Spain, Dubai, Abu Dhabi but travelled alot...

I haven't even been to the City in 3 years, Ideally I'd like to keep living in the sunshine(not so much the middle east) maybe somewhere exotic....

but Financially its either stay here or move back to Ireland, and the stay here option is getting increasingly riskier as more people are loosing jobs here than at home. but once you lose your job here, you have 30 days to start a new one or leave the country. and with the cost of living been so high its just not practical to hang about....

So was wondering what are the big changes in Galway over the past 3 years?
What's the Job situation like(Sales, Customer Service, People management, Retail Management)?
have rents come down?
what would an average one bed cost now, say around the Docks/Eyre Square etc?
I could go on but I think that's enough questions for now

ScumLord

Jobs wise it's not good, you'll be lucky to get a job in our new burger king, that's right we've got a burger king now. Rent has come down allot and houses are being sold two for the price of one in some places. But the main thing to remember is we have a burger king, I don't see that it's all that much better than McDonalds but at least you have the option now. The council have also managed to improve gridlock and traffic jams throughout the county so you'll still be just as late for work.

mayotom

ScumLord wrote: »

Jobs wise it's not good, you'll be lucky to get a job in our new burger king, that's right we've got a burger king now. Rent has come down allot and houses are being sold two for the price of one in some places. But the main thing to remember is we have a burger king, I don't see that it's all that much better than McDonalds but at least you have the option now. The council have also managed to improve gridlock and traffic jams throughout the county so you'll still be just as late for work.

Worse Traffic???

its the opposite here, this place used to have chronic traffic in comparison to Galway, but now that hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave the country the journey times have plummeted, the Infamous Dubai-Sharjah route that took 2.5 hours 6 months ago now takes 25-30 minutes.

Hate Burger King and McD's but miss the Supermacs Chicken

Mars Bar

Supermac's is done up, they held job interviews and took CV's. Apparently there were rakes of overly qualified people looking for the jobs. You go in there now, and it's all foreigners. If you are Irish, you probably get a job...

BTW, this is not a racist remark, it's an observation.

Interceptor

Don't waste your time coming back to this kip. Its worse than when you left it, rents are down 10-15% but still on a par with suburban Dublin and house prices while falling are not being bought because its impossible to get a mortgage. The Quincentennial still blocks fully in both directions most evenings and Claregalway takes 45 mins to get through in the morning and evening.

Run away to New Zealand or Brazil or anywhere...

'cptr

ScumLord

mayotom wrote: »

Worse Traffic???

its the opposite here, this place used to have chronic traffic in comparison to Galway, but now that hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave the country the journey times have plummeted, the Infamous Dubai-Sharjah route that took 2.5 hours 6 months ago now takes 25-30 minutes.

Hate Burger King and McD's but miss the Supermacs Chicken

I think you could be disappointed there too, I don't go to supermacs often but I remember their chicken fillet burger used to be a big lump of battered chicken. Last time I'd gotten one they'd used a basic takeaway chicken fillet.

We doomed! Unless your planning on coming back to lead the connaught revolution or something?

KevR

There's no doubt that there are less cars on the roads in Galway than there were this time last year.

BUT I have noticed a huge increase in speed traps in the last 6 months and as a result people seem to be driving a lot slower. If someone used to take X amount of time to make a specific journey and now they are taking an extra 5 mins to make that same journey you have that single car wasting valuable road capacity for 5 mins longer than it used to this time last year. Multiply that by thousands of people and that's why traffic jams are worse now despite there probably being less cars on the road.

The Galway Bypass is a very long way off, upgrade of the busiest junction in the City is delayed for the forseeable future. The upgrade of the Seamus Quirke Road is supposed to happen at some stage this year but we'll have to wait and see because they've made several false promises in the past as to when it would happen.

On a more positive note - the M6 connecting Galway to Dublin with continous motorway should be complete by next Spring.

RE: The Galway rain - is it just me or have we not had as much rain so far this year as we did during the same period last year?

Before anyone jumps down my throat - I'm not against speed traps, I'm not in favour of speeding, I'm not saying people were driving at dangerous speeds previously (more so that they drove at sensible/safe speeds on certain roads which have very low speed limits). I'm merely making an observation as to why I think traffic is worse.

ARGINITE

If I was to have the choice between Dubai or some other middle east country and Galway. I would pick Galway hands down every time, you can't end up in jail because you can't pay a bank loan. You also won't have your past port confiscated if you have an unpaid loans and no job.

Have a read of this for a proper picture of Dubai.

