Inseparable Nomads

After being pampered at Andrew’s grandmother’s it was very difficult to hit the road and face “real life” again.  We were heading into Boston to settle in indefinitely and the reality of the sitution was that we were arriving homeless and unemployed with no real prospects in either category.  Thankfully we are blessed to have so many great friends located in Boston, MA who were all kind enough to help us out the best they could.

Our first stop on the way into Boston was in Syracuse, NY for a night with one of my best friends,» Angela, and her boyfriend, Clayton.  We had a great little dinner with some of their friends, sampled Clayton’s homemade beer (very good I might add) and had fun chatting and catching up.  It was a shame that the visit was so short, but we’d already had our vacation and were in serious need of arriving in Boston.

From this point on we essentially “couchsurfed” through the hot summer month of August.  We really couldn’t have done it without the generosity of our friends.  Here’s a shout-out to the amazing people who welcomed us into their homes:

Amalia and Aleena, Allston – We spent our first night in Boston on their futon in the livingroom and many a night thereafter.  They were both just moving into their new place and getting settled so we tried to stay out of their hair as much as possible.  We tried our best to not overstay our welcome anywhere and often found ourselves back at their place for a random night or two in between stays with other friends.  They were so reliable and courteous whenever we needed them to put us up.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

Harold and Sarah, Arlington – This newly engaged couple (Congratulations!) are old friends of mine from College and I am very excited to be closer by after being apart since they both graduated in 2005.  We headed over to their place the second night we were in town and woke up bright and early to help them move out of their place.  Harold’s parents also came to lend a hand and it was great to see them again.  Although we were already grateful for a place to stay, our situation got even better when they proposed to let us stay in their now empty apartment for a few days since they were paying for it until the end of the month!  What luck!  We spent the next 6 days in their abandoned apartment.  We had a futon mattress, our clothes, electricity (and a fridge!), each other and even wifi from the apartment next door!  It was an amazing pleasure to be able to come and go without disturbing anyone while we ran around the city for interviews and apartment viewings.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Lea, South Boston – We left the abandoned apartment on a Friday night and headed into the city to stay with Lea, an old friend of mine from high school who went to Northeastern for college and has been in Boston ever since.  We spent the next two weekends at Lea’s and were even lucky enough to have a bed the first weekend since she was house/dog-sitting for a coworker!  Lea is an amazing host and a fantastic cook.  With her we got to be pampered a bit again and had a blast chatting about everything from our high school antics to her apartment mates’ obsession with Britney Spears over several glasses of wine!  Both weekends felt like old school sleepover parties with all the chatting, food and lazy lounging and movie watching.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Keri and Mike, Newton – In between the Lea weekends we went back out of the city and stayed with Keri, an old friend from college,» and her husband, Mike.  It had been a few years since we’d had any meaningful time together so it was really nice to catch up and look through her wedding albums.  They were recently married so I had a million questions to ask them about everything “wedding.”  We were very grateful to have them host us in the middle of a busy work week, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Mallyn and Eric – Although they aren’t located in Boston, I feel they deserve a very big THANK YOU for letting us borrow their GPS for our first month and a half in Boston.  The roads here are all very confusing at first and we wouldn’t have been able to make it to our friends houses, the various appointments we had and back if it weren’t for this generosity on their part.

While we were staying with various friends we spent most of the daytime out in the city scheduling meetings to view apartments and looking for wifi hotspots to search the web for jobs and more apartments.  The first week we focused on finding a place to live and saw something like 15 apartments in a matter of 7 or so days.  We were even ready to sign for a place we liked in Somerville 15 minutes after viewing it but when we called she had already promised it to the guy who saw it before us!  Lesson learned, the next place we liked we signed for that very day.  We landed the apartment relatively quickly but had to wait until the 1st of September to move in.

In the meantime we began our job hunt.  Craigslist was quickly becoming our best friend as the best resource for apartments and jobs.  Our luck was still with us after the apartment was a sealed deal because not long after we both had jobs!  Andrew interviewed for CSNstores.com in the Prudential building and was soon hired thereafter.  However, due to the move-in date of 9/1 being on a Monday, he coudn’t start until the 8th.  I had also landed a part-time job with Event Temps as a hired out catering waitstaff.  I started working immediately and schedule my own hours each week.  It’s decent pay but just a job for the moment while I look for a more serious job.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

All in all I would say we did really well.  We showed up with no place to live and no jobs and now we have a cute little place that isn’t going to break the bank and jobs!  And I know I’ve said it several times over the course of this post, but I really truly can’t express our gratitude enough to our friends.  Thanks to them we had places to sleep, the occasional meal, insight on the city, and companionship for our very Nomadic beginnings in Boston.  Although we have been very MIA since we moved in, we’re getting close to being settled in enough to host our own little parties (dinner!) and are beginning to stablize financially so we’ll soon be able to actually afford to go out and do things!  We look forward to seeing our friends more often in the near future!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 7:09 am and is filed under Boston, The Move, Travel, friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.