The hunt continues.

I wish hunting for an apartment was like hunting for Easter eggs (yes we used to do this when we were little). At least then you know you have a defined area to search in, a certain number of eggs to find, the eggs belong to whoever finds then first and then once they're all found it's over! Apartment hunting on the other hand seems to stretch to infinity! There's a preferred area but it's not strictly defined, there's no actual guarantee that you'll find anything in that area and then if you do someone who finds it after you may end up getting it. Then of course it doesn't seem to end! (Well in my case at least).


I've seen 5 apartments in the last 2 days. The first one was perfect and I would love to live there - but of course the girl had organised with a bunch of other people for them to come and see the place so she'll let me know later in the week. The second place was nice but the guy who's living there worked from home. So half the living room is taken up by his desk and where the kitchen/dining room table should be there's a Foosball table. So it felt like I'd just be renting the room and not actually be sharing the apartment. Which is technically fine but with that being the case I thought the rent was far too expensive for what he was offering so as Dad would suggest, I sent him a cheeky email. (Americans don't use the word cheeky by the way). He was asking rent and then utilities (water, electricity, internet etc) were extra on top of that which added about $100 to the bill. I suggested that we make the rent he was asking for include utilities as well. I was impressed to get a reply from him saying that he was showing the place to a couple of other people this week and would see how that went then would consider my offer. So we'll see. As Dad always says - if you don't ask, you don't get.

I've been getting a little stressed out about not being able to find anything despite having looked since the beginning of the month so yesterday I decided to broaden my search. I went to see one place that wasn't in any area I'd thought about looking in primarily because the rent was so cheap! The place was nice enough but the dude renting out the room was seriously dodgy! I also went to see a place that is in the area that's my second option if I can't move to the beach. It's an area called Hillcrest which is sort of like Florida road - lots of restaurants and bars. It's also very close to Balboa Park (San Diego's answer to Central Park). The place was really nice and you got a lot more bang for your buck. But it's not the beach which is where I really, really want to live! I was chatting to Nicky about it and as she said, if I'm only in San Diego for 5 more months (assuming that I move somewhere else to work next year) then I should live where I want to because who knows if I'll ever get the chance to live there again.

I saw another possibility in Pacific Beach last night. It's a small, old house but in a great location. The guy who lives there seemed really cool (he's a golf pro at a local course) but once again he's showing the place to a couple more people so we'll see later in the week.

Wrt the places I was waiting to hear about - I emailed the one girl who actually responded and told me that they had been concerned about the fact that I could only guarantee staying there for 5 months even though I want to stay in San Diego and work next year too so they had found someone else. I can't get hold of the other girl - she never answers her phone and her voicemail box is full. So that's that for those two possibilities I guess!