The Big Move

Since our time in San Francisco is slowly, yet so quickly, coming to a close, I thought I'd probably start doing some reminiscing on the blog if I feel so inclined. You know, for posterity's sake. So, to start the trip down memory lane, it was exactly seven years ago last week (Thursday, January 3, 2003) that we packed up our little Wymount apartment ready to begin on our big city adventure. And when I say "we" I mostly mean my parents packed up the place. Blake and I were gone getting the U-haul.
Thursday night we drove up to Bountiful to stay the night, then Friday morning we started the long drive to San Francisco. Blake and I drove the U-haul and towed our car, and my parents followed us in their car. Our U-haul only had a radio, so during the barren Nevada drive, my parents shared their music with us over the walkie-talkies. A road trip just isn't a road trip without some John Denver! We had planned on staying the night somewhere near Oakland and then driving into the city the next day. When we got to the Carquinez Bridge, we thought we were crossing the Bay Bridge and had gone too far. We ended up staying the night in Emeryville--with a view of the REAL Bay Bridge.
The next morning, the four of us loaded into my parents car and drove into the big city to find an apartment.
Blake had done a little research on Craiglist and we knew we wanted to live near the school and church, but other than that, we knew nothing. Our plan of attack was to call a couple places and then walk around the city looking for "For Rent" signs and then call the number. Our only criteria, besides a clean, one-bedroom, was that we needed to be able to move in that day. Minor details...
We went to several open houses and almost got a place on Van Ness and Filbert. It was nice, but now that I actually know the area, the apartment would have been awful for us--busy street, not within walking distance from school, and limited street parking. Needless to say, it was a long, long, long day.
But finally, about two hours after this picture above was taken, the manager of the building just across the street from this one called us to come look at an apartment and it was perfect for us. A block away from the church (yay for parking!), good price, a large outdoor patio, and we could move in that day! Hooray! We celebrated by going to eat at Pasta Pomodoro while they checked our credit.
After we knew it was a done deal, we drove back to our hotel in Emeryville to pick up the U-haul. I remember Blake was a pro driving the U-haul through the San Francisco streets. I however, was not. At one point I needed to move the car out of the church parking lot and just drive it around the block. I turned left out of the parking lot, right at the first light, then right again onto Franklin--going the wrong way on one of the busiest one-way streets in the city. A man jumped out and stopped traffic so I could pull into a driveway and turn around. Welcome to the big city, Addi--I didn't drive again for at least six months. We spent the rest of the evening unpacking.

The next morning my parents left for home and Blake and I started our new San Francisco life. Our new house ended up being close to the bus that took me to work and close to the school. Cable was included and there was laundry in the building. I remember we had an ice box in the fridge that kept everything frozen, except ice cream. So, when we bought ice cream we would eat the entire carton. And once, there was a leak from the unit above us that drenched our apartment. It was so bad we had little mushrooms grow in the carpet. We lived in that apartment for two years and five months and it was perfect.