Decision

I'm real close to putting a contract on a house, here in the Logan Circle area of Washington. Details soon.

Apartment hunting

I've been back two weeks today. Time has flown by. Between the 50-hour work week and catching up with friends, I'm looking at apartments. There are a few websites I'm using to help:

craigslist - free classified ads, simple search feature
apartmentratings.com - great site where tenants rate apartments and their managers
apartmentshowcase.com - the online version of a monthly magazine of apartment ads put out by the Washington Post
apartments.com - a commercial search website, affiliated with the Washington Post. Yucky search feature.

There are some real estate and rental management websites that I've been using as well. I've probably seen 12 or 15 places. I want a place close in, but I've already eliminated Capitol Hill and Waterfront. Focusing now on Logan Circle, Dupont Circle, and Woodley Park.

Between it all and visiting my brother in the country north of Baltimore, I have not had one day to myself. It's all good, though. V and I talk pretty regularly. I've gotten some nice reimbursement checks related to my shoulder surgery. The weather is getting a little sticky, but hey, it's summer in Washington.

The good thing about work is working with two interns in our office. It makes my day. Today we went to a seminar on the Hill about food security. It opened their eyes. Jim McGovern led the seminar, which was attended by Jo Ann Emerson, Earl Pomeroy and Jerry Moran.

Hierarchy of Needs: Housing

Since I got here, I've been spending a fair amount of time looking for a place to live. I'm currently staying with friends but that can last only so long. So, I've been looking up places on craigslist and have seen four places already. Focusing on Capitol Hill, Shaw, Logan Circle, Woodley Park, and may consider other places too.

Here's how wild the universe is: when I first moved to Washington in 1983, I rented a place at 747 Tenth St SE in DC: affordable little one bedroom basement apartment on Capitol Hill near the Marine Corps barracks. Well that place is available again, today. Life is just so weird. Maybe I should rent it again.

Culture shock (the return)

Late last night, I arrived back in Washington. It was after midnight before I got my luggage, so I stayed at a hotel near the airport. Tonight and for the next week, I'm housesitting for friends - I need to find a place on my own.

Coming back is weird. What's weird ... hmmm ... all the American accents is probably first on the list. Walking and driving on the right. The racism that is everyday life in DC. Toilets with only one flush setting. How cheap American paper money looks is high up on the list. $4 gas was a little weird, but it's still cheaper than in Sydney. I will probably get used to it soon enough.

Here and There (Bilocation)

In this virtual environment, it's easy to go to the old home. Back in DC, I listened to NPR at WAMU on the radio; it's real easy to listen to All Things Considered or Marketplace here on my Real player. What is a little weird is listening to the evening news at 8 in the morning.

Of course, I read washingtonpost.com to catch up on DC and US news. It's not like reading the paper - especially the comics - but it works.

Here my print news sources are the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review; for television, it's SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) and ABC news (that's Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Both are state-funded. SBS is very interesting, as its mission as a network is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society". They also report in English.

For the papers, I buy them maybe two or three times a week. Newspapers here are more expensive in the United States. The Sydney Morning Herald is $1.30 (about US$1.21) and the Financial Review is $2.70 (about US$2.51); I haven't yet checked to see if they provide discounts for daily delivery.

The Australian perspective is rather refreshing, and more comprehensive in its international coverage. The financial news follows the U.S. business environment since the United States makes up such a large share of world business news (plus it's making a lot of news right now, with the deepening recession and subprime mess).

What is so amazing aboout our internet age is that I can have my feet in both the U.S. world and the Australian world at the same time.