Today was AWESOME! Aside from running into a wall about 10 minutes ago, today was ideal. We woke up this morning feeling fine. I had something special on my mind.
That's how it's been going all day. I've had a song in my heart, and a smile on my lips. We set out from our couchsurfers' place and walked to the Ralph's to buy our bus passes for November ($84 each). Then we took the bus to Wilshire center. We missed our stop by one, but the day was beautiful and the walk was pleasant.
Our first apartment was on the north end of Koreatown (hereafter referred to as K-town). It was close to some shops; a grocery store in particular encouraged us. The apartment was the same deal as so many others - run by Statewide Enterprises, $695/month, a $2.96/month admin fee, utilities included, no refrigerator. What's that? Where are we, Germany? No fridge? Indeed, place after place (with a few exceptions, like Germany - thanks, Sven!) had no fridge. No big, though, we can use our Amazon wedding gift cards to get a fridge. The place was (in hindsight) largish, it had a space for a breakfast table, and had a "first two weeks free" special. Also, like every place that follows, it had laundry on the premises: $1.25 wash, $1.00 dry.
Just around the corner, Stina had contacted someone about another place, not Statewide this time. We stood outside the building and called. Then someone let us in. Then we stood outside the manager's apartment and called and knocked. No answer, so we moved on. It will turn out, I am sure, that that apartment had a magic sink that grants wishes.
Proceeding on to the southern part of K-town, we saw another studio. This one had a nice outside entrance and bigger kitchen, but overall it was smaller and had carpet instead of hardwood. It just didn't make us AS happy, so we left quickly.
Heading East now, we checked out a pad WITH a fridge. The kitchen was significantly bigger, and this one was $670 instead of $695, PLUS the laundry was $0.75 and $0.50, so over 24 months, we'd save $700. It was smaller, though.
By this point, we were about an hour ahead of schedule, so we sat and discussed the places we had seen. The 3rd place we saw and the first place were the 2 contenders for the top spot. After figuring out the money and envisioning our lives in each, we walked to lunch. Our next appointment was the immediate neighbor of our last, but we're speedier than we expected and were 1.5 hours early. I mean, we'd been early for the last couple, but there was someone on site; this lady said she could come later. So we walked to lunch and decided that the first place was better than the third, though we were still kinda up in the air and hoping something would jump out at us so we wouldn't have to make that awfully close decision.
We ate at a market/taqueria/pupuseria. I had 2 tacos, and a pupusa. All were delicious. So delicious, they musta had to violate a health code to do it, 'cause I noticed after the meal that, while every other place we had passed had a grade of A posted in their windows from the health department, this place had a C. A delicious C.
We walked back to the apartment. No lady. We called some other numbers we had for Statewide people ('cause her voicemail was full...). Sergio picked up and sent someone over from his office, which was, we later learned, half a block away. Saw the apartment. It was okay. It had a nice big closet that we almost thought we could sleep in. And I noticed a wide windowsill that I'm sure we could grow plants on. Ultimately, it was smaller though, with none of the perks of place number 3, so we proceeded on to apartment number 5.
We walked through MacArthur Park. We started telling ourselves to get used to the idea that this apartment was going to be smaller and worse than all the others, because the area is so nice, if it's the same price, it must be crappier, right? WRONG! Perfect! It even has a second room that we'll use as a studio, and a breakfast nook. No fridge, or really ideal place to put a fridge, but the VIEW! And a fridge can go anywhere, and we don't need a large fridge.
So we called Sergio. He summoned us to his office. We spent an hour relaxing with him, filling out paperwork and chatting. He was super nice, and he gave us a ride back to our couchsurfers' place. He likes the observatory, and came to L.A. when I was 1 year old. He only has a sister or two still in Mexico. Almost all the rest of his family did what he did, and moved to the U.S. - L.A. and Chicago. We know more about him than that, but you'll learn more if we get the apartment and he becomes our property manager. We're crossing our fingers that happens. We have great credit scores, but no income... so...
In all, we walked 5 miles today, and my missing appendix is tired. Oh yeah. And the place where we're staying has a pond. I slipped, almost fell in, didn't fall in, but "oh no! a wall!" I'm fine.
In other news, our CS hosts are awesome. One of them owns a car, but only uses it once a month. They bike everywhere. They're at the end of a 30-day dumpster challenge. They've eaten only dumpstered food for the past 29 days.
We saw couches and mattresses on the roadside. Not as many as in Magdeburg, but plenty. We think we'll use our Zipcar gift from Nikki to wander about the city picking up useful trash to furnish our new apartment.
I can't wait to chop veggies in my own apartment!
