Parisa's Blog

I never really wrote about the horrid experience I had trying to find a place in California for the summer. Google didn't offer much guidance on how to get out here or how to find housing. It was more like, "Here is a big bucket of cash. Go figure it out." I thought it might be fun to live in San Francisco and just take one of the free, wifi-enabled Google shuttles to work every day. My friend Dan does this commute, so figured it couldn't be that bad. Around 30 emails through craigslist later, and I started realizing how hard it was going to be to find something in the city. The number of places that were at all promising is small enough to document:

1. Lost in Translation: an efficiency in Lower Nob Hill. The girl was Chinese and leaving the country for the summer. Unfortunately, she didn't have grand mastery of English and I don't think she understood one word that I said to her on the phone when I called to ask about the apartment. She sent me an email that said, "You nice girl. I call you tomorrow when I less busy." I never got a call.

3. The Interview: one bedroom in a four bedroom apartment with girls from the University of San Francisco. I got a call shortly after I expressed interest in this place. A chipper girl said, "Hi Parisa? Is that how to say your name? Well, we wanted to know if we could interview you to see if you will get along with all of the roommates. Is that ok?" I'm thinking this is a little impromptu, but I can understand wanting to know how clean I am or if I smoke, so fine, ask away. Question 1: If you could be any celebrity, who would you be and why? Now, this completely stumped me. Ask me the state changes in TCP or any United States capital and I got it. But what celebrity I would want to be? The questions went downhill from there, and needless to say, I did not get a second round callback.

3. El Photog: A "personal space" in the Civic Center. This one sounded pretty shady from the start, but it was really cheap (less than $700/month) and a good location with respect to the shuttle stops. In the original posting, it claimed a one bedroom apartment attached to a photo studio that would be occasionally used during the summer. After getting a bit more information, the renter said it was more of a "personal space" than a separate room. Since I couldn't come to actually check out the apartment and meet the renter, he suggested I get a webcam to "bridge the distance". A webcam?! Is there anyone out there that is not affiliated with the pr0n industry and actually uses one of these? I took a look at the kind of photography he offers (specializes in "intimate" photos) and after seeing some pictures of the place, realized the "personal space" is only a loft separated from the studio by a ladder. Pass.

4. Money Matters: A single apartment in Diamond Heights. This apartment actually had the most potential. It was a mostly furnished apartment, but had no living room furniture because of a recent robbery and I would have to pay extra for access to the mailbox (?!?), but other than that, seemed decent. Unfortunately, the lady was a bit too shady for my tastes. She refused to sign a sublease agreement and said it would be better to say I was just visiting for the summer if anyone asked. Also, I wasn't allowed to have any "discos". I decided that I could probably last the summer without throwing a disco and was almost ready to go with this offer, but then she said I'd have to pay in cash via mail. As in, mail over a grand of cash each month to wherever she was located. I told her that I had found another place before we got to the part where I'd be instructed to send the money in unmarked bills to a remote P.O. Box in Nebraska.

5. Lost in Translation II: who knows what. I didn't even bother responding to this...

Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:08:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Add To Address Book
Subject: are you only look for civiv center, van ness? if not
I have place for you smile///
To: hous-153073520@craigslist.org

So I gave up on San Francisco.

Now, don't get me wrong. I really like the apartment I have in Mountain View. All of the apartments sit on the ground level and are spread out across a large complex. There is all of this awesome landscaping that makes it feel like each apartment is a tiny bungalo separated by wild flowers and lush vegetation. The kitchen and bedroom is spacious and we even have a tiny, enclosed patio with wild flowers in the corner near a tiny outdoor shed. There is also a nice pool, hot tub, and picnic area in the middle of the complex. But even this place is not without drama.

First, we are really close to a CalTrain station. Not really a big deal to me because I'm a deep sleeper (when I do sleep), and don't really mind noise. It's not as bad as in the movies where all of the walls shake when a train goes by, but it's actually pretty close. Also, all of that exotic flora doesn't come without the critters. I've already found 3 different types of spiders in this place along with a tiny lizard on the wall near our patio. The lizard scared me, but was pretty cute upon closer inspection.

