Not sleeping in my office

We found somewhere to live, which is nice.

It looks like a large apartment, but is actually a condominium (condo). Condo is actually a legal, not a descriptive term, it's just that most condos have a similar set up, so the term is almost descriptive. (Some condos look like houses, some look like apartments; if you care, click the link).

The landlady (I don't think they say that here) is a relatively recent immigrant from Hungary, which is good, because she understood that we didn't have a credit history. (Some owners didn't - they said "Yeah, the agency will check your credit history", and I'd say "no, they won't", I'd rung and checked, so I knew. They'd say "Oh, they'll check it, it will be fine", and repeat.)

Everywhere makes you fill out an application form, and then they select from everyone who filled one out. You also have to pay something (usually $20) for them to do the credit check. However, we didn't.

Anyway, back to the apartment. It's in a complex - lots of condo are in complexes, these vary from three to lots of dwellings. Our complex is about 500. It's got two swimming pools (one is ostensibly for kiddies, and one for growed ups, but no one cares really), a gym, sauna (separate male and female. S doesn't approve of that), jacuzzi (separate again), and a dry cleaners. There's also a laundry on site, and it's next to the playground.

Aside: While we were looking at one apartment, there was a washer and a dryer, and the owner said "Ooh, we'll take that out, you don't want a washing machine in your house". I asked why not, and they said "Ooh, what if it leaks", someone else (who was also looking around) told a story of a friend of theirs whose washing machine leaked, and how dreadful it was. I always thought that it was bizarre that people didn't have washing machines - that would be a sign of poverty in the UK, but here it's not. But everyone has dishwashers. (We've only seen one place that didn't).

The place itself is pretty large, 1300 sq ft, or so (which means nothing to me) but that means an OK sized living room, with a sort of dining area and kitchen attached, 3 decent sized bedrooms (if I were an estate agent I'd call them double bedrooms), and 2 bathrooms (one with a bath, one with a shower, some houses have half and 3/4 bathrooms in them, according to the ads, I've never worked out what that means, or found anyone who knows who can tell me).

It's near the beach (15 minute walk, if you haven't got 2 4 year olds), and also near the airport. Being near the airport has one large-ish con, which is that you can hear the planes. But actually, it's to the side of the airport, so when the planes are taking off and landing, they are close to the ground, and the sound can't reach you. You can be a lot further from the airport and under the flight path and it's a lot louder (I found some noise maps on the web, which showed where the noise was). We are also on the correct side of the block, to reduce the noise. (We noticed the sound of the planes as we went in, but it wasn't disruptive).

Being near the airport has two pros. First, is that there is public transport to and from the airport, to most places, so we can actually get a bus, or even (shock!) a train to places. Second is that it's near the airport, obviously. We will be about 8 miles from CoCE there, a colleague lives about 15 miles in the other direction (about 23 miles to the airport, maths wizards). On the Friday of a holiday weekend, she had some friends visit. It took her 3 hours to get to the airport, and 3 hours to get home again. So, when y'all come to visit, that will be pretty handy.

I can cycle to CoCE, I think it's around eight and a half miles, via the scenic route. There's a creek (well, it's called a creek, it's really a concrete drainage channel) between there and CoCE, and there aren't many places to get across it - the quickest involves a rather busy, and unpleasant, and large road (which currently has roadworks which has narrowed it, so cars drive about 6 inches from the barrier). The scenic route is much, much more scenic, and a bit further. It's got about 3/4 of a mile which isn't on bike path, and most of the bike path is along the beach, past the restored wetlands (where, I've heard, one sees flamingoes on the way to work), which I like the idea of. (I guess you get blase though - although I've been riding for 2 weeks, I have not a hint of blaseness yet, at the things I ride past on the way to work.)

The complex is a tiny bit naff, it reminds me of the line in the Frank Zappa song 'Flakes' (actually, a lot reminds me of the line in the Frank Zappa song Flakes) "All that we've got here's American made, it's a little bit cheesy but it's nicely displayed." There's a little wooden bridge over a stream that you have to go over to get in - I wasn't absolutely sure, but it didn't look like a real stream - I mean, obviously it wasn't a real stream, but it pumped water into one end, and the water went down a plughole at the other. After a minute or two of this, the process stopped, and the water came out of the plughole, and went back the other way. There was also absolutely no algae or anything similar in it, so I suspect it's actually 20% Domestos. One day I'm going to write another post about water here, so I mustn't digress now.

Oh, actually, I could have digressed, because I've finished.