Ok, I ended up going to Downtown Ventura on Monday afternoon with Jon’s Mom. Jon wanted to stay home and read, so she and I drove Downtown and strolled down Main Street. They have quite some interesting shops in Ventura, nice boutiques and lots of Antique stores. It was so much fun to rummage in all the ancient stuff ;) some of it seemed pretty worthless, but other things were quite nice!
We had some coffee at Starbucks and sat outside in the sun :)
In the evening, we went out to dinner with Jon’s parents and his friend Ian. We went to a restaurant close to the airport in Santa Paula (about 15 minutes from Ventura) and Jon and I had pork ribs *yummy*
Yesterday morning, we decided to drive down to LA again to look for apartments. I had searched the Internet for some more apartment places and had checked www.craigslist.com as well. It’s a website where people can post things to sell, rent, buy… etc.
It took us about an hour to get to Westwood (West LA) and we had some breakfast at the “Corner Bakery Cafe†– it’s a pretty neat place and I am hoping that we will be able to buy fresh bread there [I have yet to find out about that.]
Then we started our apartment hunt… we parked the car and walked around the neighborhood, checking out places that I had found on the Internet and just looking for renting signs. Since it was just around lunchtime, Jon mentioned that some of the management offices might be closed until 1 p.m., but we still decided to walk on and try different places. Some offices were in fact closed, at other aparment buildings we just talked to a person through the intercom telling us that nothings was available at that time [which was kind of frustrating, since all these places had big “now leasing†signs hanging from their buildings :( ]
Finally we found one place to look at which was a “loft†apartment for $1350 [note: apartment prices in LA are insanely expensive and this price is pretty much as good as it gets… it was by far the cheapest place that we checked out]. The “loft†-which is a two story aparment with an unpartitioned upper floor and high ceilings for the lower floor – looked really nice and we instantly liked it. We had been looking for 1 Bedroom apartments originally, but they were even more expensive, so we were seriously considering this place. I preferred to look around some more, but in the end the loft was the best and cheapest option [and still insanely expensive]. It was 3 p.m. by that time and we decided to put our names and deposit down for that place when we received a call on our cellphone from a guy named Ken who I had called earlier about a place. We had walked by this place earlier and he had a sign out that he was renting a 1 Bedroom aparment. To be honest, it was just a stupid idea to call him, because the apartment he was advertising was in a “condoâ€Â-type building [not a huge apartment complex!] and there was no way we thought we would be able to afford this place, but I had called just for the heck of it, because I liked the building and I just wanted to see what we were NOT going to get ;) So we went back to his place and took a look at the apartment, which was on the 2 floor with a separate entrance, a huge living room with bay windows, a big kitchen, a separate pretty big bedroom and a bathroom. We fell in love with that place instantly, but walked out thinking that this must be about $1600 or something. Jon was about to leave, but I said that I wanted to talk to that guy and ask him for the rent… just because I was curious how much that place was.
Ken, a guy in his 50’s, was really nice and we talked a little bit and when I asked for the price, we almost keeled over… Jon was already half out the door when he heard “$975″ and we were like “Excuse me?†We couldn’t believe our ears!
Jon went back up to take another look at the apartment [to check if there was anything “wrong†with it *lol*] and then came back to verify that he had understood him right… $975?
We both were totally stunned. The apartment is older, but very well kept and just beautiful! The only downside is that it doesn’t come with parking and there is only 2-hour parking on the street, but Jon was positive that he can figure something out (since there are two streets a block away that don’t have any parking restrictions).
This place just really fell from the sky!
Ken said he was going to make a routinely background check and he would let us know. I do hope he calls [hopefully tomorrow!!]
Here’s a picture from the outside. The apartment is on the second floor (the whole front side that you can see). Isn’t it charming? ;)
Oh, and then there’s another cute thing about it… the address is: 460 1/4 Kelton Ave… I feel like in “Harry Potter†:) I have never heard anything like that, but Ken explained to us that this is acutally the “real†address of this place.
I can’t believe how lucky we were… the whole apartment hunting was pretty exhausting and then this place popped up… for $975/month! That is unbelievable! Oh please, let us get this place!!!
Jon and I had some dinner at “Olive Garden†and then stopped by at Dhevan’s place to tell him the “good news†:) We drove back to Ventura around 8 p.m., told the whole story to Jon’s parents (who were really happy for us) and then went straight to bed. We were exhausted!
This morning, we got up early and drove back to Sacramento… I had a nice talk on the phone with my sister and then went out in the afternoon to run some errands. When I got back at 5 p.m., I invited Maria over for some coffee.
Oh, I forgot to tell you… Dhevan got us this really nice Cuisinart coffee maker which grinds the whole coffee beans before brewing. It’s awesome! I had been waiting for 4 days (!) to try it out :)
Let me tell you, you could really taste a difference! I am so excited about it!
We chatted with Aaron and Maria for a while and then I made some dinner for Jon and I and we watched some X-files. We really had to turn our minds of for a while [we both have so much going on right now].
I’ll be leaving here in 4 days and I feel so rushed, because there is so much I have to take care of before I leave and I am so sad, because I won’t be able to enjoy my last few days in Sacramento :(
I really loved living here and it makes me kind of sad knowing