San Francisco!!

It’s amazing how time flies. when i first returned from my trip, i planned to moved up to san francisco as soon as i started earning some money. it seems like that was just a little while ago, but i finally realized that i’ve been back for a little over 6 months now. it was time to finally get a move on.

Caryn and i started looking through craigslist for a place in SF. choosing a place wasn’t easy. i was very picky about what neighborhood we’d be living in. i wanted to live in a neighborhood that was fun and where i would have reastaurants, bars, and excitement right outside my front door. i wanted to feel like i was living right in the middle of the city, and not just be surrounded by residential housing. Pretty much, i was limiting my search to the Mission, Hayes Valley, and the panhandle.

getting a good place in one of these areas wasn’t easy. houses pretty much came in one of two flavors: expensive or craphole. then there was the tiny handful of places that were within our budget and were actually nice looking. each time we showed up to one of these, there would be like 30 other people waiting to see them. apparently everybody likes to move during the summer, and competition was fierce. one landlord we talked to said he got *50* calls the very first day that he put his ad on craigslist. another told us that his phone has been ringing off the hook for a week straight with enquiries. we talked to this one girl who was also looking for a place to live… she had already been looking for 5 weeks with no success. she had even tried to bribe one landlord by offering to pay $200 more per month for a place, but was still turned down. wow. so this was what we were competing against. was that why we had been turned down for each place that we applied at?? were we supposed to be bribing people?? ugh.

so, things were looking grim. would we be able to find a place we liked? would we ever be able to park our cars again? how could we compete againgst all the others? would the landlords be ok with our very mediocre credit scores? after 3 weeks of this, i was getting more and more discouraged.

and then, finally, we got a place! after discussing the many negative marks on my credit report, the landlord finally said yes. i am finally gonna move up to SF. SWEET!! i am so fucking excited! the place is on the corner of Gough and Market, which is pretty much exactly where i wanted to end up. just 5 blocks from the Mission and 5 blocks from Hayes vlalley (it’s in a new neighborhood called DecoGhetto by some). it’s super central, and also just a block away from the freeway which will make our commutes much nicer. it’s a tiny one bedroom place in an apartment building, but it has hardwood floors, lots of tall windows, and looks really nice on the inside. i dont know how we’ll fit everything in this place, but i love it anyways. not only that, but for a little bit extra, we’re getting 2 parking spots inside the building.

so, now i’m just counting down the days to move in. our official move-in date is july 1st, but if the place is ready before then, we might move earlier. it’s been almost 2 years since i’ve lived in SF… and now i’m finally coming home!

*v