New Year in a New Place

My internal clock has not adjusted itself since my arrival to the Bay Area on Sunday. Thus, I have been waking up every morning at 6:30 and falling asleep every night around 9:30. I was not able to stay up until midnight last night, at least not midnight PST. I found it funny that TV coverage of the ball dropping in NYC does not start until 10pm out here, a full hour after the ball actually dropped. I understand that they want it to ‘feel’ like it is happening live but my imagination wasn’t able to make the leap. Either way, I was asleep well before the ball dropped for the 2nd (or 4th time I suppose to allow for all the other time zones in the US).

I was also hoping to be able to post far more about getting adjusted here than I have been able to. I have, however, had scarcely a moment to myself since I’ve been here. I’m staying with a friend of the family in the north bay (San Rafael) and between coordinating the borrowing of her car (mine was supposed to be here Wednesday but snow has pushed its arrival to Sunday) and viewing of apartments (the count is somewhere around 10), I have been flat out exhausted by the time I arrive back home each day.

We haven’t applied for an apartment yet. I can say with complete confidence that whatever we decide on will be far better than our apartment in Somerville. We’ve been viewing apartments in Berkeley and Alameda–a small island between Oakland and San Francisco, but one that is easily commutable–and we’ve had some real promising showings. I had to fight my initial urge to sign on the first apartment that I enjoyed because there’s not as much pressure here. In Boston, it’s pretty cutthroat and if you don’t pick up an apartment right away, someone else surely will. We won’t be able to afford San Francisco at this juncture, which is fine, because we can work at our own pace and find a nice apartment.

Other than apartment hunting, we’ve kept a pretty low profile. We’ve spent a bit of time in the city, but not very much. We decided to take the day off from searching on Wednesday and drove south to Monterey, which was stunning, and made stops in Carmel and Salinas. We have 3 open houses in Berkeley to check out tomorrow and then we’ll be applying for an apartment after we take inventory of what we’ve seen.

This whole situation has been a complete break from my normal routine. I’m a creature of habit, but I haven’t spent anytime on the computer, save browsing through Craig’s List apartments, and haven’t been able to catch up on my daily news sources or emails. I’ve been wired from the moment I wake up each morning until the moment I collapse into bed at night. I was able to book one show in February when I’m back in Boston (at Wheaton College, a personal favorite) but that one fell into my lap. I hope to be settled into a place by this time next week, then I can get back to some semblance of a normal life.

A few observations before I go: 

1. The move has met or exceeded every one of my expectations so far.
2. We were considering living in Oakland, but it may be just as bad as everyone says. The moment we crossed the border into Oakland, a car alarm went off, which we took as a bad omen.
3. People are very generous here with rounding off the change. We had a bill that came to something like $8.13 and I couldn’t find a quarter and the cashier told me not to worry about the change. Situations like this has happened a number of times all ready. I think that may be part of the reason that California’s out of money.
4. Public transportation is very expensive when commuting in and out of the city.
5. Alameda has big closets.

Happy New Year everyone.