That One Time We Move to Los Angeles

The big idea was to sell most of our stuff and just keep the essentials -- books, CDs, records, kitchen equipment, clothes, an air mattress and two chairs -- packing up said essentials into a small U-Haul and drive out West.

In the beginning stages of our plan, we were going to buy a second car that could tow a U-Haul because our Honda Civid Hybrid would not do the job. A brother proposed that he might help us with our move using his SUV as the towing vehicle. A date was set; we put in our notices at work and at our apartment and kissed the city of Austin good bye. That was the extent of our plan to move to Los Angeles.

For months we told our friends and family of our plan of packing and moving. We had no jobs lined up. We had no apartment lined up. The plan was to just go. Everyone we told thought we were crazy. How could we do something this big without any sort of plan? I told everyone that we did have a plan, move to Los Angeles. It was the only plan we needed. 

We were crazy.

We packed our shit. I got overwhelmed, per usual. I wasn't ready for when our caravan members arrived; a mom, a dad, and a brother. We had a tight schedule to follow. People had lives to get back to; we had lives to start. 

We left Austin on July 5th. With the help of our caravan, we packed up two SUV's, a Honda Civic Hybrid and a U-Haul trailer. The drive to Los Angeles was pretty uneventful in a good way. No cars died on us, no people broke down in an emotional puddle of tears (I'm talking about myself). We just had a transmission scare that was solved by having a second SUV that could hitch the U-haul. Thank heaven for parents.

We arrived in Los Angeles after a couple of days on the road. Put our crap into storage and stayed in an Airbnb. We did some sight seeing with the parents, then we were on our own. The husband and I moved into a smaller Airbnb. The plan was to stay in this Airbnb for a week and find an apartment and start our new lives. That did not go according to plan. Life never goes as expected, right? 

The whole apartment searching scene in Los Angeles is crazy. If you aren't accustomed to this crazy process, it can be a bit overwhelming for the first-time renter. We sat in our little Airbnb and looked at places online, calling and messaging complexes about apartments. We got virtually no response back.

Since we only had a week, we became desperate. Finally we saw a listing that had an open house. We went right at the beginning of the open house, looked at the studio apartment and said we would take it. The only catch was we couldn't move in until the beginning of August. AUGUST! We had three weeks to kill until we could officially move to Los Angeles.

What were we going to do?

I do think we could have done our apartment search differently. I wish we would have driven around more and called about apartments instead of relying solely on internet listings. The whole process was overwhelming*.  I can't believe this city really doesn't have apartment locator services -- sure they have Westside Rentals, a place that just takes your money and throws you to the apartment hunting wolves. I understand the urban sprawl can make it difficult, but really Los Angeles, come on.

*This post brought to you by our sponsor: the word "overwhelming." I get overwhelmed, and I was overwhelmed. I am OVERWHELMED!

Now, we are living in the world's smallest studio apartment. I know, I am being dramatic. I know people in New York, Paris and London have smaller studio apartments. When you are sharing this space with a second person, things can get tight. Especially when we are coming from a two bedroom townhouse apartment. Where can I go to weep silently without someone watching or judging me? Where can I get my "alone" time?

If I felt like we hadn't grown up before, I sure as hell do now. We don't even have a proper bed, we just have an air mattress. We have no room to get a proper bed. It's like I am reliving my college years all over again.

Our location is pretty great thought. I think for knowing very little about this city in general, we did do a good job at picking our location. It's just too bad we don't have parking. Ugh, parking. That is a whole other story.

XO