Oops

Yesterday I almost got us in trouble for the almost 2nd time for making a pizza in our room. TJ has this pizza Pizzazz thing that we just plugged in up here to cook a pizza a couple of days ago to avoid going down 3 floors just to do the same. The glitch with this laziness is the fact that our lease states that we are not allowed to cook anything in our room. So we're cooking this pizza in our room and the landlord comes in with his maintenance guy to fix the lightbulb in our closet. Fortunately for us, our landlord is about 120 years old and probably has never seen a Pizzazz before, so he didn't say a thing when he saw it. At least we think he saw it and didn't know. Yesterday, we had the a/c running, the fan, computer, tv, and light on, and then plugged in the Pizzazz. Insert blackout here. The entire 3rd floor went dark, the light switch for the staircase didn't even work. Oops... We quickly unplugged the culprit and hurried it downstairs, claiming we "got hungry and decided to cook a pizza while our power was out" to the landlord we ran into on the way down. He said in the entire time he's had people stay in the house, this has never ever happened. Oh great. We put on our innocent faces and gave him the "oh my, I have no idea how this happened" bit. Fortunately for us, it was pouring buckets outside and lightning like it was a Kiss concert outside, so we all figured it must've been a power surge from the lighting. He replaced the blown fuse with one twice as powerful and we learned our lesson for now...

Today TJ and I went downtown to look around at some places and potentially find me a job. We stopped by Restoration Hardware and I got myself an interview for next week (woo hoo!), and meandered around a bit. We found our way to the mall in the area which included such stores as Louis Vuitton, Coach, Armani, etc., as if we weren't feeling poor enough already. We made our way to a wedding dress store where I picked up another app, and decided to head home. We figured if we walked past Fenway to where the subway comes above ground, we could spare ourselves the $2.50 it would otherwise cost us for the return trip. Unfortunately for us, the Red Sox game was getting out at that very moment. We were doing pretty good, found our way to Comm Ave, and then the tsunami of people opened up. It was like being caught up in the opening scene of Fever Pitch, there were people everywhere in Sox gear. Eventually we swam through and made our way home, but we'll definitely check the ball game schedule next time we head near that neigborhood...

Exploring our surroundings

We've done a few things since we moved here, but it feels like we've been sitting around watching Avatar more than anything.
Last weekend we walked the Freedom Trail and saw the cemetary where Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and other notable Revolutionary War guys are buried. Bunker Hill was apparently under construction, so we couldn't actually go into the area, which was annoying because we walked the 2 1/2 miles to get there for pretty much nothing. There were a lot of cool places along the way, of course, like the church that lit the "one if by land, 2 if by sea" lamps for Paul Revere's ride, etc. We'll have to go back again soon.
We've wandered the Harvard campus a few times now. It's definitely screaming prestige and intimidation (along with "I cost a cubic buttload for anyone to attend here"), but it's a neat place to hang around. Last time we were there, we sat on the steps of one of the buildings watching a huge crowd of Asian tourists, each and every one of them, take a picture with the statue of Harvard himself. You'd think a group picture would suffice... Across the campus from us was this guy feeding squirrels out of a bag he had on his hip. Those squirrels had the guy surrounded. Any normal person would freak out and flail like an idiot if a squirrel started climbing up their leg; this guy had them doing that and then eating out of his hand while they were claw-attached to his pant leg. I hope for his sake he was wearing a nut cup.
Oh, during that human-melting heat wave we had last week, we finally bought a window air conditioner. It is the best purchase I have ever made in my 23 years of existence on this earth. The windows in our room are too small to put it in, so we had to put it in the hallway and re-route the air around the corner into our room with the fan we found here. It's working so far, but we found out today that our landlord now wants to charge us $10 a month for having the thing. It's a b.s. charge that she never put in our lease contract, nor did she say anything about it when we asked her permission to buy it in the first place, so we legally are not bound to paying that.
Other than that, we're just wandering around trying to become familiar with the city while avoiding driving as much as humanly possible. We're curious, not suicidal.

Things I've learned since moving to Boston

1. You can drive the way you always dreamed, traffic laws be damned. The cops pretty much only act as makeshift traffic lights by waving traffic through intersections, nobody ever really gets pulled over for anything.

