The Great Apartment Hunt of 2007
Well, as it grows nearer to August, more and more needs to be done in preparation for my move to Seattle. I finally finished all my loan applications, though some minor details need to be ironed out with DigiPen's financial office. I signed up for classes, but now I need to send in an application to transfer course credit from Emerson.
Aaaand... I needed to find an apartment. So, last week I hopped on a plane and flew out to NYC. I know, I know. NYC isn't Seattle, but I figured that, if I'm gonna take time off of work, I might as well combine it with a trip to Brooklyn to visit my friends before I move across the country. So after spending a few days in the Big Apple, I left for Seattle - by the way, I make this sound like it was simple, but I ended up being delayed and sitting on the runway at Laguardia for 4 hours. It sucked. ANYway, enough bitching...
I finally got to Seattle and met my sister at the hotel. It was late, so I turned in almost immediately. Today we got up and ate breakfast, then hit the road to start the apartment search. My sister had some contacts for apartment viewings, but only one of them, a woman named Jennifer, could meet with us today to look at anything. After some experimentation and confusion with the bus system, we managed to hook up with Jennifer and check out the unit she was showing. It wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't great either. The location seemed sort of suburban/backwoodsy, and my sister and I both agreed that the apartment complex itself was kind of ghetto-fabulous. After we viewed the Jennifer's apartment, we talked a bit about the other places we wanted to look at. She was able to help us narrow things down a bit, and we decided to check out a lead in West Seattle.
This bus trip was a little bit smoother. We had some good directions from Jennifer's friend and managed to get to West Seattle with little to no trouble. We were able to tell relatively soon after arriving in the neighborhood that this was an area we wanted to live in. For my Boston peeps, the area is a lot like Allston, though a bit cleaner. There are several different types of food in the area, from pizza to Indian to Korean, plus a slew of cool little shops. Once we got there we decided to take a stroll down the main road to see if we could find more apartments for lease. About 2 minutes down the road we found a unit called San Juan Apartments. My sister called the number on the sign and got in touch with the leaser, Liz. She shows up about 15 minutes after talking to us and shows us the unit she has available.
It.. is... awesome! Hardwood floors, spacious, great bathroom, lots of sunlight, AND it's in a great neighborhood. And on top of everything, Liz was awesome. We really hit it off with her, and if we decide to go with this place (which I'm 99% sure we will) it will be a pleasure to have her around and do business with her. I'd say there are only a couple of downsides to this place: 1) it's on the 4th floor, so moving will be slightly more difficult. This also means that, because heat rises, it's going to be a bit warmer in the summer. Aaaand 2) It doesn't have a dish washer, but my sister is going to talk to her current roommate about buying her roll-away dish washer.
Anyway, that's it for now. I've gotta jet, since my sister and I are going to head to a bar up the street from our hotel to celebrate our successful day!
Over and out.
Aaaand... I needed to find an apartment. So, last week I hopped on a plane and flew out to NYC. I know, I know. NYC isn't Seattle, but I figured that, if I'm gonna take time off of work, I might as well combine it with a trip to Brooklyn to visit my friends before I move across the country. So after spending a few days in the Big Apple, I left for Seattle - by the way, I make this sound like it was simple, but I ended up being delayed and sitting on the runway at Laguardia for 4 hours. It sucked. ANYway, enough bitching...
I finally got to Seattle and met my sister at the hotel. It was late, so I turned in almost immediately. Today we got up and ate breakfast, then hit the road to start the apartment search. My sister had some contacts for apartment viewings, but only one of them, a woman named Jennifer, could meet with us today to look at anything. After some experimentation and confusion with the bus system, we managed to hook up with Jennifer and check out the unit she was showing. It wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't great either. The location seemed sort of suburban/backwoodsy, and my sister and I both agreed that the apartment complex itself was kind of ghetto-fabulous. After we viewed the Jennifer's apartment, we talked a bit about the other places we wanted to look at. She was able to help us narrow things down a bit, and we decided to check out a lead in West Seattle.
This bus trip was a little bit smoother. We had some good directions from Jennifer's friend and managed to get to West Seattle with little to no trouble. We were able to tell relatively soon after arriving in the neighborhood that this was an area we wanted to live in. For my Boston peeps, the area is a lot like Allston, though a bit cleaner. There are several different types of food in the area, from pizza to Indian to Korean, plus a slew of cool little shops. Once we got there we decided to take a stroll down the main road to see if we could find more apartments for lease. About 2 minutes down the road we found a unit called San Juan Apartments. My sister called the number on the sign and got in touch with the leaser, Liz. She shows up about 15 minutes after talking to us and shows us the unit she has available.
It.. is... awesome! Hardwood floors, spacious, great bathroom, lots of sunlight, AND it's in a great neighborhood. And on top of everything, Liz was awesome. We really hit it off with her, and if we decide to go with this place (which I'm 99% sure we will) it will be a pleasure to have her around and do business with her. I'd say there are only a couple of downsides to this place: 1) it's on the 4th floor, so moving will be slightly more difficult. This also means that, because heat rises, it's going to be a bit warmer in the summer. Aaaand 2) It doesn't have a dish washer, but my sister is going to talk to her current roommate about buying her roll-away dish washer.
Anyway, that's it for now. I've gotta jet, since my sister and I are going to head to a bar up the street from our hotel to celebrate our successful day!
Over and out.