Thursday, July 21, 2005

Where is the Love to be Found?

Our on-again, off-again land lady called shortly after our last post, saying that she put our name into a hat with other potential lab rats - and we lost. Crushing news, as we had already envisioned our activities while living there. Spent the latter part of the day moping around in defeat.

Alas, the sun came up again today and there are more properties freshly listed for our viewing pleasure. Again, we cannot imagine the highs and lows involved with trying to secure the purchase of a half-million dollar (give or take a million) house in the Bay Area, let alone a temporary apartment in a distant land.

Barring a miracle this weekend, we're likely to go into a sort of short-term purgatory, staying at a serviced studio apartment nearby until a flat is secured. The optimistic side is that we've only been looking a week and have had three properties come up that were suitable. Sigh.

What has been difficult to adjust to is mentality that we're not here on vacation. There are an immense amount of logistics involved with setting up not only for attending school, but for habitation in another country, as we are finding out firsthand. To retain our sanity, we're trying to go out every evening and do touristy stuff, instead of pounding the real estate ads yet another time.

posted by ncawthon at 11:39 AM