Aaron Around The World >> North America >> United States of America >> Austin, Texas
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Thursday, 3 March 2016 - Not my commute
Wednesday, 2 March 2016 - Happy birthday Texas!
Monday, 29 February 2016 - Work for Free Day
Sunday, 28 February 2016 - River cruise
Saturday, 27 February 2016 - Trust me, I mostly know what I'm doing
Friday, 26 February 2016 - Chimp shit
Wednesday, 24 February 2016 - After work burn
Sunday, 21 February 2016 - The weather gods
Saturday, 20 February 2016 - Civic duties
Wednesday, 17 February 2016 - Perks
Monday, 15 February 2016 - Bang!
Sunday, 14 February 2016 - Valentine's shake
Friday, 12 February 2016 - Free parking
Thursday, 11 February2016 - My kinda winter
Tuesday, 9 February2016 - Lemons
Friday, 5 February2016 - I want to ride my bicycle
Thursday, 4 February2016 - Standard
Wednesday, 3 February 2016 - Newest member of the family
Monday, 1 February 2016 - Change of scenery (and temperature) After a three-month hiatus from this website, I'm back at it again :) The break was partly due to circumstance (more on that in a bit), but mostly it was because I was completely and utterly burned out from almost four months of tirelessly taking and processing a few thousand photos during our USA and Canadian road trip, all while keeping this site up to date at the same time to thoroughly document it all. Afterwards I really just needed to put the camera down for a while and give us both a rest, although it's been a longer while than I anticipated.
I already had a job lined up before Kristina and I left New York, as a home-worker based, well, wherever I happened to be. Upon arriving in San Antonio at the end of the road trip to stay with Kristina's folks, we had two weeks to ideally find an apartment in Austin and get ourselves moved in before my first day back at work. We immediately set about apartment hunting, and after a long day spent in Austin checking out nine different apartment complexes, we narrowed the choices down to just two: a more expensive option that ticked all of the boxes and more, and a cheaper option that didn't tick all of the boxes but would have sufficed and made more financial sense. Well the cheaper one got snapped up the very next day, so we immediately snapped up the only option left that we really liked. The apartment was one of twelve in a brand-spanking new building in an already long-established complex consisting of about a dozen apartment buildings altogether. It was a two bed / two bath on the top (third) floor, right on the end of the building that got all of the sunlight throughout the day, had a big wrap-around deck out back, and so much space (close to 1,200sqft or 110sqm) that it made our little studio apartment in New York (350sqft or 33sqm) seem like a walk-in closet. Oh, and it had a walk-in closet too ;) Being on the top floor it also had high vaulted ceilings, which made it feel even more spacious. With the paperwork and up-front financials taken care of, we were given the all clear to move in the weekend before I started back at work, which was the weekend of October 31st. Perfect! Or so we thought.
A few days later we were told the apartment would not be ready until the following weekend due to last-minute construction delays. Then we were told another week. Then we were told December. Then we were told some time after New Year's hahaha! So week after week we got messed around, and had we not been so fixated on this particular apartment we would have bailed, got our deposit back, and looked elsewhere. But instead we waited it out. These delays were made all the more inconvenient by the fact I was now working again, from Kristina's parent's dining room table hehe. Furthermore, it didn't make a lot of sense for Kristina to start seriously job hunting and driving back and forth to Austin (a 150-mile / 240km round-trip from San Antonio) for interviews, so she has been unemployed for a lot longer than she'd hoped. At least we weren't living out of a hotel. Eventually in mid-December we were finally given the all clear for the weekend before Christmas, but Kristina and I were heading back to New Zealand for Christmas and New Year's to spend it with my family, so instead we finally moved in three weeks ago on January 9th (two days after we got back from New Zealand, after 24 hours in transit). We saved ourselves two months of rent at least.
So that's what we waited two months for. Could have been worse - our neighbors downstairs waited four months and lived in temporary accommodation for a month at a time! I'll take more photos of the apartment complex at some point, which even has its own pool area and gym, and for all this we're still paying less in rent than we did in Manhattan hahaha! I'll also get some snaps of our new neighborhood which is located just a few miles from downtown Austin in the Spyglass - Barton's Bluff area (named for the two main streets in the neighborhood, of which we're on one of them - Spyglass Drive), and backs onto an awesome green belt that winds along a large creek. Good stuff! As for Austin, I'll talk more about that once I actually get out and start seeing it for myself. I ordered a new bike last week which should be here sometime this week, and then the exploring of yet another new home starts yet again.
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