Showing posts with label dumpster diving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dumpster diving. Show all posts
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Establishing a Routine
Sorry it's taken so long for us to update. I (Stina) am now two weeks into my teaching career . It is going well. It is nice to be official and teaching my own classes.
In other news, Brendan and I are working on National Novel Writing Month, where one's goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
We had a Halloween party and it was a huge success. Brendan and I both dressed up as pirates. We made a ton of food and thought we would have leftovers for days because we didn't think that many people would come. Turned out we had a total of 25 guests, everything got eaten, and the last people left at 3:42am. A bunch of Couchsurfers came that we'd never met before and that added a nice dynamic...everyone was mingling and meeting new people. It was a real party party. We are now working on organizing monthly Couchsurfing potlucks and we're having the first one at our place next week.
We are still finding lots of stuff. A couple weeks ago we went on a walk. We were searching for a street I had driven down when a co-worker gave me a ride home. All the building on it are brightly and crazily colored, and I wanted to show Brendan. We found the street, and we also saw a bunch of stuff on the curb. There was a bag filled with pans, tupperware, bowls, pots and mugs. We wanted it! So we divided the stuff into two awkward piles and proceeded towards home.
On the way, we passed another big pile of stuff on the curb and saw some really amazing things, like a bread slicer and a brand-new showerhead. We wanted it! Thankfully, there was also an old baby carriage out there, so we were able to put all the stuff we already had plus the new stuff in the carriage. As we started to head home, though, we realized the reason the baby carriage was out there was because it only steered to the right. So for the 30 minute walk home, we took turns pushing this baby carriage, starting on the far left of the sidewalk, letting it veer to the far right of the sidewalk, then resetting again to the far left of the sidewalk. It was easier that carrying everything, but still incredibly awkward.
I (Brendan) am still waiting on my Arbeitserlaubnis. I called about it last Monday and they said to call back at the end of this coming week. My boss wants me to come in to work on Wednesday, but she didn't say why...
We finally bought some ping pong gear, and had our first match at the park half a block from us. We're taking regular evening walks, and have pretty full evening schedules, with lots of friends nearby. Last night we went over to a friend's apartment and played new games and old, and today some friends are coming over to play games with us. Every Tuesday, a friend comes over on her way home from work, and we often feed her, and always play Carcassonne with her. Speaking of feeding, we've continued expanding our culinary horizons, as I make once-a-week special meals for Stina's birthday, and she feels the same urge. We haven't found a regular place for dumpster-diving yet. The one dumpster we successful dove in hasn't been out on a Saturday or Sunday night since that time. If anybody reading this is a part of the Magdeburg Dumpster-Diving scene, shoot us an email, so we can figure this city out.
We've thought about dropping everything and buying a van and hauling curbside treasures for a living. The things we find are amazing, and we're feeling sated. We almost feel a sense of guilt for not being able to give all the wonderful things a home. Luckily we go pretty regularly to Lirum Larum, and give them the excess stuff we find. I don't know how much of it they use or what their procedures are, but they certainly relieve our guilt.
All-in-all, we're settling in to a very comfortable day-to-day existence here. We find plenty to fill our days with, and there is no dearth of delightful personalities near us. Wir sind zufrieden.
In other news, Brendan and I are working on National Novel Writing Month, where one's goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
We had a Halloween party and it was a huge success. Brendan and I both dressed up as pirates. We made a ton of food and thought we would have leftovers for days because we didn't think that many people would come. Turned out we had a total of 25 guests, everything got eaten, and the last people left at 3:42am. A bunch of Couchsurfers came that we'd never met before and that added a nice dynamic...everyone was mingling and meeting new people. It was a real party party. We are now working on organizing monthly Couchsurfing potlucks and we're having the first one at our place next week.
We are still finding lots of stuff. A couple weeks ago we went on a walk. We were searching for a street I had driven down when a co-worker gave me a ride home. All the building on it are brightly and crazily colored, and I wanted to show Brendan. We found the street, and we also saw a bunch of stuff on the curb. There was a bag filled with pans, tupperware, bowls, pots and mugs. We wanted it! So we divided the stuff into two awkward piles and proceeded towards home.
On the way, we passed another big pile of stuff on the curb and saw some really amazing things, like a bread slicer and a brand-new showerhead. We wanted it! Thankfully, there was also an old baby carriage out there, so we were able to put all the stuff we already had plus the new stuff in the carriage. As we started to head home, though, we realized the reason the baby carriage was out there was because it only steered to the right. So for the 30 minute walk home, we took turns pushing this baby carriage, starting on the far left of the sidewalk, letting it veer to the far right of the sidewalk, then resetting again to the far left of the sidewalk. It was easier that carrying everything, but still incredibly awkward.
