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An idea, and so many thoughts. No one knew what was happening, it was a secret kept within our family, a strong and radical choice we did not want to share to prevent anyone from “disturbing” our dream. Everything started with a thought: “All we need is a better life for us and especially for our children.”
We have given us a short, short time because time sometimes does not help, even makes things go up, blurring the goal, only 1 month, 30 days to arrange everything.
We mean, leaving a home where our children have been growing, enrolling children in a school in a different country where we were deciding to move, communicating such a hard choice to relatives and friends, preparing the children for this choice, preparing documents and certificates of all kinds and maybe a thousand other things because in those days we slept 3 hours at night and run from morning till night uninterruptedly. Galway, the beautiful Irish town, would become our new home.
It was Tancredi’s first time in Ireland, while Laura had been studying English there but only 20 years ago. In other words, our new life was based on a choice made at the table, dictated by a careful search for more information on the internet and experiences gained from various trips abroad, besides an irrational instinct that told us that Galway would have been the right place to raise our children…!
THE FIRST STEP
The first month spent there was an incredible month, we have been busy with an incredible number of bureaucratic aspects and first of all the attention of our children for this passage. They behaved incredibly, they accepted everything with maturity and intelligence, they accepted this change as adults and not children as they were. They were projected into a reality that was completely different from that in which they had lived until that moment. The school was a big question mark, they did not speak a word in English, and they would have to confront them all for 5 hours a day without us. When we went to leave them on the first day of school we were worried, the non-inclusion of children could have been a cause of “unsuccess” of our dream of living in Galway. At the exit of the school, running towards us, they made a great smile we will never forget, that was a beautiful moment, comforted us and excited and gave us all the energy to continue this adventure.
THE SECOND STEP
The second important step, after the introduction of children into school, was to find a home.
Not being Irish, not having still a job and not being able to give references, it’s not helpful to find a home, even harder if you have children too.
We searched in agencies, on the internet, on newspapers but it was not really all that complicated by the school hours to be respected, from the location of the home where we were a bit far from everything and always moving on buses and on foot. But this circumstance was incredibly served because, at that time, we were not fully aware, we were bringing the idea of the work we would have done. One good day, finally, after seeing a significant number of homes, they trusted us and they gave us a house. Finally, we had our home!
THE THIRD STEP
The third, last and most important step to complete our transfer was to find a job. When we arrived in Galway we were 4 and 4 suitcases, so many ideas, a set of attestations and our two degrees and some money aside, not many for the truth as we are in 4. We were open to everything, to any work and we were very determined. So it was a couple of months when finally an idea came to fruition. Immediately we realized that it was a viable idea, so we worked night and day to see how to develop it. Trying to make a business plan and see especially if there was someone who was already doing this job in an organized manner. Everything was based on helping people find homes, seeing the problems we encountered, and serving a welcome and support service as well as offering English courses, which are indispensable if you decide to live in an English city and beyond.
THE WAY TO…
Studying the local market we saw that there was a company operating in Ireland, Cork and Dublin. In theory, they were also in Galway but practically there was no office. At that point, we made a very important decision to choose to do it all alone or start a collaboration. We will never forget the first video call with Julia before and then with Enrico, founders of EazyCity, immediate understanding but we did not know where exactly this first phone call would have taken us.
We are not talking about all that has happened but today, after almost two years, we have developed a business here in Galway, we have provided accommodation to hundreds of people, giving a highly valued service with care and professionalism. So many guys, and not only, find work and implement their English level thanks to the courses we offer. We are very happy with everything that happened and here in Galway we are known as Tancredi and Laura “the lovely family”, we’ve been busy a lot, night and day, and we are proud of everything we did.
For sure you can change life at any age, just want it really, follow your instinct and plan better what you are doing, surely there will be unforeseen things but you can always solve it. And we still have fun joking with Julia and Enrico when they call it the “adult” couple, it’s true we have hair that’s grizzled with time but the mind is always two youngsters.
Today, we live permanently in Galway, our kids are perfectly integrated with the English language, have many friends, and we all still keep reading and writing in Italian because we never have to forget our origins and we are proud of them!
Find the courage!!!
Tancredi&Laura
