800ft² - Bright and spacious 2 bedrooms

Over the past week, we have spent a fair number of hours apartment hunting so we can finally get out of my dad's hair and his basement.

1. The first place was overlooking a Naval yard and was viewed by Chuck when I was at work. He called to let me know that the walk from the train station included about 8 separate projects and that place was quickly nixed. 
2. Place the second was literally across the street from our current living space. Upon falling in love with it, we discovered it was out of our price range. After discussing ways that we could possibly afford it, we sent an email suggesting a negotiation of terms. We proceeded to set up appointments to view places.
3. That evening, we had plans to view a house that was just a quick walk east of us. We had made a habit out of viewing the property's exterior on Google Maps prior to viewing it. While doing this search, I discovered that a murder had occurred on the stoop just over a year ago. Chuck quickly cancelled our viewing appointment!
4. Our third apartment viewing was at 9:45am and a relatively lengthy 20 minute walk from the nearest train station. While not an awful space, we were not wowed. We continued to not be wowed when the man showing us the apartment informed us that his fee was $3,000. Broker fees are outrageous here and we knew we could get a place without going through one with a little more footwork.
5. This afternoon, we walked a few blocks west to view a place just a few minutes from a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, the grocery store we frequent, an express train line and a farmer's market. The landlords live on the garden floor and were the ones showing it. After feeling really good about them and loving the space, we called them on our walk home to say we were interested!

TL;DR (too long, didn't read)

We're awaiting a meeting to sign the lease and pay the deposit but our move in date should be October 1. Below are the pictures from the Craigslist advertisement Chuck replied to. Promise we'll post pictures of our own once we're in the space, especially since these are from when someone else occupied the space.

The view of the space from the middle of the living room. These windows face east and a beautiful amount of natural lighting.

The view from the windows in the living room.

The kitchen which is adjacent to the living room, making it a pretty good space to entertain!

This is the view from the bedroom into the living room.

This is the bedroom. Those windows were a major selling point for me!

This is the second bedroom. If everyone in Phoenix counted rooms the way people in NYC do, by including closets, most people would have mansions.

Can't wait to have everyone come visit!!

Workin' in the City

So the dream of never working, sleeping till whenever, and waking up and exploring the city or visiting friends has come to a close. Both Jordan and I are dutifully back at work, sigh. She commutes into Sunset Park, a pretty seedy area of Brooklyn. I commute from the bed to the desk that is right next to the bed. She works in pretty casual attire. I typically work in gym shorts. It's a pretty funny dualism.

I have yet to be set up in our Manhattan office but I am anxious to go out there and see it. Being in the house all day can be a little tedious at times. The key is just to get out I suppose and see the world for a few minutes.

One of the luxuries is that I can listen to music/tv/movies as much as I want while I do my labors, so that is pretty great. I imagine working from home is akin to home school where I will get out of it as much as I put in.

The past week has been somewhat of a blur. We eagerly finished our work week and explored some other areas of Brooklyn. We are putting in research of the various by commuting to them and getting a sense of the type of people that live and if there is any nightlife to be found. As we imagined, the areas we like are borderline unaffordable and our hopes of getting a one bedroom in a desirable part of town may not be realistic.

On Saturday I met Jordan's dad who was back from Portland. He's a very thoughtful and calm person, but genuinely a very nice guy. A successful bohemian might be a good way of describing him. Saturday afternoon was spent at the American Museum of Natural History. Holy crap was that place awesome! Some of my favorite pictures at the museum were:

 

Actual Asteroid...It was pretty big, I guess

Outside the Hayden Planetarium. 

 

This was the nicer of two tigers.

 One of my favorite rooms in the museum. This whale was massive.

 Jordan is learning about the gems I will never be able to afford :)

 I cannot remember the last time I saw dinosaur bones in person so this was a treat.

 Remember how lame the stegosaurus was in Jurassic Park?

 Still crazy to think that this is now my home. This is the south end of central park backing up to the city.

At night we went to their friend's house on Saturday where we discovered the property used to be owned by the founder of Yuban coffee. They only owned a section of the now-split home. I cannot imagine someone needing all that space to themselves. Apparently it was just the founder and his wife in that space! Mischa and Jothi were both wonderful and inviting people that I am positive we will see more of.

On Sunday Jordan, maybe foolishly, agreed that we could go watch football with Kyle and his friends. Since it was opening weekend the bar we went to was packed and everyone was there to have a good time. We proceeded to order pitchers and pitchers of beer, got free tequila and then did some jager bombs. Pretty extreme Sunday for our first one in the city. Jordan had a good time, as did I, so we may make that activity a habit (probably slow it down a little though).

So we start a new week this week. I think some goals are to see other parts of the city yet to be discovered, swap our beloved and never-expiring AZ licenses for NY ones and maybe do something touristy? Should be a pretty great week.

Philly friends!

So, we successfully made it to Philly & back without taking any photos with an camera not attached to a phone. Because of this, there are no photos of Alyssa :( and no photos without an Instagram filter. We promise to try and be better about this! Luckily, it's only an hour and a half train ride so we will get another chance soon enough.

