Dr Desislava Andreeva says her Canadian friends only travel to Dublin when the sun is shiningDr Desislava Andreeva says Canadian and Irish cultures are very similar. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times Hosanna BoulterTue Jul 14 2026 - 06:00 • 4 MIN READDr Desislava Andreeva (36) moved from Bulgaria to Dublin in 2022. She grew up in Canada and says that much about Ireland reminds her of there. However, the big difference is the weather. “In Canada we had four seasons, here we just have rain and sun,” Andreeva says. Much to Andreeva’s annoyance, any time people have come to visit her here, it has been exceptionally sunny.“And they say, why are you complaining all the time? The weather here is amazing.”Andreeva’s family is from Bulgaria, but her parents emigrated to Canada when she was two years old. She grew up and attended school in Canada before moving to Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital city, for medical school. By the time she started at medical school her parents had retired and moved back to Bulgaria.“My parents moved in their late 20s, early 30s. They grew up in Bulgaria and then went across the world in the early 90s. It was a very big shock and I don’t think they ever got used to it. They always wanted to go back,” she says.She decided to do her medical degree through English as, although her family had always spoken Bulgarian at home, she did not feel completely fluent. Her medical class was very international. Most students were American but there were some from Ireland and the UK. Eventually she choose to specialise in ophthalmology and specifically eye surgery. “I really love drawing and painting, so I found that it was very close to that. Ocular surgery has an art to it.”Dr Desislava Andreeva plans to stay in Ireland. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times While she made lots of friends at medical school and loved being close to her family, she never fully felt at home in Bulgaria. “I grew up in an English-speaking country,” she says.Once her time at medical school was over, many of her friends moved back to where they were from. She firstly got a fixed-term contract in the UK and while she was there her brother, who is also an ophthalmologist, got a job in Ireland. When the place where he worked was seeking another ophthalmologist, Andreeva decided to apply – even though she had only been to Ireland once before to visit her brother. In Canada, she spent her formative years surrounded by people who proudly proclaimed their Irish heritage and believes that as a result the Canadian and Irish cultures are very similar. “I have a few friends in Ireland and I did ask them before I came, how is the healthcare system? What is Ireland like in general? They only had good things to say so I decided to give it a try.” She works across a few different eye clinics in Dublin and Kildare.“I see anything from red eye, to maybe a bit of steel in their eye, to swollen eyes or sudden loss of vision. It can be something very small to something very serious,” she says.It’s a lot more chaotic in Sofia, here it is a lot calmer— Dr Desislava AndreevaWhile finding somewhere to live that was convenient for her work was a challenge, today she feels happy and settled in her life here. A big difference she has noticed between life in Sofia and Dublin is people’s attitudes towards driving. “It’s a lot more chaotic in Sofia, here it is a lot calmer.”According to Andreeva, people drive a lot faster in Sofia and have a more relaxed attitude towards the traffic laws in general. She was surprised by the lack of public transport infrastructure that Dublin has, compared to Sofia.“I thought the public transport here would be a lot better. In Sofia there’s an underground, there’s buses which are always on schedule, there’s trams and it’s very, very easy and convenient to get from one point to another.”[ From Boston to Ireland: ‘It’s been almost three years, but I’m still a foreigner’Opens in new window ]In Dublin, she has found that sometimes buses do not turn up at all or won’t stop if they are full, and says this happens quite often. “Sometimes you can be standing in the rain for a while waiting for the next bus to come. You don’t really know when it’s going to come.” It also came as a surprise to her that passengers can’t pay for their fare on the bus or train with contactless payments.“I was once stuck without cash, I just had my phone with me. The bus driver said ‘cash or Leap card’. I didn’t know what a Leap card was,” she says.In the end the bus driver let her on to the bus so that she could make it home. [ People New to the Parish ‘We came back to Ireland in late October, not the best time to come back. It was quite cold’Opens in new window ]Andreeva believes Ireland has better supermarkets than Canada and Bulgaria.“The quality of the produce is better because it is produced locally. In Bulgaria they import a lot of things.”She also brought her beloved dog with her when she moved to Dublin. Before she moved, she was under the impression that the city would be more dog-friendly than it is. “A lot of the restaurants say they are dog-friendly, but they make you sit outside,” she says.Whereas in Bulgaria, she says that there is no issue with people bringing their dog into any restaurant or shop. “My dog is small so I can hide her.”Andreeva sees herself staying in Ireland long-term.“I really like the people, I think the people are very kind. If you want to go on vacation, it’s a very quick flight to the beach – two, three hours and you are there.”We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. 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