2. Cabbies are the worst drivers ever. After getting past one that was swerving around in front of us, we came upon a red light. We proceeded to stop as needed when a completely different cabbie pulled up behind us and honked at us to go. At a red light. When there were cars stopped in front of us. We choose not to drive whenever possible.

3. The North End has the greatest food ever: Mike's pastries has this $3 cannoli that is worth every penny, and then this place down the street called Bella Vista has a $6 lasagna that's the size of your head. I'm not kidding, between the 2 foods (cheap oversized lazagna and expensive orgasmicly yummy cannoli), the price certainly evens out, and to taste authentic Italian food actually cooked by real Italians...let's just say I'm not missing Olive Garden in the least.

4. This is for my single friends out there: Never ever try to pick up guys in Quincy Market. I mean, unless you're into that whole circus-carnie thing and really dig a guy who's proudest moment is his ability to put his legs up behind his head. I guess they are flexible, if you're looking for a perk outta that.

5. Playing chicken with the green T line (trolley train system) is a bad idea. Just about everyone we've talked to says they've witnessed cars being hit by one.

6. Boston is a diabetic's worst nightmare and heaven to any stereotypical police officer. That's right, there's a Dunkin Donuts on every freaking street corner in the whole city and its surrounding suburbs. I bet it even outnumbers Starbucks 4 to 1. So much for the diet...

7. Living in a 3rd floor-converted-attic room in the middle of the summer is an extremely bad idea. Invest in fans and a big-ass air conditioner or you will wake up at 3:30 in the morning and feel like you're dying.

8. You can't turn on the news at night and not hear about someone being shot in Dorchester. I'm very glad we decided not to live there after all.

9. If you are standing in line at the grocery store and you absentmindedly back up into someone else's cart, it's their fault. We witnessed an argument as a result of an old woman who did that exact thing. It was clearly the old woman's fault, but she insisted on reaming out the woman behind her for "putting her cart so close behind." She was 2 whole feet behind her. I can see the crazy old woman driving this one to People's Court, so keep an eye out for that case.

10. When the street your on forks off in 2 different directions, you WILL end up taking the wrong road. No exceptions. Even if you go back and then take the other way, it will still be wrong. Try pausing to look at a map and you'll be honked at. You may as well give up and stay home.

Let the apartment hunt begin...and then come to a screeching halt

On day 2 of our search, we found the perfect apartment:
http://boston.craigslist.org/abo/180003176.html
Make sure you click to look at the "to see more pictures" link.
Yes, those are granite countertops in the brand new kitchen, a marble bathtub, and the owner was even gonna throw in the decorations and plates you see in the breakfast bar picture.
We ended up not taking it. If you note the rent cost, we found out how much my loans will be and figured out that we couldn't afford it. We're definitely heartbroken about that, but we just can't afford something that nice quite yet. I told the owner that if it comes up for rent again 2 years from now to definitely give us a call, but at the moment it's just out of our reach.

We did find our new apartment today though:
http://boston.craigslist.org/fee/179972918.html
There's the link for it. It's a little fuzzy, the realtor got the lens wet before taking the pictures, but you get the idea. The description is in with the link. It's really cute and charming, and the neighborhood is great, very close to lots of little things to do. It's also a very friendly neighborhood, we had been told that the owner (who lives upstairs in the place, it's a 2-family one, not like a shared house space) knows everyone on the street. Cue the "Cheers" theme song here (Where everybody knows your name...) We met the owner too, and she seems really really nice. Rent is actually 1100 per month, since there are 2 of us renting (TJ and me), but that's good considering I talked her down from 1200 per month that she would've charged for there being 2 of us :o) Look ma, I can barter!

