apt search update

I spent a couple of days looking for apartments online, in the newspapers etc. Most places around Dupont where too expensive or already gone but I found a few places that looked good on paper and I set up an appointment to go see one of them at 10am yesterday. (The realtor said it was open from 10 to 11 anyway.) So I got up at 5:30 to drive to DC. I left home at 6:00 and made it to Gainesville by 8:00. At this point I hear on the radio that there is congestion on 66 west of Vienna because of an overturned car. No shit, I’m sitting in the congestion all the way back at Gainesville. It took over an hour to get to the Vienna metro station.

I got on a train at 9:15—now you know it takes forever to get to Dupont from Vienna by Metro, especially in rush hour traffic. So I got to Dupont at 10:00 (which amazes me!) and get out of the station into a downpour. No problem, I have my newly re-waterproofed Nautica jacket. So I quickly pass the guy selling umbrellas thinking back to being in Venice when I bought one from a street vender and still got completely soaked by the rain! Anyway, the apartment was about a 10 minute walk from the Metro station. I figure no problem the guy said he was showing the apartment between 10 and 11, if I am a few minutes late he would still be there anyway. At this point I notice that the rain has stopped beading up on my coat and is now soaking into it—Shit. By the time I get to the address of the apartment I am starting to feel the inside of the coat get wet.

And there is no one there. I wait. And there is no one there. I gave up after waiting 45 minutes. Now quite wet and cold I head off to some of the other places I had to look at. Over the course of the day I looked at 20 or so places. Some were too expensive, a lot where shitty, and a few where no longer available. I did find one place about 5 blocks from Dupont Circle that is the right price and location—the apartment is nice, though a little strange shaped. It was not until 6:00pm that I got to see it which means that the realty office was closed so I could not just go turn in the paper work yesterday. Now I need to take the paper work back to them tomorrow because they won’t process it without the application fee so there is no point in faxing it to them!

If I don’t get this place I may have to swallow my desire to live in Dupont and get some place in Reston or Vienna for a year or six months. I would really like to be in Dupont, but I need a place now since I start work in a week. What’s the moral of all this? I should have bought the stupid umbrella!