Be or not to be.. or better the where-to-be..

Living in Hamburg or Munich teaches us, that finding an apartment at all is not easy and requires quite some flexibility in pretty much everything. With other words: You stop smiling as soon as you open www.immobilienscout24.de the first time until that day, where you finally move into your new place..probably 3 months later as you expected to move.

In this area, this is quite different. If you want to rent an apartment within an apartment complex, you just start walking around in the area you wish to live and watch out for signs outside of the complexes. In my case "Now renting: 1 bedroom". Within one day you can already be a new tenant of an apartment of your choice.

The leases, I got offers for, today, were from 1 month up to 14 months on a fix base. So if you want to break the lease (which means basically getting out of the contract just so) because you have to move out for some reason, they charge you in general a break up fee of about 2000 - 2500 USD.

Well, you can, of course, also decide to buy a house here in the area..but if you look at the price, you would pay a tiny bit more..although, the following house looked quite appealing and is situated on Villa St, quite in the center of Mountain View :-) :

But the price is something, what is kind of ridiculous. Only because Google's HQ is in Mountain View should not justify these prices here.

I'd better stick on keep looking for apartments to rent, instead, and leave the buying to the Google folks, who actually have a chance to afford this kind of toy.


Five apartment complexes I had a chance to look at, yesterday. Four of them were quite cool - but none of them really in my original price range. Currently, I am keeping two of them in focus, a third one is just a fantasy, but it makes you feel like living permanently in vacations. 8-) I try to stay realistic and re-focus on the other two. So, here are my choices:

Aviana Apartments:
Their price range is from 1445 - 1465 USD. Although this is quite much, it is still within the price range, you gonna get an apt here around this area. 

Birch Creek Apartments: 
Then the one, which is most probably gonna be my choice. I have already kind of decided. Paying 100 USD less here, but get everything fully remodeled. And this is really a nice apartment. All new, especially the kitchen, etc.
The only downside: I can move in on Nov, 1st. So I would need to find a solution, where to stay the next 4 weeks.

Then, I just got my car deal done!
Will get to my car within the next 2 till 3 weeks, the transfer is fluent. It will be the Ford Escort, I mentioned, earlier. Old model, but if it drives me to the coast and back reliably - I won't complain. :-)

Will post pictures, as soon as I took some - of my car and later, of my new apartment.

Saint Burgers

Just returned from a burger place, blessedly called St. Johns. SO stuffed, now. If you take a look at their menu, you would know, why.

Besides of this, I need a hobby. I am not balanced enough and it's not helpful to deal with all the couples, around here. :-) Uh, and coming with this, I will start with the hunt for an apartment on Monday.

The own car is already within reach:
An old Ford Escort from 1998 - although, I don't like Fords, this one is actually at least a better deal than the Ford Taurus, which I rode in 2007, when I was here. Let's see. Of course, I have learned from my experiences and will sleep over this..

[side note: all things above happened yesterday. I am not that americanized, yet, to eat burgers for breakfast. Not yet..:-) .. ]

Friday as first day at work? Priceless..

Thanks again for this hint! Only one day and I need already a whole weekend to recover from my first day at work. Nevertheless, it was very interesting to get to know the current status.

As aftertaste I got homework to do over the weekend: "Decide either for job security OR for fun project with all creativity and freedom to live it out". Great! For someone like me, considering since arrival of re-booking my flight to a date as early as possible - of course, I will vote for the fun and creativity! But it is challenging. After all, what I got as information, yesterday, it seems, that we are struggling with a future road map. The company is open to pretty much everything, if this can raise its price.
The two options, I mentioned above, result from the fact, that our main customer wants to let us proceed with the on-going projects, but on the same side does not want to support us fully, in the close future. Of course. This makes sense. But as consequence most likely, those who opt in for that, will be bought up and hired by our main customer directly. The rest of the company needs to define the future road map and must see to generate some revenue until a nice investor sees the company's potential and buys it.

Any of the above cases kind of sucks, but who likes to be confronted with hard reality, anyway. Finally, it is turning out as expected by me, long time ago.

