Yesterday evening I was for the first time able to relate to this dialogue from one of my favorite movies, “Sex and the City 2”:
Finding the perfect apartment in New York City...
...is like finding the perfect partner. It can take years.
Big: So how many is this?
Carrie: Thirty-three.
Big: Lucky 33.
Estate agent: The worst. I just left you a message. [...]
Carrie: Thirty-four? Lucky 34?
Well, lucky us (or not?), we are only at number 1: Yesterday afternoon we looked at an apartment on 35th Street, i.e. Midtown. Although we knew it was still early for our search, the ad for the apartment seemed too good to pass the opportunity. I actually expected it to be horrible and nothing like its description because the rent was unbeatable. Okay, we had to walk up to the 6th floor, no elevator. That had initially been my horror scenario. And the building doesn’t have its own laundry, which is my boyfriend’s horror scenario. But the apartment turned out to be pretty. It was on the top floor, light, clean, newly painted; it was an actual one bedroom with a decent amount of closet space (I mean obviously not for my belongings, but for the average person). They even accepted cats and the apartment was big enough for Canavar to race around.
We had picked the first open house date and there was only one other man there to see it. The biggest downside for us was that rent started on 1 May, i.e. two months earlier than we would want. So we walked home and discussed everything. We wrote down all costs. We made a list with the pros and cons. We always came back to how much we liked the apartment and how cheap it was. So cheap that two extra months wouldn’t even kill our bank accounts.
It took us one and a half hours between leaving the estate agent and coming to the conclusion that we would take the apartment – and that is when I learned that one and a half hours are too much time. The apartment had already been taken by the other man. I was pretty disappointed because I had already started to imagine to move in. It felt like being in an empty shop where there is only one more customer knocking you down to get the last pair of designer shoes on sale in your size.
So what have I/we learned from looking at apartment 1 of our search?
- This time we couldn’t have decided faster. We had some very important talks in those one and a half hours that I feel are essential when moving in together with a partner.
- Some apartment advertisments are actually honest and true.
- Compromises … it is all about compromises. When the apartment is beautiful, I am even willing to walk up all those stairs (and die innerly every day) to the 6th floor.
- There are apartments (or at least one) in Midtown that are cheaper than anything comparably in Boston.
- We need to do calculations before we go to an open house.
- Next time we like an apartment, we have to decide then and there to take it.
Because: 2? Lucky 2? (And we only have two months left to find an apartment, not “years”.)
|Watched| GNTM, Shazam!, Game of Thrones
|Read| Dying for Chocolate
|Listened to| different playlists
|Done| spent the week in NYC, walked around a lot with a friend from Boston, spent time with my boyfriend, went to see the Reich Richter Pärt performance in the Shed, walked up the Vessel
|Eaten| Japanese buffet, quiche, pancakes, ice cream, pizza
|Drunk| water, coffee, beer, a Love Potion at Steamy Hallows
|Thought| I can’t wait to live here
|Been happy| all the time because it is so much better to see my boyfriend daily
|Laughed| about the squirrels in Madison Square Garden that picked food from people’s hands
|Desired| to already live together with my boyfriend
|Bought| food, ticket to the Shed
|Clicked| I love this giant NEW YORK FOOD GUIDE with so many recommendations
© janavar