I (Brendan) am still waiting on my Arbeitserlaubnis. I called about it last Monday and they said to call back at the end of this coming week. My boss wants me to come in to work on Wednesday, but she didn't say why...
We finally bought some ping pong gear, and had our first match at the park half a block from us. We're taking regular evening walks, and have pretty full evening schedules, with lots of friends nearby. Last night we went over to a friend's apartment and played new games and old, and today some friends are coming over to play games with us. Every Tuesday, a friend comes over on her way home from work, and we often feed her, and always play Carcassonne with her. Speaking of feeding, we've continued expanding our culinary horizons, as I make once-a-week special meals for Stina's birthday, and she feels the same urge. We haven't found a regular place for dumpster-diving yet. The one dumpster we successful dove in hasn't been out on a Saturday or Sunday night since that time. If anybody reading this is a part of the Magdeburg Dumpster-Diving scene, shoot us an email, so we can figure this city out.
We've thought about dropping everything and buying a van and hauling curbside treasures for a living. The things we find are amazing, and we're feeling sated. We almost feel a sense of guilt for not being able to give all the wonderful things a home. Luckily we go pretty regularly to Lirum Larum, and give them the excess stuff we find. I don't know how much of it they use or what their procedures are, but they certainly relieve our guilt.
All-in-all, we're settling in to a very comfortable day-to-day existence here. We find plenty to fill our days with, and there is no dearth of delightful personalities near us. Wir sind zufrieden.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
More on Dumpster Diving
Everybody's comments are appreciated and well-taken.
But there's something more about dumpster diving that you all should know.
What is "food"? I'm not talking sketchy "is that moldy?" questions, I'm talking legitimate food. Last night we went out again. Quite an unexpected evening. We arrived at the dumpster at 10:30pm. Just as I ducked around the side of the dumpster, a car drove by. Stina walked on, seeming to just be enjoying the night air. The car stopped. It parked. From it emerged 2 fellow scruffy-looking youngsters. "I see we had the same idea." says one. Stina introduces herself and me (still hiding behind the dumpster, 'cause I can't see or hear what's going on).
The dark-haired fellow introduces himself:
"I'm Brendhan, from Seattle."
No, seriously.
My hair isn't dark enough that I'd self-describe as dark-haired. That's not me talking and misspelling my name. That's him. With him is Scott, the guitarist.
We spent the evening with them. From grocery story 1, we rode in the van with them
to grocery store 2, and learned their stories - road trip, Vashon Island, in a band playing at the Saturn, odd jobs, nice though racist landlady, etc, etc.
We're going to try to work together to create a big enough busk that we can perform in "The best pitch in North America" somewhen near Mardi Gras.
Anyways, at Grocery Store 2 we found treasure:
Green, red, and yellow bell pepper tops and bottoms. Nearly a dozen bottles of Prego.
And this is what I mean by "What is food?"
It seems absurd to me that the grocery store would throw these things out. Presumably they slice the bell peppers prettily and throw out the parts that aren't the middle. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't donate those either, because the perception is that they aren't worth keeping. But we found gallons and gallons of these discarded parts. And tonight I am making so much spaghetti sauce, God would cry.
And the Prego - something had been spilled on them, so they threw the whole carton out. It wasn't worth it to wash them. The marketing is, after all, where so much of the money goes, so washing them off and maybe smearing the label destroys the merchandises value... plus you'd have to pay someone to wash them off... Oh, I don't know the reasoning, but this is the kind of thing that I know is still good to eat... hell, they're still vacuum sealed.
Bah and Hooray to waste!
But there's something more about dumpster diving that you all should know.
What is "food"? I'm not talking sketchy "is that moldy?" questions, I'm talking legitimate food. Last night we went out again. Quite an unexpected evening. We arrived at the dumpster at 10:30pm. Just as I ducked around the side of the dumpster, a car drove by. Stina walked on, seeming to just be enjoying the night air. The car stopped. It parked. From it emerged 2 fellow scruffy-looking youngsters. "I see we had the same idea." says one. Stina introduces herself and me (still hiding behind the dumpster, 'cause I can't see or hear what's going on).
The dark-haired fellow introduces himself:
"I'm Brendhan, from Seattle."
No, seriously.
My hair isn't dark enough that I'd self-describe as dark-haired. That's not me talking and misspelling my name. That's him. With him is Scott, the guitarist.
