Beatriz Beggs

†: Your first move to Europe was to Italy for nine years and then following that you moved to Ireland. Can you speak on how you first moved to Italy and what led you to eventually move to Ireland?

B: It was never my intention to stay in Italy forever. I had seasonal work there working as a tour leader, which was a lot of fun. I would spend nine months of the year living and working in Italy and go home in the winters for the off-season. One of the years I met my boyfriend, who became my husband so I ended up just staying [laughs]. Then I ended up getting my citizenship in Italy and my husband is from Ireland so that's how I ended up in Ireland.

†: After living in Italy for nine years…is that how you obtained citizenship? Or did you receive it through descent?

B: I was able to do it through my Italian grandfather. It took two years, but yeah that is how I got it.

C: So when you did move to Ireland was it a decision you made with your husband or had you already been travelling to Ireland?

B: I had travelled with my husband and I liked it and then we decided to try something new. In 2014, we were engaged, he said “Let’s move to Ireland.” He had been running a business in Italy and he had grown tired of the bureaucracy there [laughs] so he just said “Let’s try something new.” And I said yes, let’s go for it. †: Did you move straight to Dublin?

B: Yes, we moved to Dublin. And at first it was hard to find a place to live so we were living with his sister for six months and that was not fun [laughs]. Then we finally found our own place and within a year we had our business up and running.

†: Dublin is so difficult to find a place to live in. So how did you go about finding housing and work once you arrived? At this point you would be an EU citizen, so I’m sure that helped along the way.

B: Yes, we didn’t have to worry about visas. It took us about a year to get settled. One of us had to work while the other was sitting at the business. So I got straight to work. I didn’t have too much trouble finding work but there were a couple of months I was unemployed which was hard. The two jobs that I got more longterm were through people I met. I noticed that in Ireland it is very difficult to find a job if you don’t know somebody. There is a lot of networking done here.

†: So it is more about who you know than your CV?

B: Yes, I was nudged along by people who knew me and put a word in for me. And if weren’t for that I wouldn’t have found a job that paid enough to support me. When I first got here, I had a job in four days because one of my best friends works at Airbnb and that honestly got me through the first couple of months. Then after that I was unemployed for awhile, and then worked in a pizza shop where I met my future boss. He noticed that I

spoke Italian (he was Italian) and he asked me if I wanted to come work for him so I said yeah, sure [laughs]. It was in nursing recruitment, which I didn’t even have any experience in but because of my language ability and professional experience I was perfect for the role. It was lucky, if it hadn’t of been for that I don’t know if I would have even gotten off of my feet.

†: That is amazing. You have two languages, Italian and English, and have lived in three cultures (America, Italy, and Ireland) how would you describe adapting to each new country?

B: It’s funny, my parents are actually South American - they are from Chile - so I grew up with two cultures already. My parents were very traditional and as immigrants themselves they tried to raise their kids within Chilean culture and my siblings and I resisted as much as we could because we wanted to be as American as possible [laughs]. So I already understood what it meant to try to adapt culturally to a place. I had also travelled a lot and had the experience of being a trip leader. One of the things about being a trip leader is you have to be the cultural interpreter of where you are so I tried to remain as openminded as possible.

In Italy I had a much easier time adapting to the culture due to the way I was brought up and my beliefs. Even with little things like how people regard food in Italy is more my style rather than Ireland. People eat with the seasons in Italy and they know a lot about food and they try a lot of different things. And here in Ireland the people are way more traditional "It is like a social thing can't happen unless there is alcohol…you know when you're hungover like three days a week you aren't productive." with their food choices. It is a lot harder to introduce something new here I think. So just little things like that. So for me Ireland was quite a culture shock, I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I thought it was going to be less of a culture shock because it’s an English speaking country at all. But no, the first six months were really hard for me. †: So what would you consider to be the biggest culture shocks in Ireland for you? B: Ugh [pauses] I like to have a few drinks, you know. But people here, they like to drink a lot. More than I was used to. It is like a social thing can’t happen unless there is alcohol. If I’m around my Irish friends and there is no alcohol it feels forced. The impact that it had on my health and mental health… you know when you’re hungover like three days a week you aren’t productive. So that was hard. So I had to carve out a little space for myself not to be that way which was hard. The second culture shock that I had is that I find Irish people to be very nostalgic, they like to talk about the past. And I think that's nice, I think it's good but it can turn into a lot of repetitive stories where the same things are talked about again and again. And I found myself craving new things, new types of conversations especially because when people in Ireland talk about the past, it does not apply to me and I’m not involved in that conversation which can be very isolating, you know? So those were the big two culture shocks I had. †: With the nostalgic past you speak of, would it be an Irish historical 45

past or more of personal past experiences they’ve had? B: Like simpler times I would say. There is probably some very nice… like even Dublin used to be very poor. I think that people have very nice memories of those days. And I’m glad they do, but it is hard when you are around people who speak of it and you weren’t there you can’t help but feel really left out.

†: Definitely. Moving back, where in the States were you from?

B: I was born in San Fran and then moved to the bay area.

†: West Coast. So this could apply to Italy as well as you spent so much time there, but what do you miss the most about home whether it's something dumb like Target or something more?

