The New Digs and Wheels

Day: 8 (we made it one week!)
High Temp: 102F
Job Status: Unemployed


Tom and I have moved into a place called the State House. It's one of those huge, suburban style apartment buildings that are incredibly common in Austin. Its a really well-kept complex, and has nice amenities like a fitness center and a pool.

Here is a pic of our diningroom, and another of the living room area. It's nice and open and a pretty great layout. You can see the kitchen a little through the cut out/bar in the diningroom.
















Our apartment is a pool-view unit. We thought this sounded excellent, until we actually moved in... As it turns out, pool-view is like living in a 4 star resort for 50% of the time (see pic taken from our balcony), and the other 50% is like overlooking a frat party. I was told by an insistent stranger at the last TimeLine company BBQ that it would be WAY too hot to use the pool, and that no one would EVER go in. In fact, it is quite the opposite. People are in the pool all the time. They even go in the heated whirlpool! It's insane.

Even in the middle of the night, it seems, people are in the pool. It is supposed to close at 10pm, and there is supposed to be a community patrol that comes around a few times a night, but we were definitely awoken twice last week in the middle of the night... I talked with the management person, and she gave me the number of the community patrol, and said they will respond immediately to any noise complaints. Yep, I am going to have to be the neighborhood bitch that calls the cops on my those having fun in the pool after hours, but Tom and I are embracing our status as total strangers in this city and will relish the opportunity to tell the drunk ex-frat boys to shut the hell up!


And, as you pretty much cannot live in Austin without an automobile, Tom and I have purchased one. And, as you cannot really be a Texan with out a truck, we decided to go ahead at get one for ourselves (sort of). It's a Mazda Tribute, a small SUV. Not sure either of us ever thought we would own an SUV, but after driving a rental car in the city, and realizing that every parking lot has a gigantic dip between it and the street that is guaranteed to scrape the hell out of the bottom of your vehicle, we looked for something that was a bit taller, and found Elly (short for Elephant in honor of her size and color.) I realize a Mazda Tribute is not exactly the largest coche on the camino, but it sure is a big change from our little Toyota Celica we drove in Chicago.