I got all settled in on Sunday and went to take a shower, but couldn't figure out how to turn the faucet on to actually get water out. I know these things can be confusing, but I tried every possible push, pull, and turn combination, in addition to asking nicely and looking for a magic button under the kitchen sink. I ended up taking a mock-shower from just sink water. As a less pressing issue, the sink faucet has hot and cold marked opposite to the water temperature that comes out; this is minor. Since I was in Berkeley from Monday to Wednesday to attend a conference, I didn't really get a chance to call maintenance until Thursday. The maintenance guy came over, fixed the faucet, and I was happy. I hadn't bought a shower curtain yet, so I decided to take a bath instead, and what of course doesn't work? The drain stop. So I lit some candles, put on some slow jazz, and took another luxurious wash in the sink. The maintenance guy came today to fix the drain stop. All bathroom problems are currently solved, but there is still more water drama. When I went to find the maintenance guy today, I saw that the pool was all taped up. I found out that someone died in the pool last Friday, but wasn't able to get any more details on what happened or who died. I was assured by the office that the pool would be open in a couple more days. Because my main concern is getting a dip in the pool over knowing why people are dying in it.

But no honestly, I do like my apartment. I've been camping out solo because Stephanie is in Hawaii for the week. Just me, my thoughts, and possibly a lizard or two.

I arrived in Mountain View last night, kicking off the start to another summer in sunny California (it's actually raining quite hard as I type this). I'm living with Stephanie Leung, the twin sister of my roommate from last summer, Jessica. Stephanie actually worked at Apple last year. Since I was supposed to work at Apple before I made the last minute switch to intern at Sandia, I might have lived with Stephanie last summer instead of Jessica. Such a small world. Anyways, I guess they are sort of celebrities at Berkeley for being female engineering twins, so I have a claim to fame by association.

Fast forward to this morning. I reserved a rental car at an Enterprise in Stanford, but needed a way to get to the rental office since they didn't do pickups on Sunday. I was originally going to do some combination of walking, bussing, and CalTraining to get there, but I decided a cab would probably be an easier option for just slightly more money. I called YellowCab and asked the operator how much it would cost, he said around $20, so I made a reservation to get picked up at 9:45 in the morning; this would leave me plenty of time to get there for my 10:00am-12:00pm appointment. The clock strikes 10:00am with no word from the cab, so I call to make sure someone is coming. The phone operator says that the driver already left, so I wait a bit longer. He finally shows up at 10:15am. No problem, we still have plenty of time.

The driver asks where we are going, I give him the address, and we head out of my apartment complex. He tells me that he just started yesterday as a taxi driver and doesn't know the area and will need help from me. I told him that this is my first time in Mountain View, so his one day of experience was 24 hours more than I had. After 3 miles going in the wrong direction, the driver realizes he made a mistake, and turns around. We pass my apartment complex entrance a short while later with $12 on the meter, but this time going in the right direction! The driver made three other wrong turns and finally just gave me the map to tell him where to turn. Now, after making multiple incorrect turns, I'd think he would try to pay close attention to the road, but he was still insistent on making small talk. I told him I was in California for the summer, from Chicago, living with a friend, etc. The conversation proceeded:

Driver: "Oh, you are here for the summer. Where are you working?"
Parisa: "Google."
Driver: "Who's Google?"
Parisa: "It's a company. Have you ever heard of them?"
Driver: "No. What do they do?"
Parisa: "Well, they have a search engine for the web?"
Driver: "What is the web?"
Parisa: "Oh, the web is the Internet. Do you know what the Internet is?"
Driver: "No, what is that?"
Parisa: "Oh. Hmmm. Well, people write emails on the Internet. Do you know what email is?"
Driver: "No. What is that? I don't use computers."
Parisa: "Oh, well it has to do with computers."
Driver: "So what do you do with computers?"
Parisa: "I write programs for computers."
Driver: "What are programs?"
Parisa: "I make games for computers."
Driver: "Oh, OK. That's nice."

Well, it was probably as close as I was going to get with the small talk. So we missed another turn at that point, passed the $50 meter mark, it's 11:05, and still no Enterprise in site. I knew that Enterprise was only open until noon, so I was getting a bit annoyed and nervous that we wouldn't make it. This whole time, he is also trying to sell me his van for the summer, offering to charge half of what Enterprise is charging me for the car. I kept changing the subject and eventually told him to pull over at a gas station to ask for directions, but he didn't like that idea. Instead, he called the operator to get the phone number for Enterprise, threw his cell phone head piece at me in the back, and told me to try and get directions. It didn't connect, so he took the piece back and had me punch in the Enterprise number in his phone. After three call attempts, we finally got the local branch to give us directions. We circled around this parking garage three times before I finally saw the Enterprise rental office door and told him to stop the car. The meter was up to $93 at this point, but I told him I would pay him $20 since that's what the YellowCab phone operator told me it should cost. He didn't really respond, so I gave him the money and left. He was kind of a small guy, so I was less afraid of him coming after me for the difference in pay, but there was also no way I was going to pay nearly $100 for that sad excuse of a cab ride. It took me a full 8 minutes to drive back to my apartment, all of which was done at or below the speed limit since I wasn't completely sure where I was going.

Yay, I have a car!