The cheapest apartments we can find

As Señor and I wait out the Great Marine-Air Force Housing War, we were tasked to go house hunt anyway. House hunting here is pretty awesome. You call an agent, tell them what you want, then the agent picks you up and brings you to a bunch of places to look at. Super high class. Although today, with our local native agent driving, I seriously thought we were going to be squashed weaving in and out of traffic on the impossibly skinny streets here. Not as terrifying as Ethiopian driving, but a close close second. Here they at least put mirrors on the sharp blind curves in their streets big enough for one car, so you can at least see the head-on collision coming.

Single homes here are nearly impossible to find, so Señor and I had this poor woman driving us all over the city to show us the few that were available. First was this little house that I imagine a grandmother had before us, judging by the wallpaper. The outside was the only colorful house we had seen in our hunts.

Special guest appearance by our agent

Now I was instantly attracted to that tower-looking thing on the front. What girl doesn't want to sit on the top of that and wait for her prince to come? Maybe dangle her hair out the window a little bit?

See? Perfect place to fight a dragon out the window.

Onward to the next house. I wish Señor had gotten a picture of the front yard (although I guess the agent said it would be "fixed" before anyone moved in). It was a wild mess of purple and red flowers, complete with a rusted out VW-ish van.

The next in our house montage. We refer to it as "that place with the yard and no stove."

As you can see, there are tatami mats on the floor in the background there. They're pretty awesome looking and in literally every house we have seen. Señor and I, being apparently uncultured, aren't sure what we are supposed to do with these rooms. All we were told is don't put furniture on the mats, as they are crazy expensive to fix after giant American couches have put dents in them. So I guess we would keep it as a showpiece room? Just for looks? Take our afternoon tea there?

The view from the next apartment. I'd like to point out the baby in giant shoes, showing off his junk. I tried to politely ask the agent what that meant but she just smiled and walked away. Anyway, not a view I want from my bedroom.

The agent ran out of houses to show us, so we went to see some apartments. This one wasn't super impressive, but the next one....

If you crane your next off the large balcony, you can see hills and sort-of the ocean in the background.

Far too much looking at disappointing places

The last couple places we saw were such a hard "NO" we didn't really take pictures. On the bright side, these were our safe apartments. The ones that just me, with my lowly housing allowance, can get. Today Señor is spending his day going office to office, pleading his case to get housing allowance, and I am going to look at the high-end apartments of the city. Señor was pretty upset he couldn't come with, as who wants to look at the cheap apartments but not the rockin' ones? I promised him about 5,000 pictures per apartment/house, so I'll have plenty more to share.

In other news of the weekend, Señor and I camped on a little beach cove (thankfully in a tent, since I have never seen that many hermit crabs in one place before!).

The view from our window...of the tent

This was all followed by a lovely little drive up the coast....

To get to this little place tucked in the mountains....

And there we spent a lovely afternoon with Señor's friends (we shall call them The Boots), splashing around, swinging on rope swings, jumping off rocks (not me, don't worry, Balabusta), and generally relaxing.

And thus completes my weekend update. I'm sure Kae is as excited as I am to see what sort of high-end homes this place has to offer, so I'll report back.

Homeless

Okay, Kae, I don't know how this is going to work out. There's this problem, you see, outside of the US where your computer recognizes you're in a different country and tries to send you to that country's respective google, blogger, whatever. I CANNOT TURN OFF THIS COUNTRY'S BLOGGER. So, I will be fumbling around with this website I can't read until it works. Or it deletes my post and I give up in disgust and go back to eating my Pringles/watching Dr. Phil on AFN (Armed Forces Network) in peace.

Kae has been begging for an update. I more or less dropped off the grid once my flight left the American Heartland. You see, I was stuck in the Heartland FAR longer than necessary. I showed up for my first flight, and the flight was cancelled. The reason? The pilot's seat moved around too much for his liking. I'm sorry, but you're flying a whole plane of people out of this godforsaken place. Put the pilot in his seat, duct tape that thing in place, and call it done. I guess not. So, they could only get me a flight out the next day, and I got put up in a hotel for the next night.

I showed up AGAIN the next day, and what do you know? The flight is cancelled. I went up to the same airline agent with a trembling chin and quietly asked to be let out of the state. I have never seen an airline person work so fast. He quickly got me a flight a few hours later (on a different airline) and I was flown BACK to the airport by Hillbilly Holler. All that, just to end up where I started. It wasn't until I was in my seat on the international flight, on the runway, that I finally relaxed. It didn't matter if I didn't make my last connecting flight, at least it would be doable.

Fast forward through customs/immigration (and a couple day break in writing this in which I had to navigate through non-English prompts to get to my saved draft and somehow ended up on someone else's blog), and Señor and I walking circles in the final airport (yet not finding each other) and here I am.

The people I'm stationed with here are amazing. As many crazy stories as I have told Kae, she can rest assured that there are some awesome people looking out for her (and, you know, the country, but I'm sure she's thinking of her safety). Aside from that, getting settled with Señor here has been chaos. Who knew there was such deep seeded anger between our branches (um, EVERYONE). But, basically it's 10 days in now and we are nowhere near having a place to live. Señor is still in his barracks, I'm in a hotel. He drives about 45 minutes every night to see me for, oh, an hour before we both fall asleep out of heat exhaustion, then he drives 45 minutes back to his base to make it in time for the crazy curfews he has. Not ideal.

On the bright side, I'm getting a car in a few hours. Cars are crazy easy to buy here. Especially if you prey on the desperate people who are about to head back to the states and HAVE to sell their cars they can't bring to the states. Pictures to come, I promise, Kae.

That's the short and sweet of it. There are more adventures to come, as I am currently being kicked out of my hotel for a couple nights due to overbooking and literally every place around here is full this weekend.  Kae was very excited to hear I will probably pitch a tent in a ditch somewhere and be homeless for a couple days. I promise to take pictures.

Pulling the plug on Kae

Do you know how hard it is to plan for one suitcase to hold the next four months worth of outfits (plus shoes and toiletries)? Just saying. I am going to be moving a few times over the next four months and living out of hotels, so I'm trying to keep it light while all my non-necessities are being stored. One bag for uniforms, one bag for my beloved civilian clothes. Everytime I think I have it arranged, I find something important, like a sweatshirt that surely will come in handy for someone moving from the desert to the dead of winter in a practically arctic climate. So then I find myself staring at my suitcase, wondering if I should leave behind the glitter boots or my shampoo. It's gotten to the point that I put all my clothing back into the drawers and hid my suitcase from view so I don't have to think about it.

Along with that comes another thing I had to do, which is deactivate my facebook. It really wasn't that big of a deal, other than that's the main way I communicate with Kae. As I told her, it was like having to pull the plug on her. Now I'll never be able to send her a quick witty comment about a cute DIY maternity dress pattern I found. I'm going to have to actually, like, work to get a message to her. We both are accepting this is the end of our sisterhood. I probably won't even know she gave birth until sometime in the summer.

On that note, Kae, that is what is happening in my life. Maybe send a messenger pigeon to let me know when the baby is born?

Bee out.

P.S. Here's my song for today, as a late Veteran's Day nod.