When thinking through this, I am really clear in my decision: Enough of boredom. I want the fun! At least I can learn quite a bit and will take my new skills with me when finally returning home to my city. :-)

Lost and found

Things which you thought, would had been thrown away a long long time ago, and then you stumble upon them when sorting your old stuff back at home..

At least, the decision maker from the Deutsche Bank  lets me understand, again, why the world got in such an economical crisis... - yes, I know, there is a reflection of myself, holding the camera..

And then there was this snapshot from the Brettener Zoo, long long time ago..picture on paper!
I love this picture, adult monkey watching over the young:

Easy way to keep it at bay. That opens the question, why evolution let it happen, that tails got lost over the period of development of the human race..

Good morning, sun! Uh...sun?

Happened this morning:
Opened my eyes - got disorientated - closed them - started to think again: 'Ah...yes, California..There was something..' - opened eyes again. Ok, here we are.

A look out of the window as proof to me: YOU ARE ALL WRONG!

'So, who put all the clouds there', you are asking me? Hey, how should I know. But all went better - was just some clouds from the morning. It's sunny and hot, meanwhile.

My breakfast was kind of boring (And I should have thought of the consequences, when starting to take antibiotics on Monday...Can cope with no beer, but no wine until Friday? Duh..

Then there are still sticking some old memories here at the wall - blurriness on purpose...'Dulce de leche'...Good that certain things aren't available online in all clarity..:-)

English? Deutsch? Egal, ich bin nun da - und mein Gepaeck auch!

Weil dies mein erster Eintrag ist, schreib ich den nun einfach auf Deutsch. Aber das wird sich sicher noch aendern. :-) As soon as my English is back, I will switch back to it, no worries.

Da bin ich nun, wieder angekommen. Langer - und ich meine laaaaaaanger und ebenso langweiliger Flug.
Keine Ereignisse. Aber die KLM haelt wirklich das, was sie verspricht: Guter Service, gutes Essen und die Sitze waren auch ok.  Und wenn ich gutes Essen meine, dann meine ich eher: viel. Dazu noch staendig Getraenke gereicht? Bin ich von anderen Airlines so nicht gewohnt.

Natuerlich musste ich dafuer mindestens 3x meinen Rucksack aus- und wieder einsortieren. Das hat dann jedes Mal so an die 10 Minuten gedauert. Bei all den Sicherheitskontrollen kann ich mir gar nicht mal vorstellen, wie ueberhaupt irgendwelche Anschlaege moeglich werden koennen..

Oh Gott, ich darf nicht daran denken, wie lange ich nun wirklich schon auf den Beinen bin. Es ist hier gerade 22.09. um 17:47 Uhr Ortszeit (Deutschland:  +9.00 h) und ich bin schon seit dem 21.09., 3:00 Uhr nachts wach. Gut dass ich noch Urlaub habe ;-)

Wetterbericht hat auch nicht gelogen. Es ist warm hier (warum hab ich nur Platz in meinen Koffern fuer Pullis verschwendet?!) und sonnig - na klar.

Klares Denken faellt mir erstmal schwer - aber Koerper funktioniert einwandfrei. Also schieb ich das alles mal auf die Muedigkeit.

Denke noch mit etwas Wehmut an Hamburg zurueck, bin noch immer offen fuer eine spontane Umbuchung meines Rueckfluges auf ein beliebig nahes Datum noch in diesem Jahr. Habe mir aber erstmal befohlen, gefaelligst das geistige Jammern sein zu lassen und meine aktuelle Umgebung erstmal wieder auf mich wirken zu lassen.

Erste Eindruecke:
- Empfang herzlich (danke Ang!)
- Eichhoernchen: viele und aktive Dachbekletterer
- warm und sonnig: oh ja!

Also, bevor ich noch unsinniger werde, hier die Grundaussage:
Ich bin gut angekommen, mein Gepaeck auch!
Keine Sorgen mehr machen! Kein Flugzeugabsturz oder so. :)