The bar is OVER

Four soft lead number two pencils, three grueling days, two packages of tic tacs, one borrowed computer (thank you leslie!) and a million and one sighs wondering why I have to do this again. Now I'm just left with about twenty-five things answers I would change. . . .. but at least it's over. Thursday night there was lots of pink champagne and a fabulous dinner with friends of my future co-worker who also took the bar. Friday was watching the new Bond movie from my hotel room bed (I approve of Daniel Craig) while waiting for my mom to arrive, and then plenty of wandering, margaritas, and yes, more champagne.


Even with all the champagne, relaxation hasn't quite sunk in yet. We moved out of the Oakland Convention Center Marriot and into the spare room in Castro Valley. Dean and Stacy (my mom's cousins) have been wonderful - fed us, provided moral support, and yesterday Dean chauffered me and my mom as we went apartment hunting! It made the process so much better. Plus, the weather really wants me to find a place - it has been BEAUTIFUL here. It's a dream to wander around the neighborhoods and every room looks bright and sunny. It won't always be like this, so we hit up some nice tourist vistas along the way.



Ah, apartment hunting. It's not so bad, but not the dream search I was hoping for as compared to New York. For starters, there are no brokers. It's nice not to pay and arm and a leg to an intermediary, but the downside is that there's a lot of legwork involved in finding any apartments! Craigslist has been great, but it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here's a photo of the rest of the team:


Saturday was quite discouraging, but I have more places to look at today and some promising leads from yesterday - I've applied for two one-bedroom apartments and have been offered a place in a four-bedroom apartment with three other girls. The share situation is a small room, but the girls seem cool and the deck with a bbq and laundry room are enticing. . . we'll see. I'm looking forward to getting past this part and on to the fun part of buying sheets and a new bed!