We decided against the city centre. The apartments were just too small, the neighbors too youthful, and the commute too long.
We wanted to look at more places in suburbia, especially within an easy commute of Jonathan's school, and a not-unreasonable bike ride away from my work. That is, the location of the first place we visited last time seemed good, if not the house itself. So off to more apartment inspections.
First stop: Hawthorne East, a 15 minute walk from Jonathan's school, on a nice leafy street.
So this place was strange. The kitchen looked new and well cared for, but other things looked pretty beat up. Like the roof over the porch, which had a big gaping hole.
So we started walking. We had been looking at the map at a couple of houses for rent in a suburb located about a 30 minute walk from Jonathan's school (or 15 minutes by bike, or 30 minutes by public transit -- no direct connection). The houses were near a large park, and near the Gardener's Creek bike path, which runs to the city centre on one end, and out to join with a couple other bike paths to take me to work (45 minute ride) on the other end.
The suburb really was lovely. This is the only picture I took, outside one of the houses.
And the bike path seemed nice. We walked along it for a mile or so (it was also a walking path, but there were far more bikes -- lots of bikes).
But while we were out, the realtor for the more central-ish previous home called, and said there were other people interested in that apartment. And how serious were we?
So we had to decide how serious we were, while walking through suburbia.
And we kind of decided that walking for an hour through -- very lovely -- suburbia was tiring, and maybe it would be nice to be more central-ish, where we knew where everything was.
But before making the decision that we were seriously serious, we stopped at one more open house. A townhouse near the next train station down the line.
And we decided no on that one.
We were tired, so Jonathan voted to stop for Slurpees, buy one get one free. (Check out our gas prices. That's AUD, per liter. Do some math and see how it compares to your gas prices!)
And then we were done.
The realtor called the next morning and said he had another application on the central-ish house, but since we were first, we could have first dibs if we were willing to take it right now now now now. I hate that kind of pressure.
But we took it.
We've paid a month's rent, a month's deposit. We sign the papers and pick up the keys tomorrow.
And we're happy! I think.
No, we're happy. Given our constraints, this seems like the best option.
We've scheduled the movers: they can come in two weeks. We need to buy a fridge and washer/dryer. And a vacuum cleaner. And other stuff, mostly electronic. And set up utilities. And internet. And a phone for me. And moving will go on for at least a month it seems. Not counting unpacking.
