(no subject)
Soo, we are back home in Buffalo after spending the past 9 days touring the south in hopes of a new post marriage home. Outside of Louisville, it didn't rain at all during our trip. The moment we enter NYS, crazy thunder in the sky. Pull up to the apartment, and the wind starts whipping. 10 minutes later it starts downpouring. Within 10 minutes of getting home, we are experiencing Hurricane Business-as-usual. Great to be home. A recap if you shall:
Pack up our junk and hit the road by 4:30am Saturday. Drive to Cincy to have lunch with Alan, who Jess hadn't met yet. We hang out for an hour reconnecting, before we kept on truckin down to Louisville. Battled some fierce rains on the way there, the only rain we encountered on the entire trip. Get into town, the hotel room is very basic, but OK. Check out Falls of the Ohio state park, which is quite nice, and look into apartments in the Hurstbourne and Southern Indiana. Hurstbourne area is very nice, but Southern Indiana area, despite being 5 minutes away from downtown Louisville, is far too rural for my liking. They refer to that area BTW, as Kentuck-iana. They have a really nice downtown area, esp. 4th street, which is like Chippewa, but without fratboys carrying diseases. We liked the area a lot of will defin consider it for our future.
The next day we head to Nashville. Route 40 is a real bitch, despite appearing to seem quite open. Driving around Nashville, you get a distinct impression people either have quite a bit of money, or not very much at all. The apartments are very lacking, even the "nicer ones," and to be quite frank, it seems to be a generally dirty city. The only place we would really want to live is in Brentwood (tons of mansions some places), and that's just not enough. The hotel we had was far and away the best. It was a nice hotel that had an outdoor pool, and indoor sauna, and we practically had the run of the hotel, it was sweet! The highlight was driving past an older woman who went for a walk with a baseball bat. We almost went back to take a picture, but feared she would use it on the car. Otherwise, Nashville is out.
After that was 2 days in Charlotte. Charlotte really did feel like home, it's a very nice place. It is sort of sprawling for a city, and they love their speedbumps (everyone in the south has speedbumps everywhere, very annoying!) We went all over the place, and didn't really find any slummy places. I was enamored with an apartment that we found in the college town of Davidson, north of the city, and we also found nice apartments downtown and in Matthews. Our hotel was a Ramada Inn, that looked nice on the outside, and was totally garbage inside. All the hallways were barely lit, and the rooms had beds lamps and a TV, that was in. All of the creature comforts you would get in a Day's Inn, or a Howard Johnson, like a microwave, or a fridge, or more then 20 TV channels or a free breakfast weren't included (I later found out they charge $90/night for this dump). Charlotte really is our top choice, it's such a lovely city, and even though they are currently undergoing quite a slump, it was a great place.
After that was our final day of visiting cities, in Raleigh, NC. The downtown area was nice, and they really seem to go all out in making the city as a whole look like it's been cared for. We checked out a couple of places in the city, then went to Jessie's favorite apartment of the trip in Cary. I'll admit, it was a hell of a place, we would approaching double to square footage territory for this place for only $5 more/month then what we currently have. It's set up nice, and they've got pools on both end of this complex. It's a new complex, and done up well, you get a lot of bang for your buck. Additionally, it's literally situated about 200 yards away from a ton of stores including a BJ's, Target, Staples, Petsmart, even a movie theatre. If we moved there, we should really leave our neighborhood, but frankly, it would be hard to need to, with that convenience. Raleigh is very much in, and we will likely let our job situations determine where we live.
For the last few days we had a couple of nights in a beachfront hotel on the ocean in Myrtle Beach. The room was nice, basic, but not bad by any stretch, and we had an oceanfront view from our balcony, and were right next to the beach which was amazing. We had a great time in the pools and ocean fighting the waves, as well as some of the touristy stuff like Broadway at the Beach and a far too long hunt for a snowcone/italian ice. In spite of the good time, the hotel in Nashville was better for several reasons. 1. The Hilton we stayed in at Myrtle Beach apparently believes it is a better idea to just hand them your wallet when you check in, since you won't be needing any of your cash once they are done with you. $7 to park. Daily. $10 to connect to their internet. Daily. A continental breakfast costs $10 per person daily, and the breakfast buffet $17 per person daily. We bought cereal and oatmeal at the cost of less then 1/2 of the buffet price for 1 person for 1 day. Outrageous. I brought my Wii, and their TV is set up so that anything you stick into the A/V input is scrambled, but you can buy movies from them and buy games from them if you want. Being me, I didn't have to pay for parking or internet, I found my way around those, but at an inconvenience for both of us. 2. The service there ranged from useless to inept. We asked the front desk people for a TV guide of some sort so that we knew what was on. I think we waited about 10 minutes while they tried to find something or mumble some excuse. The best we got was a tv channel directory. Then, the following day, we went to get lunch at their outside restaurant. We told the woman seating people that we wanted to order food to take to our rooms and would sit down to wait for them. After 10 minutes, a couple of bags were brought up, some people took some, but one remained. Not one to make assumptions we patiently waiting while I made repeated eye contact with this woman. Another 10 minutes had passed before I finally went up to ask about the status of our order that she told us would take 20 minutes. She looked me in the eye and lied right to my face telling me that it was waiting for me right there, but they just brought it out a minute ago and it was still hot (food was soggy when we got to the room). I was floored. I asked her why she didn't tell us when we were sitting right there, and specifically told her that we were going to wait there. She stated that she was an old lady and doesn't remember every face. Glad to see they use creative excuses. Despite these set backs with the workers there we had a generally good time.
