Thanks, Liam. 🙂 I gave myself an awful headache last night. So would you recommend searching for places via the AirBnB route vs. actually looking for a short-term lease on an Apartment? (Dumb question: Are the homeowners ever living there with you with AirBnB? Are you basically a glorified couch-surfer? I'm "old" at 35 and have never used it because I never get to travel.) To make this related to cats...does anyone who has moved with cats have any reports on how well they travel? If I do ever move there on a longer-term basis, the cats would have to make the trip. It's at least only from Boston, so basically the shortest US flight possible, but they tend to meow occasionally just on the drive to the vet. Oskar has also had both kinds of accidents in his carrier during a two-hour car trip before, and Marmalade gets carsick if he eats right before a trip. (My cats are basically awesome.)

... and we are WAiting for our shipment 🙂 But, they are based in New Jersey and only handle international shipping. Their closest facility to us in Maine is in Boston, which is only 2 hours away. This is what their quote states as included in the cost - will come to your house and package your items appropriately, as well as log the items with you present, ship your items by truck down to their port facility in New Jersey where it will go on a shipping container, the container will be cleared through England before being sent over to Ireland where they arrange ...

... - is there anything else we should be aware of? Your post on drivers licenses WAs helpful - looks like we will need to go through the whole process... We will begin looking into health insurance options once we arrive - is it typical for employers to offer insurance as a benefit in Ireland as they often do in the US? Any resources on employment with organisations that promote local agriculture? Any advice is much appreciated!

... If you WAnt to commute 2 hrs each WAy to work you can find much cheaper. On top of federal income tax (roughly 25-28%), CA has 13.3% state tax, highest in the country. As Liam mentioned, 1% property tax and the additional add on; homeowners insurance, homeowners association (pays for community pools,parks) which could be $150-$400/month, earthquake insurance (still WAiting the the "big" one to happen, ect). I commute depending which office I work at anywhere from 20-55 miles each WAy. Current petrol prices $2.65/gallon. I do find in Ireland they tend not to ...

This is an incredibly random question, but as I notice all the newish baby gear my son is about to outgrow, and the furniture we've accumulated already, how does one unload secondhand goods in Ireland? As we moved from Tucson, we sold most of our possessions via Craigslist, and I know when we move from Ireland we will be unloading most everything we own again. When we moved into this Apartment it would appear the previous tenants just outright abandoned everything (including vhs tapes, broken small appliances, knick knacks... basically enough to fill the backyard shed, we didn't know what to do).