THE GREAT PLACE!

 (360º iPhone app.  Photo of my room.)

I HAVE MOVED INTO THE GREAT PLACE!!!  I cannot believe it has finally happened because it has been about 8 months in the making.  It all started with Caitlin, Beth, Lindsay and I sitting in Temple Towers and talking about how much we love each other while getting ready to go out for the night.  Next thing we know, we're signing a lease together along with ChrisFish.  I have absolutely no worries about living with these ladies.  We all get along really well and are pretty responsible and have even lived with each other before with no problems.  Once we get into a rhythm and routine, I'm sure things will be extra great.  I do have a little anxiety at the idea that I may need to move out in 7 months.  In case we decide we don't want to renew our lease or live somewhere else.  It's possible it could happen, but out of shear laziness and just wanting to finally have a place to call home for the first time in 5 years (ever since my mom moved to NJ, I really don't feel like I have a home base), I really want to stay there. 

I couldn't even bring myself to move everything in.  My mom kept trying to get me to pack things and I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I kept thinking "Eh..I'll just have to pack it back up in a few months, what's the point?"  I hope I can get out of this mentality.  So anyway, the house is LOVELY.  It is really big and located in North Philadelphia about 10 minutes walk away from Temple campus.  It has 3 floors, 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining room, creepy basement, and back yard.  I have a big bedroom on the 3rd floor that has a lovely view of the street we live on. 

I was the first person to move in, so it was weird being there with a big empty house.  (Thank god Adam was there to hang out with me.  It was actually nice having it just be the 2 of us for a few days.  Of course, he is not going to be living there, but I expect he'll be around a lot.)  First of all it is dirrrrrtyyyyy and no matter how much I tried to clean it, it just did not seem to get clean.  Also, you can hear a lot of sounds from the 3rd floor.  Not enough to be disturbing, but enough to get a little creeped out when you know no one is supposed to be in the house except for you.  Just like neighbor's doors closing or talking.  I can pretty much hear everything going on in the street outside, but I actually like that.  It almost makes me feel safer, just because I'm so used to the lovely and loud NYC.  Last night there was a huge party going on in one of the houses and at one point I heard people screaming!  So I thought, "Oh god.  There's a fight.  There are going to be gunshots."  But when I looked outside, people were screaming and hugging each other in what looked like a reuniting of friends.  Unnecessarily loud, but cute.  When I first arrived, my next door neighbor was outside and even welcomed me to the neighborhood and reassured me that it was a lovely and safe place to live, much to my mom's incredulity. 

The only real downsides to the house are:
1) One of the locks stick, which is just annoying.  We need to get a new/third lock.
2) There are mice EVERYWHERE.  I don't really mind because this is just a fact of life.  Mice are around and will try to eat your food.  I prefer them to roaches anyway.   The way to stop them is to be clean.  Maybe the previous tenants were not as clean in the kitchen or maybe our next door neighbors are slobs and their mice are migrating to our house.  Regardless, the second night there Adam and I saw one fly down a flight of stairs and the third night we were there they managed to get into some individually wrapped Ghiradelli chocolates I stupidly left on the floor.  2 of them were nibbled/carried a few feet across the floor.  Godzilla mice?
3) My lovely isolated-ish third floor room is SO FAR AWAY from the bathroom.  I find I wake up having to pee really badly all the time but just hold it in because I do not want to walk down the 2 hallways and 1 flight of stairs to get to the 2nd floor bathroom with freezing floor tiles.  This results in me having a lot of dreams about running water or anxiety filled ones about peeing my pants in public.  (I have not wet the bed in years though, so that's good).  Last night I was trying to come up with ideas for keeping a pee bucket in the room, but Adam did not think that was a good idea. 

I am 90% unpacked but I seriously lack furniture.  Adam and I went to Ikea and I got a nice dresser, but I seriously need a desk and some shelf space.  The thing is, I have a lot of furniture at home and in storage, I just have no way of getting it to Philly.  It's a big process of driving to the storage bins and somehow fitting it in my car or renting a truck and then I need my parents to drive me back.  Sometimes it really does suck not having a driver's license or a car.  So for the time being, I have a lot of knick knacks stacked around my floor.