Journal

3020 miles

• 2008-08-16 04:20 pm EST
• Comment
• Posted in Miscellany, Asma, DC, Weather, Babies, Oakland, East Bay

From Thursday morning at 8:40am CST to Friday morning at 10:00am PST, we drove. Drove, drove, drove. 1500 miles. The babies' situation was just becoming unbearable for us, so we powered through Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah so that we could set up the cages and give them their space again (and keep things hygienic and comfortable).

All the discomfort and tiredness was worth it. The babies are happy again, the apartment is more amazing and bigger than I remember (Asma was totally shocked; she didn't imagine it being the way it was even though she saw pictures), and we still had the entire day to do household things.

We're already feeling at home here, East Bay especially (at least around Oakland and north of it). I haven't seen much of the Bay area yet, but from what I have seen, East Bay is totally our thing. There's a good mix of people, interesting neighborhoods, tons of restaurants, and an overall alive feel. San Francisco is cool too, but East Bay really has a soul to it. Silicon Valley is pretty sterile and kind of lame, in comparison. I can't ever imagine us living there. Maybe that's a bad choice professionally for me, but maybe I need to change professions too. Hah.

DC is pretty lame now. I'd be surprised if we ever moved back. I'd be surprised if we moved out of the area. We'll see in a few years, or a few weeks, I guess.

For now, I'm loving it. It's in the 60s right now. And we live next to Chinatown. And we don't have to spend ages browsing through Yelp wondering if there's a place with good vegan options. Most places here seem to. I've been to a few great and cheap restaurants so far and they've all had yummy vegan things. You cannot just do that in DC; the restaurants there are all hit-or-miss, and not many good cheap eats in the first place. Sad.

We were dying last night. I've pulled all-nighters before, but this was the roughest of them because of all the physical activity it involved in the errands we ran in the afternoon. I couldn't make myself go into Trader Joe's (our last stop), so I feel asleep in the car. One guy knocked on the window to check if I was okay. I should've reclined the seat to make it obvious, instead of how it probably was: head back and ackward, mouth partially open.

Mona is visiting us for the week. She's flying in tonight. That'll be fun.

Decorating and furnishing the apartment is going to be a long process. We cannot buy shit anymore. Plus, the apartment is stylish. It'll look so pretty when we fill it out. Asma's our chief of interior design.

I have so, so much work to do. I might freak out in a few days.