A good omen!

East coasting!

 

 

 

 

No distance between these two anymore!

Fish bowl at the Graffiti bar

Alyssa & Tim took us to an authentic Philly block party!

At PYT, a bar/restaurant in the Northern Liberties area, a few of us met "Jeffrey" - the drink that you're better off not meeting.

Chuck & I are both back to the daily grind this morning. Let me tell ya, working from NYC is still work.

Philly bound

Heading to Philly now for the long weekend. We've been trying on our NYC personas with phrases like "Oh, it'll be so nice to get out of the city for a little bit & slow things down for a few days."

Longer post with photos to come soon!

Hello, From Chuck

So it's only fair I put in some effort with this blog as well. Hi, I'm Chuck. One of the contributing authors to this blog. I am going to skip all the exposition since Jordan so handily took care of it herself. Let's just jump right into it.

Today we went into Brooklyn and scouted out a few areas of the borough. Since neither one of us is familiar with the area we decided to make the navigation dependent on one thing: Beer. See, there is this beer called Pumking that is absolutely amazing and it just so happens to be in season right now. We found a place in Fort Greene that had a bar called Brooklyn Public House where it was on draft so we figured we'd go see Fort Greene first.

The good news is that they have a park. A pretty big one. So naturally we visited it because there hasn't been enough park pictures

Hey! Remember Senior year?

Something rad we saw on the street. It had a ton of compartments. Stash box is my guess.

If you look closely you'll see a building with a cloud in it! That's how Jordan described it to me, so it took me awhile to find.

Found the Pumking. He lives at Brooklyn Public House. A very cool little bar with awesome music and beers

There are literally maps everywhere so you don't get lost in NY. Some are more difficult to read than others.

We then got on a different train and headed to the Brooklyn Heights area. This was sort of an accident that had a few pleasant surprises. Mostly views. The residents and the section of town were pretty sleepy and forgettable.

Freedom's mistress in the background.

This is the southside, or downtown, of Manhattan. I've already been there. We had burgers.

Headquarters of the Jehovah's witnesses. PURE EVIL. All along the...don't remember the rest of the song.

Sweeping NYC shoots available. Please contact me directly, no else has my eye!

Looking at this photo I know realize the blatant commercial plug.

Nifty tree guard...or planter...I don't know what to call this. 

From here we walked into DUMBO. It stands for Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass. I think. Jordan will probably let me know I screwed that up when she reads this. Oh well.

If trolls live under bridges then these are the nicest, hippest, and wealthiest trolls I have ever seen.

Seriously selling Manhattan views for cheap!

This prominent archway had a disproportionate door. False advertising.

Last chance. Buy 1 get 2 free!

Thought this was neat. One day I'll grow out of this.

Some of the murals here are pretty stellar. DUMBO really takes pride in it's Pachyderm past.

Clueless as to what this is, but it was neat. 

I called this portrait: Jordan by Day. It could have been Jordan by water. Or Jordan by flowers.

This is the spot where they filmed a scene in the new batman movie, I think. It looks like it anyway.

All told it was a busy day. We walked longer than we thought we would, went to the world's most expensive grocery store and learned a few lessons. The most important being that DUMBO is not really near anything so only go there if you are cabbing or have a bike. Walking will result in the blister that now lives on the side of my foot. Another lesson would be don't walk 5 miles in Sperrys. They really aren't meant for more than .05 miles.

We ended the day goofing around on the stoop and cooking dinner at home. It was our first cooked meal and it helped make the whole moving across the country thing a bit more real. Once we stop living out of suitcases it will become really real. But that won't be for like 3 months. 

Headed out to Philly tomorrow to go see Tim and Alyssa. Adventures to follow.

Empire State of Mind

As Trevor Thon so elegantly put it "New York is a city of tall fucking buildings, history and unplanned streets and shit."

That time we were in Katy Perry's Teenage Dream video.

We have arrived! During our flight, I had deep thoughts about not hearing another Shane Co. radio spot for a while.

After landing yesterday, we made a pit stop at our temporary home so Chuck could write in the journal Penny gave him (a part of his daily routine now!) and then proceeded to make some alcohol-fueled decisions. This morning (11am), we decided to hit up the East Coast's version of In N Out, Shake Shack. Deeeelicious!

Afterwards, we headed to Central Park to successfully lay in the grass and walk a few miles of trails.

The Great Lawn. It really is great!

I found this. I don't know what it is.

One of the lakes in Central Park.

Chuck being victorious.

After all this, we have tired feet and smiling faces. We've spent more than a few minutes completely lost and maybe took the wrong train a time or two but NYC has been kind so far and we're excited for the coming days. But not the coming work days, ugh.

Last hour in Phoenix

 

Here we are! It doesn't quite feel real but I'm sure reality will settle in soon.

We spent yesterday selling my car and shipping 200lbs of our stuff to meet us in Brooklyn. While packing up was less than enjoyable, unpacking into the apartment we end up calling "Our first NY apartment" isn't something I'm looking forward to :)