This morning we got up for the sunrise, and headed out the door for home at 7:30am. After 14 and a half hours of driving, we pulled up to our apartment at 10pm. Very weary. 10 minutes later it started thunderstorming. Glad to be back (rolls eyes). Work tomorrow, I get to get up in 5 hours. Goodnight folks!!
Pack up our junk and hit the road by 4:30am Saturday. Drive to Cincy to have lunch with Alan, who Jess hadn't met yet. We hang out for an hour reconnecting, before we kept on truckin down to Louisville. Battled some fierce rains on the way there, the only rain we encountered on the entire trip. Get into town, the hotel room is very basic, but OK. Check out Falls of the Ohio state park, which is quite nice, and look into apartments in the Hurstbourne and Southern Indiana. Hurstbourne area is very nice, but Southern Indiana area, despite being 5 minutes away from downtown Louisville, is far too rural for my liking. They refer to that area BTW, as Kentuck-iana. They have a really nice downtown area, esp. 4th street, which is like Chippewa, but without fratboys carrying diseases. We liked the area a lot of will defin consider it for our future.
The next day we head to Nashville. Route 40 is a real bitch, despite appearing to seem quite open. Driving around Nashville, you get a distinct impression people either have quite a bit of money, or not very much at all. The apartments are very lacking, even the "nicer ones," and to be quite frank, it seems to be a generally dirty city. The only place we would really want to live is in Brentwood (tons of mansions some places), and that's just not enough. The hotel we had was far and away the best. It was a nice hotel that had an outdoor pool, and indoor sauna, and we practically had the run of the hotel, it was sweet! The highlight was driving past an older woman who went for a walk with a baseball bat. We almost went back to take a picture, but feared she would use it on the car. Otherwise, Nashville is out.
After that was 2 days in Charlotte. Charlotte really did feel like home, it's a very nice place. It is sort of sprawling for a city, and they love their speedbumps (everyone in the south has speedbumps everywhere, very annoying!) We went all over the place, and didn't really find any slummy places. I was enamored with an apartment that we found in the college town of Davidson, north of the city, and we also found nice apartments downtown and in Matthews. Our hotel was a Ramada Inn, that looked nice on the outside, and was totally garbage inside. All the hallways were barely lit, and the rooms had beds lamps and a TV, that was in. All of the creature comforts you would get in a Day's Inn, or a Howard Johnson, like a microwave, or a fridge, or more then 20 TV channels or a free breakfast weren't included (I later found out they charge $90/night for this dump). Charlotte really is our top choice, it's such a lovely city, and even though they are currently undergoing quite a slump, it was a great place.
After that was our final day of visiting cities, in Raleigh, NC. The downtown area was nice, and they really seem to go all out in making the city as a whole look like it's been cared for. We checked out a couple of places in the city, then went to Jessie's favorite apartment of the trip in Cary. I'll admit, it was a hell of a place, we would approaching double to square footage territory for this place for only $5 more/month then what we currently have. It's set up nice, and they've got pools on both end of this complex. It's a new complex, and done up well, you get a lot of bang for your buck. Additionally, it's literally situated about 200 yards away from a ton of stores including a BJ's, Target, Staples, Petsmart, even a movie theatre. If we moved there, we should really leave our neighborhood, but frankly, it would be hard to need to, with that convenience. Raleigh is very much in, and we will likely let our job situations determine where we live.
For the last few days we had a couple of nights in a beachfront hotel on the ocean in Myrtle Beach. The room was nice, basic, but not bad by any stretch, and we had an oceanfront view from our balcony, and were right next to the beach which was amazing. We had a great time in the pools and ocean fighting the waves, as well as some of the touristy stuff like Broadway at the Beach and a far too long hunt for a snowcone/italian ice. In spite of the good time, the hotel in Nashville was better for several reasons. 1. The Hilton we stayed in at Myrtle Beach apparently believes it is a better idea to just hand them your wallet when you check in, since you won't be needing any of your cash once they are done with you. $7 to park. Daily. $10 to connect to their internet. Daily. A continental breakfast costs $10 per person daily, and the breakfast buffet $17 per person daily. We bought cereal and oatmeal at the cost of less then 1/2 of the buffet price for 1 person for 1 day. Outrageous. I brought my Wii, and their TV is set up so that anything you stick into the A/V input is scrambled, but you can buy movies from them and buy games from them if you want. Being me, I didn't have to pay for parking or internet, I found my way around those, but at an inconvenience for both of us. 2. The service there ranged from useless to inept. We asked the front desk people for a TV guide of some sort so that we knew what was on. I think we waited about 10 minutes while they tried to find something or mumble some excuse. The best we got was a tv channel directory. Then, the following day, we went to get lunch at their outside restaurant. We told the woman seating people that we wanted to order food to take to our rooms and would sit down to wait for them. After 10 minutes, a couple of bags were brought up, some people took some, but one remained. Not one to make assumptions we patiently waiting while I made repeated eye contact with this woman. Another 10 minutes had passed before I finally went up to ask about the status of our order that she told us would take 20 minutes. She looked me in the eye and lied right to my face telling me that it was waiting for me right there, but they just brought it out a minute ago and it was still hot (food was soggy when we got to the room). I was floored. I asked her why she didn't tell us when we were sitting right there, and specifically told her that we were going to wait there. She stated that she was an old lady and doesn't remember every face. Glad to see they use creative excuses. Despite these set backs with the workers there we had a generally good time.
This morning we got up for the sunrise, and headed out the door for home at 7:30am. After 14 and a half hours of driving, we pulled up to our apartment at 10pm. Very weary. 10 minutes later it started thunderstorming. Glad to be back (rolls eyes). Work tomorrow, I get to get up in 5 hours. Goodnight folks!!