We spent the evening with them. From grocery story 1, we rode in the van with them
to grocery store 2, and learned their stories - road trip, Vashon Island, in a band playing at the Saturn, odd jobs, nice though racist landlady, etc, etc.
We're going to try to work together to create a big enough busk that we can perform in "The best pitch in North America" somewhen near Mardi Gras.
Anyways, at Grocery Store 2 we found treasure:
Green, red, and yellow bell pepper tops and bottoms. Nearly a dozen bottles of Prego.
And this is what I mean by "What is food?"
It seems absurd to me that the grocery store would throw these things out. Presumably they slice the bell peppers prettily and throw out the parts that aren't the middle. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't donate those either, because the perception is that they aren't worth keeping. But we found gallons and gallons of these discarded parts. And tonight I am making so much spaghetti sauce, God would cry.
And the Prego - something had been spilled on them, so they threw the whole carton out. It wasn't worth it to wash them. The marketing is, after all, where so much of the money goes, so washing them off and maybe smearing the label destroys the merchandises value... plus you'd have to pay someone to wash them off... Oh, I don't know the reasoning, but this is the kind of thing that I know is still good to eat... hell, they're still vacuum sealed.
Bah and Hooray to waste!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Dumpster Diving
Related to yesterday's post about the negative connotations to the word "begging" and asking for food that would be thrown away, I'd like to talk a little about dumpster diving. Like Brendan's dad said in comment, it basically just seems easier to dumpster dive than to try and find the right person to get permission to be given the leftovers or just-expired items. Plus, there's a feeling of excitement to it. Let me relate a recent experience to try and share that feeling.
Dressed in black jeans and black hoodie, armed with rechargeable flashlight and a reusable bag, led by my trusted partner Brendan, the nearby grocery store dumpster was my destination. We left the house around 10:30pm to give the store employees ample time to clean up and go home after the store closed at 9pm, and soon stealthily rounded the corner by the store. Our reward for the trek was ample. King cakes galore, banana nut muffins, macaroons, bags of lettuce, mini-cinnamon rolls...nearly everything with a sell-by date of that day, some with the day after.
Okay, so my black jeans and black hoodie are not so much a ninja outfit as they are the only jeans and hoodie I brought with, but the feeling of being undercover and super-cool remained. But dumpster diving isn't just a fun pasttime. For many, it's a lifestyle, one I think Brendan and I are becoming more and more enmeshed in. Check out http://freegan.info/ and read about "What is a freegan?" and it very well describes much of what we're trying to do, except for the squatting part, though we do Couchsurf.
Reading through websites like that just makes me wonder what more I can be doing. What else can I recycle, even in an incredibly recycling-unfriendly city like New Orleans? Can we be even more diligent about dumpster-diving, so ultimately we don't spend any money on groceries? Do I ever need to buy new things, like gifts for people, or can I always give found items or made-from-recycled-goods items? I guess it's okay to have a balance, and that's kind of how we're doing it now. Buying things like milk and eggs and enough fruits and veggies when we can't find them to make sure we're still eating healthy. Anyway, to quote L.M. Montgomery's Marigold, "Isn't it all so int'resting?"
Dressed in black jeans and black hoodie, armed with rechargeable flashlight and a reusable bag, led by my trusted partner Brendan, the nearby grocery store dumpster was my destination. We left the house around 10:30pm to give the store employees ample time to clean up and go home after the store closed at 9pm, and soon stealthily rounded the corner by the store. Our reward for the trek was ample. King cakes galore, banana nut muffins, macaroons, bags of lettuce, mini-cinnamon rolls...nearly everything with a sell-by date of that day, some with the day after.
Okay, so my black jeans and black hoodie are not so much a ninja outfit as they are the only jeans and hoodie I brought with, but the feeling of being undercover and super-cool remained. But dumpster diving isn't just a fun pasttime. For many, it's a lifestyle, one I think Brendan and I are becoming more and more enmeshed in. Check out http://freegan.info/ and read about "What is a freegan?" and it very well describes much of what we're trying to do, except for the squatting part, though we do Couchsurf.
Reading through websites like that just makes me wonder what more I can be doing. What else can I recycle, even in an incredibly recycling-unfriendly city like New Orleans? Can we be even more diligent about dumpster-diving, so ultimately we don't spend any money on groceries? Do I ever need to buy new things, like gifts for people, or can I always give found items or made-from-recycled-goods items? I guess it's okay to have a balance, and that's kind of how we're doing it now. Buying things like milk and eggs and enough fruits and veggies when we can't find them to make sure we're still eating healthy. Anyway, to quote L.M. Montgomery's Marigold, "Isn't it all so int'resting?"
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