Success!

We found our new apartment! Hooray! The rental tour on Saturday turned out to be a HUGE help. The lady who showed us around all day knew everything about the city down to all the bus routes and where the good grocery stores were at. So partly based on her recommendations, we ended up with a place in the Marina neighborhood, slightly farther north than we were originally planning. During the tour, we saw 8 or 9 different apartments before deciding that the 3rd one we'd seen was the one for us. And it's beautiful! It's a one bedroom but is gigantic. Seriously, we could almost fit the futon in one of the closets. The building was built in the 1930's and still has a lot of charm, but the apartment itself has been nicely updated. We are signing the lease and getting the keys on Saturday, so I will have pictures up soon with a few more details about the place!

As for the neighborhood, it's a nearly perfect location (other than it's an hour+ commute by shuttle for Jordan and 30 minutes by bus for me..oh well). We're two blocks from the Bay (we can actually see it down the street from our living room window, two blocks from really lively streets with restaurants, shops, and bars and a few blocks from the Safeway! We're so excited to move in, and hope for visitors too!

After our successful Saturday, we drove up to Emeryville on Sunday where Lauren and Lance just moved for a surprise party for Lance's birthday. We grilled out by the pool and enjoyed the warm sun! It was fun and super relaxing. I have a few pictures, but unfortunately the upload function is not working on the blog, so those will come soon.

As for slightly-more-boring logistical news, I'm well on my way to officially becoming a Raetz! I applied for my CA drivers license today and everything else will be a lot easier once I get that in the mail. We're still working on getting the car registered, which we hope to do soon so we can try out street permit parking instead of paying for the monthly garage fee. I also signed up for my next CPA exam (much less fun), so the studying has commenced.