Welcome to the blog!

The whole purpose of this blog is to attempt to break our terrible record of keeping in touch with people. The idea is for one of us to post once a week. Since we've been here a week, let's do week 1!

This week was all about job and apartment searching. Our personal two favorite apartments so far are:

1) A two-story one with a gorgeous downstairs, big kitchen with tile counters and tons of counter space, a dishwasher, washer/dryer, and deck/backyard. Unfortunately, the bedrooms upstairs had a dorm room feel to them, and the bathroom was tiny and tub-less. The upstairs was such a con to the huge pro of the downstairs. It was quite disappointing. Also, we suspect the landlord works in the fracking industry. We're not sure if we should infiltrate or stand clear.

2) The top floor of an old, but well-maintained house (built in 1840) to the south of Ithaca. Really nice view, really nice feel to the apartment. We like this one best, except for the location (8 minutes to downtown, 12 to Cornell) and the lack of laundry facilities. We're not enchanted by the idea of needing to do laundry in January and having to shelp it all into a car, drive for a while, and then wait.

Our least favorite was one relatively close to Cornell with a lovely view on the drive up to it. There were farms with hills rising behind them not close enough to feel shut-in. The apartment is in a slight valley. Inside it's kind of damp feeling. (No washer/dryer, but the laundry is only one block away!) There are windows, but for some reason there doesn't seem to be space in any of the rooms for beds because of the way the windows and doors are located. The kitchen was big, but only had things on one wall. By things I mean the refrigerator, stove, counters, and cabinets. It might have been workable with an island, a dining table, and some shelving units. This was also the first apartment that we looked at. At least everything looks better compared to it...

Job-wise, Kim is applying to Cornell as I write this. I have a job offer at a bakery that specializes in cookies and dairy products (milk/ice cream) delivered to college students. Tomorrow I'm going to stalk down the offices of a place in town that apparently organizes tutoring for the area. I'd love to work part time at each place.

When we're not madly working at the basic logistics of living here, we've done a little bit of sightseeing. We took a brief walk/hike on a trail that runs along the rim of the gorge that Taughannock Falls falls into. On one side were trees, and the other more trees and then a steep drop. Way down was a wide, flat stream bed with a shallow stream in part of it. 

It's amazing to consider that I'm going to live somewhere so pretty. Perhaps sometime we'll even post pictures.

-Dariana