I found an apartment!

So yesterday Mom, Randi, Rita and I packed into Supertramp (My car.  I'm sorry.) and headed up to Binghamton to find me a place to live.  We got on the road about 45 minutes late but as it turns out there was some miscommunication regarding my first meeting and we ended up with an hour to kill anyway. We had lunch at a little dive bar...reasonable tasty food and friendly staff (all two of them) though I can't shake the feeling that the cook was a bit put out at having to get us our lunch.  I got the impression that noon on a Saturday is not a busy time for them.  Regardless, it was a perfectly reasonable meal and was cheap enough for me to treat without getting buyer's remorse.

The first two places we looked at were owned by the same guy, so his property manager just went to both of them with me and we were onto the next place after about a half hour.  After that I looked at a place that in a previous incarnation had been a hotel- it sounded really cool on paper, but it ended up kinda giving me the heebie-jeebies.  I liked some aspects of it- there were TONS of book/knickknack shelves along all the walls and there was a really cute little dining nook that was kinda hidden behind a wall. The major downside was the poor lighting (I was there at 2pm and it might as well have been midnight) and the odd boarding house feel- residents inhabit the same space, but I don't get the impression that they live as a cohesive unit at all.  I'm not expecting to sing kumbaya around the kitchen table or anything, but I do want to feel secure in the knowledge that my roommates are not harboring fugitives or keeping dead bodies under their beds without my knowledge.  It sucks, though, because the landlady was really nice and in some was I think that place would've been an interesting experience...but it's just way too gremlin-friendly.

I ended up going with the second place I looked at.  It's a five bedroom (4 other grad students and 1 senior, 3 guys and 1 other girl) in a quiet residential area.  It's got a little porch and a claw foot tub and apparently they're going to be renovating the kitchen (and my all time favorite...wood paneling.  Sorry again.), so I'm pretty excited about the whole deal.  The landlord seems very engaged and responsive, and the property manager I met is the same.  I'll be signing a June lease but it doesn't look like I was gonna have all that much choice on that front if I wanted to live someplace decent.  All together the day went exactly as I hoped it would.  We even stopped for dinner at a great steak and seafood place in the Poconos where I had a friggin' amazing lobster roll, AND I managed to be in bed by 10:30.  Let's just hope all the other logistical fun goes as well as this did.