A boring apartment hunt update... essentially.

So I've finished my first full day in the city, and a good chunk of it was spent walking. According to Google Maps, I probably walked about seven miles or so today.

I also got my first taste of a screaming baby on the subway, which was fun. It was kind of like on an airplane except the sound was a lot crisper.

I also visited both Brooklyn and Staten Island for the first time.

The ferry ride to Staten Island was actually pretty painless...

It is at it's own station, so you can't get on the wrong ferry. People can see when the ferry pulls up, then they just mass like cattle and when the gate opens people just file onto the boat. It's free so there's no waiting for tickets to be checked or anything.

Staten Island itself was actually pretty nice and the apartments I looked at were nice, but I just don't think I could live that disconnected from the city.

There are too many working parts involved in getting to and from anywhere in Manhattan, and if anything went wrong I would end up being at least 30 minutes late for work.

Side note: somehow I walked uphill both ways between the apartment building and the ferry station. Somebody explain that one to me.

One of their apartments did have a killer view out the window of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. There is also this really ugly looking peninsula in with the spectacular view that looks like some sort of industrial dump and I asked the leasing agent what it was and the landlord just matter-of-factly said "Oh... that's New Jersey."

We both knew nothing more needed to be said.

I also went to Brooklyn for the first time today. It was a little east of Brooklyn Heights. It reminded me of wandering around less fancy parts of Manhattan except it was less crowded, the buildings were a little shorter and I was definitely in the minority in that part of Brooklyn.

It was surprisingly painless to ride the subway to and from Brooklyn though, so that's cool.

That being said, there are a couple of apartment buildings near Prospect Park in Brooklyn I plan on looking at soon. There is also one in the Bronx I'll probably check out Tuesday after work.

I still haven't gotten a chance to see the Washington Heights apartment I mentioned earlier yet, and there are still a few random apartments in Manhattan on my radar.

All in all, I'm still optimistic, but I've got a lot of looking around to do...

Well, tomorrow is my first day of work, so I should probably hit the hay. Exciting stuff.

I'm in NYC now, plus some little things...

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I just got in from a fun night on the town... So let's begin :)

I made it to New York City and am ready to start getting settled in.

One administrative note: "Princeton" made fun of his name and said it was generic and not creative enough. So from here on out he will be "Lisa." There is no real reason for this, but I figure if he wants something more "creative," he can have a girl's name. Word.

So anyway... I am in New York at my temporary quarters hotel I found where I'll be staying until I find an apartment... which is still kind of up in the air. So I am officially in the city now... just still looking for somewhere to actually live.

So I flew into D.C. from Alabama and then drove to Lisa's place in New Jersey to meet with him and figure out a place to leave my car and then we headed into Manhattan.

Those of you who know me best know I have an innate ability to get lost no matter where I am or where I am going.

I ended up lost on the beltway around Trenton, NJ, today. No, Trenton was not even close to on the way to Lisa's place. Not even by a longshot. Ridiculous... driving around the "Garden State" and praying... I have no idea how I ended up in Trenton, and I kind of don't want to know.

So on a more positive note, Lisa and I found a Scottish bar called St. Andrews. According to the bartender, they had about 295 kinds of single malt scotch available there. Awesome, to say the least. They even had Penderyn, the lone Welsh Whisky in the world. I have always wanted to try it, and this place had it. It was alright, a little harsh. They served it neat. It reminded me of something between a Highland tasting scotch and an Orkney scotch.

Oh yeah... I'd like to offer a not-so-sincere apology to my friend Big T to the C for all the trash I've talked about Staten Island. Apparently her family is from there. She always smelled nice at work, so how could I have known? Oh well, she probably won't ever see this anyway.

Well, I'm going to do some apartment hunting Sunday, so we'll see what happens with that... then Monday is my first day of work... so that should be neat. I'll probably offer up a much more sober/awake entry tomorrow.

Well, g'night!

Clown make up and deer carcass...

I'm going to ease into posting here, since I'm not used to the whole blogging thing at all...

Well, as most of you probably know, my plan was to move into a studio apartment in the West Village this past weekend... but long story short, that's not happening.

So I'm back to square one on the apartment search...

I've got various friends offering varying levels of help, from asking their friends about potential apartments/roommates to some just giving friendly apartment-hunting advice like this gem I received in a 3 a.m. text message:

"Remember if an apartment smells like clown make up and deer carcass leave immediately."

So... I guess no New Jersey. (Now karma is going to make me end up in Jersey, I just know it.)

It's nice to know I have friends who only want the best for me.

In all honesty though, I've got my eye on possible apartments all over the place this time, including in the (way) Upper East Side, Brooklyn, the Bronx and even a couple in Jersey City near the PATH Train and one in Staten Island... which would be an interesting experience to say the least.

For those not familiar with Staten Island, my commute to work and anything in Manhattan would always include a (free) 20 minute ferry boat trip... which would be so weird, hehe. I wasn't even a fan of taking the ferry into the Magic Kingdom from the parking lots... so we'll see how I feel about it when I take it to look at the apartment. I'm sure it's much cleaner and even more pleasant than the Disney ferry, right?

I'll definitely let you all know how the apartment hunt turns out and probably about plenty of the bumps along the way...