As I recap the 17 day road trip that brought us from NYC to San Francisco (read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) I also need to give you an update on how things are going in SF!
Upon arrival, MM and I had an Airbnb reserved for a month while we explored different neighborhoods and apartment hunted. While our Airbnb was perfectly nice, it was a bit removed from the city and we didn’t feel like we could get comfortable since it was so temporary, we didn’t even bother unpacking our bags. Instead of making ourselves at home, we got right to apartment hunting. We spent the first five days in SF looking at apartments, all day every day.
We quickly narrowed down the area we wanted to live in, something that would be easy for MM’s commute to Palo Alto and walkable to things for me. After seeing a wide range of places from enormous open lofts, to full-of-character row houses, to new luxury buildings, we quickly got a sense of what the city had to offer. Newsflash, everything was expensive!
In the end, we landed on a luxury building in Mission Bay, a fairly new area on the east side of the city. As much as we love apartments with character, I feel like we lived amongst a ton of character in NYC, and sometimes character means old, dirty and falling apart. Our last apartment had tons of character, and for our home here, I wanted comfort, safety and amenities. From what we saw, you could get a bigger apartment with lots of character and no amenities, or a slightly smaller apartment with tons of amenities, both options in the same price range.
We went for the latter and I’m happy with our decision. We moved out of our Airbnb after about a week and into our new place. We spent the next week buying and building furniture (saying “we” built furniture might be a lie, thanks MM!). I’m happy to report that our apartment is coming together nicely. We still need a few more pieces but it’s already very comfortable.
Our boxes from NYC arrived safely, phew!
Scoping out the bedroom.
Ollie approves of our first big purchase, a new couch.
While most of our first two weeks were spent setting up, we’ve made time for exploration as well.
Weekend trip to Paso Robles.
Lands End Hike
As for life in SF, I’m still adjusting. I’m sure this will take a while. The city is twisty, turny and hilly and I’m used to living on a grid. I’m not great at directions so this will be a learning experience. I’m also used to everything I want and need being a short walk away. Our apartment is very walkable, but but not to the extent that the UWS was. I’m still figuring out what’s around and how to get places (haven’t attempted public transportation yet…).
Stay tuned as I continue get comfortable, explore, and learn all about our new home.