We get to move in at the end of August. I'm very excited to do so. Here's where I get to describe the place we're dwelling in now:
In my last post, I put quote marks around the word "apartment" for a reason; it's definitely not your traditional setup. We arrived to discover that our basement apartment, that we had come to understand it to be, was actually moved to the 3rd floor. By 3rd floor, I mean a renovated attic of a rather large house (I wouldn't hesitate too much to call it a mansion). It's actually a larger room than the other option for us in the basement, so I was happy to see the size upgrade. The downside to this happens to be the 86 degree days we've been having here, which translates to about 212 degrees in our attic oven-room. (Yes, I am aware that that temperature = boiling.) The devil would be quite comfortable here. The fact that we've had 2 windows open and a fan running 24/7 doesn't seem to do a darn thing. I wake up at 3:30 every morning sweating my ass off and can't get back to sleep.
We share this hell-turned-attic floor with another PhD student. He lives across the hall. In between our rooms is a bathroom that the 3 of us share. Aside from the constant smell of urine and lack of covering on the window that points at construction work/workers on the house behind us (makes for an interesting shower prep/dry off attempt), it's a decent looking bathroom.
Our kitchen is in the basement, so we have to run down 3 flights of stairs just to grab a pop. The owners didn't want us using their kitchen, so they set up a fridge, oven, microwave, and toaster (that has only a jagged metal stub for a handle to push the toast down, and the exposed handle doesn't stay down so you have to hold it there until your finger bleeds to make a poptart) for our usage. Can we say "pain in the ass?" On the bright side, it could lead to some toned thighs. I'm certainly thinking twice before running down to make my ramen, so weight loss certainly isn't out of the question.
I'm looking forward to our new place...

Adventures in moving

We left on Thursday night at about 1o:30 to take the ferry across Lake Michigan. We boarded it, made our Titanic movie references while touring the massive ship, then found our tiny stateroom to try to get some sleep. The bathroom in this thing was the same size as those on an airplane, to give you an idea. After a sleepless night in our stateroom, we arrived 4 hours after departure to begin our 7 hour journey to Niagara Falls. Due to the freakishly early timing of our trip, we came across about 6 deer within the first 50 miles we drove.
Crossing through Canada was an interesting experience. It was certainly the quickest way to cut across to Boston, but with the amount of stuff we had packed into our little car, I was nervous about the border patrol potentially being suspicious that we might be smuggling something or someone of an illegal nature and make us unload the whole car to make sure. Fortunately, we came across as nice enough people that the Canadian border patrol guy just waved us through.
Niagara Falls was incredible. We forked out a little more than I would traditionally spend on a hotel room, but it was well worth it because it had a view of both the American and Horseshoe Falls. We arrived at the hotel around 2:30pm (Eastern time now, I've gotta start getting used to that), and were apparently early for our check in time. The woman behind the counter took a little longer than I would expect to check us in. I'm glad I didn't get impatient though, because the result of her lengthy efforts resulted in our being upgraded to a penthouse-level room on the top floor of the hotel, with a gorgeous, high view of both waterfalls, plus the room certainly looked upscale compared to any I've ever stayed in. I wonder if they might have thought we were on our honeymoon. I wasn't gonna correct them...
So getting into Canada was easy, the getting out part was a little more intimidating. The guard sitting there with his Homeland Security patch on, staring at the overstuffed back seat of our car had me praying to God he wouldn't make us unload it to prove we weren't terrorists. Of course, that went well and we got right through. I wonder if they actually document who goes through and their response to the "why are you here, how long are you staying?" questions.

8 more hours and we found our way to our summer sublease. I'll blog more about the details of this "apartment" later, for now we need to run the typical "just moved in and need stuff" errands. I already feel at home in this city.

And we start the countdown with 2 days to go...

Here I am, technically homeless, sitting in TJ's family's basement, living out of boxes for the almost-week I've been here. I couldn't be happier.
I am finally able to spend more than 1 week a month on the same side of the planet as TJ. Well, sort of. His very traditional grandmother is in town for a family member's wedding last Friday. She disapproves of this marriage between his cousin and her fiance because they had been living together before the wedding. So, even though I'm staying with TJ while at his parents house here, as long as the grandmother is unable to make it upstairs to realize this, we're letting her believe that I'm staying down the hall in a separate room from her grandson. She hasn't asked where we'll each be "separately living in Boston" yet. I wasn't sure we'd be able to get away with having her believe we're both moving out there for school at the same exact time, with both of our stuff packed into only his car, heading to the same very expensive city...and then not living in the same place. As long as she doesn't ask, I'm not gonna try to explain that one.

So we leave on Wednesday night/Thursday morning (12:30 a.m.) on a ferry bound for Michigan, then drive to Niagara Falls for an overnight break from driving. I've never been to the Falls so I'm really excited for the mini-stop to see it. Then, on exactly one year - to the date- before our wedding, we move into our summer sublease in Boston. Other than that whole "being able to afford it" thing, this is gonna be great!