As luck, or karma, would have it, we were upgraded to a suite with a living room and full kitchen upon check-in at our hotel. The property is gorgeous, and we are loving what we have decided to call our Second Honeymoon. Hotels have maid service. Maid service is a really beautiful thing. I can't say enough about maid service. Can we just live at the hotel and always have maid service?
I think the Coast Guard may have a thing or 2 to say about that ... and so we must house hunt!
And house hunt we did. Mike had been doing a lot of research online and we had appointments lined up with 3 realtors. We had barely unpacked our bags when we were out seeing our first prospective apartment in San Juan. The ocean views from this 10th floor apartment were just stunning. The property was beach-front, and even had a small pool. The apartment itself was a bit of a let down. We needed to see more before we could really get a sense of what our housing budget would allow. Thursday morning we were lined up to see more apartments. That morning we would be looking in the Condado area. The first apartment had everything we were looking for: views of the beach and the laguna, a nice pool downstairs, 2 bedrooms/2 baths, a washer & dryer and a dish washer. It also had a mirrored wall in the living room and mirrored closet doors. Not our favorite feature, but we should be able to work with it if nothing else wows us. We saw a few other places in Condado but none compared to the first from that morning.
After lunch on Thursday we checked out a couple of places in Old San Juan. Old San Juan is the historic area of San Juan, and is within walking distance of the CG Station. Mike would be able to walk to work which would be great. The area has such charm and we were really excited that we might find a really great place right in the middle of the action and so close to the Station. We quickly came to learn that unfortunately, many of the primo places have already been snapped up by other Coasties moving to San Juan. The places we saw were "rustic" at best. The second Old San Juan apartment we saw didn't even have an oven. The bedrooms and living space were really small and our furniture wouldn't fit, let alone the TVs. Even still, we considered the apartment. The terrace on this apartment almost made it worth it. It was huge and overlooked the Governor's mansion and the San Juan bay. Like I said, the views were almost worth it, but not quite. Two more years of squeezing our stuff into a too-small apartment just isn't worth it. We said goodbye to the views and after waiting out a helluva storm and some near-miss lightning strikes, we headed over to check out the Coast Guard Station.
We saw one more apartment after Mike's first day of work, but our minds were already made up. We called the realtor from the mirrored wall apartment and told her we loved it. We sign the lease on Monday and will move in on August 1. We've been warned not to let people know we have a guest room, but the cat's already out of the bag on that one. Besides, we're actually really looking forward to having friends and family come for a visit. Just try to wait until our furniture arrives--sometime mid to late August, we think (we hope!!).
Check one thing off our list, this couple has found our international apartment!
I think the Coast Guard may have a thing or 2 to say about that ... and so we must house hunt!
And house hunt we did. Mike had been doing a lot of research online and we had appointments lined up with 3 realtors. We had barely unpacked our bags when we were out seeing our first prospective apartment in San Juan. The ocean views from this 10th floor apartment were just stunning. The property was beach-front, and even had a small pool. The apartment itself was a bit of a let down. We needed to see more before we could really get a sense of what our housing budget would allow. Thursday morning we were lined up to see more apartments. That morning we would be looking in the Condado area. The first apartment had everything we were looking for: views of the beach and the laguna, a nice pool downstairs, 2 bedrooms/2 baths, a washer & dryer and a dish washer. It also had a mirrored wall in the living room and mirrored closet doors. Not our favorite feature, but we should be able to work with it if nothing else wows us. We saw a few other places in Condado but none compared to the first from that morning.
After lunch on Thursday we checked out a couple of places in Old San Juan. Old San Juan is the historic area of San Juan, and is within walking distance of the CG Station. Mike would be able to walk to work which would be great. The area has such charm and we were really excited that we might find a really great place right in the middle of the action and so close to the Station. We quickly came to learn that unfortunately, many of the primo places have already been snapped up by other Coasties moving to San Juan. The places we saw were "rustic" at best. The second Old San Juan apartment we saw didn't even have an oven. The bedrooms and living space were really small and our furniture wouldn't fit, let alone the TVs. Even still, we considered the apartment. The terrace on this apartment almost made it worth it. It was huge and overlooked the Governor's mansion and the San Juan bay. Like I said, the views were almost worth it, but not quite. Two more years of squeezing our stuff into a too-small apartment just isn't worth it. We said goodbye to the views and after waiting out a helluva storm and some near-miss lightning strikes, we headed over to check out the Coast Guard Station.
We saw one more apartment after Mike's first day of work, but our minds were already made up. We called the realtor from the mirrored wall apartment and told her we loved it. We sign the lease on Monday and will move in on August 1. We've been warned not to let people know we have a guest room, but the cat's already out of the bag on that one. Besides, we're actually really looking forward to having friends and family come for a visit. Just try to wait until our furniture arrives--sometime mid to late August, we think (we hope!!).
Check one thing off our list, this couple has found our international apartment!
Congrats on the new apartment! If it makes you feel better, I lived in a mirrored apartment (entire bathroom, kitchen, living room walls, and one bedroom wall) for 5 years and I actually miss it a little bit because now I don't have any full length mirrors. Enjoy!
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