For anyone that knows me, I love a good view, and we certainly have that here. It cost a little more, but to me it's worth it since I find myself just staring outside for long periods of time. In fact, this entry til now has taken me 45 minutes because I'm watching some boats go by.
Finding the place was pretty easy too. We used Craiglist to find some options in the Russian Hill area, but I wasn't loving anything in particular. One place had a nice view of the big house (alcatraz!), as well as a huge dining room and living room, but the kitchen was tiny. Interestingly, the kitchen also had it's own service elevator as it turns out it was originally for maids to come up and cook for the wealthy family who lived there. It was built in the 1910s, so it was cool to imagine what it would've been like to live there at the time. The kitchen was too small though; if you went in and ate a huge meal, you'd probably get stuck there. So I continued my search by just walking around the neighborhood.
I happened upon this place:
I really liked that it had old world charm, but they were updating the kitchens. The apartment itself is still pretty old, with squeaky floors and very dated fixtures and stuff, but we really liked it. The kitchen is also small, but with good storage space and granite counter tops (and still bigger than the other place, believe it or not).
The neighborhood is called Russian Hill. It's named as such because of graves found at the top of the hill with Cyrillic writing, thus presumed to be Russian. We actually live just 3 blocks from the windy part of Lombard, which can be annoying because the line to drive down it backs up to our apartments. It's kind of ridiculous because it's ALWAYS in the afternoon/evening, no one seems to go in the morning. I feel like there's a business opportunity here, but I'm not sure what yet. There's just so many tourists, I feel like I should be profiting somehow. Maybe Jess could make some Rice-a-Roni or something and sell it.
The apartment itself is quite nice, with huge closets and crown moldings. We have radiators but turned them off because they make very loud banging noises at 5 in the morning. We tried it the first couple days, but it was like being awakened to the Anvil Chorus, without Verdi's violin virtuosos. I much prefer starting my day to Katy Perry's California Gurls.
The water pressure here is unreal though. You barely turn on the faucets for the shower and it feels like you ran over a fire hydrant. I feel like Kramer lived here before us and installed those shower heads used to clean elephants. I like it though, I don't even have to shave, I just put my face into the oncoming water.
So those pictures above were taken about a week ago. The last week it has been a bit foggy, but today it's semi-clear. I was just thinking Joel would have a field day here with his nice camera (and skills), here's the GG bridge right now with my crappy camera:
Anyway, we're loving it here so far and look forward to many adventures in the city.
