On Thursday night July 15th we set out via SunCountry to find our new home. Upon arrival we discovered the pain that is parking in SF, and were welcomed officially by the city in the form of a parking ticket. I'd like to thank the city for such a heart felt welcome, it made us feel like real locals. Thursday night wasn't eventful at all, we relaxed in our hotel and prepared out selves for the great apartment hunt that was to be our 1st day, Friday.
On Friday we set out early in the morning to find our neighborhood and our future home. The day was filled with appointments and ambition, and we were ready for it. The region we've settled on is called the Richmond District its not your full house style San Fran but its nice, safe, cheap, and the most bang for our buck. Through out the day we saw 1 bed rooms and 2 all of them wouldn't do. Amber liked some and Dan liked the others, but we couldn't agree and started fighting with each other. After driving around looking at places and spending the day on the move we were ready to retire back at our hotel. Instead of street parking we found a lot that cost 1/2 of what the hotel wanted to charge us, and about the 1/3 of a cost of a parking ticket.
Upon parking our car we decided a warm meal and an internet search would do us soom good. If Saturday was going to be anything like Friday we'd need to eat a good dinner. The concierge at the hotel recommended us a fancy pants Chinese restaurant in china town which I must say was what we needed. After our dinner we made our way back to the hotel and posted up at a starbucks for the free internet. We found some interesting places most of which were open houses and only 1 appointment on a place that didn't have an address only cross streets. Either way we had until Sunday and we were determined to find our selves an apartment.
Saturday morning arrived and we rushed out the door reached the cross streets of our appointment. Being a few min early we thought we'd be able to find the "for rent" signs but weren't able to see them. Our plan was to get out and look lost. It worked perfectly, little Mrs. Loo found us wondering around the corners looking for the rental signs. The apartment was perfect, both we both fell in love with it instantly. It has two bedrooms, and open kitchen and more then enough storage space for all the extra crap. Now to seal the deal. Mrs loo is a small Asian woman who came over from Hong Kong with her husband many years ago, she has a lot of rental properties in the area and is surprisingly sweet. Mrs Loo decided that due to our situation and the "feelings in her heart", that she'd rent to us straight away, no long credit check and no limbo for the next few days of weather or not we'd be able to rent. It was good to go and we had our new place!
After singing the rental agreement Mrs Loo invited us to go out to lunch. It was too good of an offer to pass up, seeing as how we didn't know the area and she'd been around for so many years. Her grand son Kenny the firefighter was going to join us, so we waited around her beautiful apartment. Mrs Loo took us to one of her favorite Cantonese restaurants, it was phenomenal, if we can remember where it is we'll be back. After lunch we parted our ways and thanked her for her hospitality, it seems we've got a new grandma to watch out for us.
Seeing as how our goal had been reached and we didn't have any need to check out the rest of what could have been our apartments we made a trip to Home Depot for some paint and cleaning supplies. The apartment was one color, in all the rooms .... Flat White. To spruce things up and make it warm we painted our living room a "butter cream" white, and then gave everything a good cleaning. At about 10pm we'd had finished our chores and retired to the hotel, with an open and free Sunday morning.
Sunday arrived and we were ready for the last bit of our adventure. With a free day we thought it would be good to see the sights and check out Dominican University, the whole reason we'd made the move out here in the first place. It turns out it was worth the move. Dominican is a wonderful quiet campus made out of older buildings and a few giant houses it absorbed in the neighborhood for administrative buildings. We are both exited to visit again in August. With our visit to Dominican done we thought we'd head out and see the major tourist attractions... Golden Gate Bridge, The Crookedest Street, Cute houses (Amber saw them on a post card), Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, and the Pacific Coast.
Sunday arrived and we were ready for the last bit of our adventure. With a free day we thought it would be good to see the sights and check out Dominican University, the whole reason we'd made the move out here in the first place. It turns out it was worth the move. Dominican is a wonderful quiet campus made out of older buildings and a few giant houses it absorbed in the neighborhood for administrative buildings. We are both exited to visit again in August. With our visit to Dominican done we thought we'd head out and see the major tourist attractions... Golden Gate Bridge, The Crookedest Street, Cute houses (Amber saw them on a post card), Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, and the Pacific Coast.
We took the red-eye home to MPLS and started the day at 5am. (Dan had to work that morning, and Amber slept away her jet lag)...