B: From back home (West Coast), I miss the weather and the convenience of everything as well as the diversity of people. Back home I was friends with lots of different kinds of people from different social classes, walks of lives, and ethnicities. I find that here people stick to their circle a lot more. From Italy I miss the food, the lifestyle, the beauty, the regard for art and history and being able to talk to anybody about the history or agriculture of the place.

†: On the flip side what do you find the best about Dublin?

B: [Immediate] Oh, I love Dublin. I think it is such a fun city, I don’t think I’ve ever been bored here. Even if you don’t have a lot of money, you can still have a good time in Dublin just having a couple drinks or going to the theater or - there is live music everywhere you go. You’re never short of entertainment here. I think it is a very fun, dynamic city. It is just big enough to not be so big - you can still explore a lot of it on foot.

It is becoming a lot more diverse, and I’m not sure how I would deal if I had to live in a different part of Ireland. I don’t think I could live somewhere very rural and isolated. Dublin is a great city, and even as hard as it is to find housing - and it definitely has problems - if you can make it work here and you can work and have a nice place to live - and not even nice, just decent [laughs]. It’s just great, I love this town.

†: That’s awesome. Do you see your foreseeable future in Dublin?

B: I don’t think I would go back to Italy to work, that is a tough place to work. I would go back to the U.S. if I knew I had a job with all of the benefits lined up. But to be honest my husband and I will probably stay in Dublin for the foreseeable future. We know we don’t want to retire here, we want to retire somewhere sunny when we don’t need to work.

†: You mention home as more about people than places. How would you define "home"? And because of how many places you’ve lived in would you argue that you can have more than one home?

B: Yeah, I think that the word "home" is very complicated, especially for an expat. You never have just one home anymore, you’re always going to have more than one. For me, I feel like I have three homes. Italy will also be a home for me even if I don’t go back

"I love Dublin. I think it is such a fun city, I don’t think I’ve ever been bored here…I think it is a very fun, dynamic city."

for a really long time. The bay area would definitely be home to me because I know it really well and I feel really comfortable there as well. Also, my immediate family is there so it's hard for me not to think of it as home.

If someone was forcing me to pick one home I don’t think I could do it. Dublin is my home because I am physically here. It doesn’t feel like this is where I necessarily belong but it is where I am making my home.

†: So it is the time spent in a place that makes it home?

B: Yes, I was very much into my life in Italy [laughs]. But life wasn’t easy, like the bureaucracy ugh! It was very frustrating and there were way more frustrating expat moments than I experienced in Ireland. But the way people live their lives like the easy going lifestyle, I loved that. If I could have that every day I would go back to it.

†: You’ve defined being an expat as the hardest and most fulfilling thing you’ve done in your lifetime. If you could go back in time would you have changed anything?

B: I would have tried longer visits to Ireland, rather than staying with family. Like staying on our own in Airbnb or something to get a better feel for it. It’s funny like people did warn me, like my husband did warn me, moving to Ireland is going to mess with your head [laughs].

He said, “Because people are different here, they’re not how you are used to living your life. We are

one home I don't think I could." "If someone was forcing me to pick

going to have to do a better job at taking care of ourselves when we’re there physically and mentally." Also the weather, the winter - it can all mess with your head. I think when I moved here I was in adventure mode. I was full of confidence and I was like "Oh I can do anything because I already lived in so many other places before."

And then six months in I was definitely knocked down. I was definitely experiencing some kind of depression or something like that because it was cold, it was dark, it was wet. And on top of it the social life was exhausting me. It's not that I was ever bored but I don’t think that I could do one more night of sitting in the pub telling the same stories, talking about the same people, listening to the same songs. I needed to get out of that and enrich myself in some other way. And I do love going to the pub and I have really great friends and family here. But after awhile I think I needed to get out of that routine because it was a dangerous one.

†: Absolutely. How did you go and refocus your experience of Dublin to a more positive one for yourself?

B: I’m still doing it. I add little things to my life to make sure I have a focus outside of just a fun social life. Like, I joined a book club because I realized I missed having these conversations about books and art and I needed a little piece of the old me back and that was really helpful. I joined a gym. And running a business with my husband takes up 90% of our time [laughs].

Also, my husband and I travel a lot. We just do little short weekend breaks away even if it is just somewhere else in Ireland to "I was in adventure mode. I was full of confidence and I was like 'Oh I can do anything because I already lived in so many other places.'" break up the scenery. And just do something different. And when I can I get together with some of my friends to go hiking, or biking in Phoenix Park to break up the routine of work, work, work and then drink. †: And then pub, pub, pub, [laughs] yes. Last question, If you could offer advice to other Americans moving over to Ireland, what advice would you give? B: The only thing I would add is that it is a very different experience if you move here with a partner who is not Irish and it is just the two of you navigating through this country together vs. being married into an Irish family or having an Irish partner. Those two [situations] are so different that the whole experience changes. When I was living in Italy with my husband (then fiancé) it was like the two of us against the world. We only had each other and we didn't have any family there and not too many friends. We were navigating through this different culture together and that made us feel really strong and secure. When we moved to Ireland, I didn’t know I was with him. It was like I was on my own. Because it was no longer me and him against the world it was like me, the one foreigner in the family. So there is 100% a difference on your experience if you are with a nonIrish person moving to Ireland vs. being with an Irish person when you move to Ireland. And this is true with all of the expats I have spoken to who have moved here.