ScumLord

KevR wrote: »

Before anyone jumps down my throat - I'm not against speed traps, I'm not in favour of speeding, I'm not saying people were driving at dangerous speeds previously (more so that they drove at sensible/safe speeds on certain roads which have very low speed limits). I'm merely making an observation as to why I think traffic is worse.

We have a terrible problem with speed in this country and it's not related to driving to fast.

Half the people want to do the speed limit, 20% want to go over it and 30% won't go near it. So everyone is doing completely different speeds and annoying each other. We should bring in laws like in Holland where everyone is required to be within 10klms of the speed limit. At least we'll all be on the same page then.

Euro_Kraut

ScumLord wrote: »

We have a terrible problem with speed in this country and it's not related to driving to fast.

Half the people want to do the speed limit, 20% want to go over it and 30% won't go near it. So everyone is doing completely different speeds and annoying each other. We should bring in laws like in Holland where everyone is required to be within 10klms of the speed limit. At least we'll all be on the same page then.

There is something to be said for that. We need to over hauls speed limits in Ireland (not just Galway). Personally I think we need 30km max in city centre areas. The city centre is not the place for cars and when cars must travel there (the city should be designed so that they should not have to) they need to share the space with cyclists and pedestrians. Its good from a noise pollution perspective too.

However on the major arterial routes cars need to move quickly.

Interceptor

Jaysus lads, take it waaay off topic why donchas? In Dubai they cut your mickey off for thread yakking...

'cptr

Mrs OBumble

I've heard that rents have come down in the suburbs.

Not sure that it's true to the same extent in the city centre, browsing the advertiser I've not been brave enough to threaten to move unless the landlord drops mine, and when the flat next door was vacated it was filled again pretty quickly.

Job situation sucks. And if you've been out of the country you probably won't be eligible for welfare (habitual residency) unless you can convince them you've cut all ties with everywhere else. Or if you're totally broke and going for means tested welfare, the queue is many many weeks long.

The artistic/cultural life is still good, not quite to the pre-recession levels, but still pretty amazing for a city this size.

pandamoanium

MayoTom - fancy trading?

I miss Dubai terribly, would love to go back!

If you ever fancy a house swap just let me know!

mayotom

mars bar wrote: »

Supermac's is done up, they held job interviews and took CV's. Apparently there were rakes of overly qualified people looking for the jobs. You go in there now, and it's all foreigners. If you are Irish, you probably get a job...

BTW, this is not a racist remark, it's an observation.

I have learned to be more and more racist over here, you just have to, its encouraged, it has to be accepted that people of different races are different and need to be treated differently, otherwise you need to change everybody to your frame of mind and that is impossible..

one thing I don't miss is all this political correctness that took over Irish Society a few years ago

ARGINITE wrote: »

If I was to have the choice between Dubai or some other middle east country and Galway. I would pick Galway hands down every time, you can't end up in jail because you can't pay a bank loan. You also won't have your past port confiscated if you have an unpaid loans and no job.

Have a read of this for a proper picture of Dubai.

Have to agree the Quality of life in Galway was much better than in Dubai is now. As for the article in the Independent, well take a look at Someone does not like Dubai!!!! this its the point of view of many of the expats here, the reporter has taken every bad point and blown it out of proportion, to sell papers. although she does raise some good points.

oh and they don't confiscate your passport if you have a loan and no job,, where did you get that from.

pandamoanium wrote: »

MayoTom - fancy trading?

I miss Dubai terribly, would love to go back!

If you ever fancy a house swap just let me know!

DEAL,

I'm in a S**ty studio out in International city, commuting to Abu Dhabi cornishe every day, so sounds good to me


anyway, I've been looking at the options and now Cyprus, Spain, Panama, Caymans are all on the list, so time will tell


.

[-0-]

I lived in Cyprus before and I highly recommend it. I would love to go back there. Stay away from Nicosia. Limassol is lovely.

mayotom

[-0-] wrote: »

I lived in Cyprus before and I highly recommend it. I would love to go back there. Stay away from Nicosia. Limassol is lovely.

Limassol is where we are looking, it seems to be one of the better locations, I have some job options there although the salary wouldn't put food on the table. also have free acomadation in Paphos for 3 months if I want. so will have to see, how my job here pans out over the next few weeks

TJ

[-0-]

mayotom wrote: »

Limassol is where we are looking, it seems to be one of the better locations, I have some job options there although the salary wouldn't put food on the table. also have free acomadation in Paphos for 3 months if I want. so will have to see, how my job here pans out over the next few weeks

TJ

Sweet. Best of luck with it.