Messages from abroad, not massages from a broad

So I started my weekend by applying for my Social Security Number.  This is essential to everything out here as it’s basically the same thing as the Social Insurance Number in Canada.  Without it, I cannot really do much, although there are a few loopholes or ways around it; there must be, otherwise how else do all those border hopping Mexicans get anything done in America?  But anyway, you’re supposed to have it for everything, opening a bank account, getting a cell phone, and most importantly, getting a pay check (notice I’m trying to assimilate with the American spelling). 
So I took care of that and in two weeks I should get a number assigned to me and then i’ll be able to fill out future forms properly. 

I’ll be most excited about getting paid though.  I’m curious to see how different my salary will be out here and plus it’ll give me a better idea of what I should be budgeting for things like, a permanent apartment, food, travel, tvs, toys, etc…  Taxes are supposed to be so much cheaper here, but I’ll believe when I see it, and I know that there are all sorts online calculators that are supposed to guesstimate your net wage after factoring taxes, medical and all that other jazz, but I’m gonna keep myself in the dark cause I like little surprises.

I don’t know what it is about this situation that I’m in, but I’ve been kinda obsessed about finding a permanent place to live.  I’ve still got this temp apartment for another six weeks, but I have this huge inclination to go out and find a place as soon as possible.  Maybe it’s fueled by the fear of not being able to find a place in the last few weeks, and then out of desperation, I’d sign a lease for some shit hole without air conditioning.  Then I’d cry and I don’t wanna cry.  So I went to look at a couple of places this weekend.  The first place led me to a somewhat sketchy neighborhood right on the border of east and west side DC.  I went to the address and I knocked on the door and nobody answered.  I stood around for a bit and some big African American guy pulled up in his Mercedez-Benz (drug dealer?) and asked who I was looking for.  I gave him the name and the address and he kindly pointed me in the right direction.  I had floated my way to the wrong side of town and I needed to go to the West side of the street.  This part of town didn’t magically brighten up or look better on the West side, but the place turned out to be very very nice.  Everything was brand new, but the layout wasn’t great, and it was kinda expensive, and the area sucked.  The area didn’t even scare me that much, well, maybe a little, but the main thing was that there wasn’t any grocery stores within walking distance.

Today, I went to a much better place.  1000 sq feet and newly renovated.  The place was big and although the quality of the finishings weren’t spectacular, I thought it was a pretty good deal at $1100.  It had everything that I wanted, A/C, one bedroom, washer and dryer, and near lots of shopping places.  The problem is that it wasn’t near a metro train.  I’d have to take a bus to the metro train each day and it would probably take me 45min to an hour to get to work.  I know I know, that doesn’t sound too bad.  I’m just being a spoiled little brat.  I am, I admit it.  I can see a lot of potential in this place and I’m still considering it, but it’s a little early to be signing any leases.  I’d be wasting a months rent because of the temp housing that I am entitled to.  What to do what to do?  The realtor showing me the place happened to be the owner, and he picked me up from the metro.  Before he showed me the place though, he had to go to his ‘other’ business and I got to tag along while he tried to sell persion rugs out of the back of some basement.  I wasted 45 min there, but I got to check out the quality rugs that he had in stock.  Lucky me!  If anybody needs a smoking deal on some rugs, let me know and I’ve got the hook up in Maryland now.  Anyways, I’ll continue mulling this over.  Drop me some feedback if you have an opinion of what I should do.

Last night, I met up with my sister-in-law’s friend.  We had never met before but we had had some conversation over MSN over the last few months.  So, the plan was that we were gonna crash some Ugly Sweater party, where the only requirement to get in was to wear the most hidious sweater that you owned/could find.  It was a great concept and the invite was for 150 people.  Pretty cool I thought.  She picked me up and we headed out, but before we went to the party, we were supposed to meet up with some friends of hers at a bar.  The bar is called Brickskeller and it’s kinda famous here because they have hundreds and hundreds of beers in stock from all parts of the world.  Picture what Fogg N Sudds tried to do a few years back, but with way better ambience and better prices.  We drank and talked and never made it to the Ugly Sweater Party.  I wasn’t overly bummed but I was curious to check it out.  When I get back to Vancouver, we should throw one of those parties eh?  How does that sound?  Sounds like fun to me!  Kelly you’re a lovely young lady.  Thanks for bringing me out!

Today, we headed out to Baltimore to hit up a Costco, IKEA and Wal-Mart (yeah, all of those again but we love it cause it’s fun).  Mainly so one of my buddies could buy a toaster oven.  There was a specific one that he wanted; a Black & Decker beauty.  Our trek led us to a Wal-Mart way out of nowhere and I guess it was worth it because we finally found one that was open and one that had it in stock.  I cannot believe that there are some Wal-Mart’s that close at 6pm on Sunday.  What a joke.

So I’ve been here nearly two weeks and I don’t think I’ve had much
rice.  I can remember one time when I had it at lunch at some local
chinese dive that sold me some General Tsao’s Chicken on rice.  It
wasn’t too bad but it was basically the equivalent of a meal at UBC’s
Hong Kong stall at the Village.  I don’t know if that’s a compliment or
an insult, but for $4, I guess I can live with whatever it wants/tries
to be.  So finally today, I picked up some rice at Costco.  I split a twenty pound bag with Gurpy (yeah, that’s a nickname for those that don’t know him), and I was pretty psyched cause I finally got my hands on some decent rice, albeit basmati rice.  It’s amazing how much harder it is to find some chinese/asian store that sells good rice.  That shit at Safeway is terrible and I didn’t wanna even try it.  My buddy Anand tried it and he said it was soooo bad.  I don’t have my rice cooker with me yet because it’s in storage, so I boiled rice in a pot.  I was a little weary about it because I was afraid I’d burn it, but I made perfect rice and I made perfect baked salmon too.  This was probably the best meal I had so far.  I missed rice almost as much as ya’ll at home.  Shit, I’m starting to sound like Britney Spears!

Take care out there!

~Anthony

Hello from the other side of the continent!

So I’ve been gone for about 10 days now and I figured I should get around to writing up a new posting.

For those that don’t know, I moved to the land of the free, the United States of America!  I left on the morning of January 16th and it was sad, yet somewhat exciting, to leave home.  I had a lot of mixed emotions about this decision, but I was drawn (suckered) in by a few different factors.  Anyway, I won’t get into too many details, but let’s just say that I wanted a change of pace and scenery and this was a pretty good way to do it.  This opportunity came about when my employer decided to uproot my world all the way to Washington, DC.  The choice was to move here or start looking for a job, and so, to make a long story short, there were enough incentives for me to relocate.

So the morning of the big day, I came across a customs officer with the coolest name, Ragsdale.  How can you get a more cool name then that?  It sounded like something straight out of a Police Academy movie or something.  While processing my paperwork he struck up some conversation with me and talked to me about how he hated lawyers.  I don’t know where that particular topic came from, but out of the blue, he just asked me what I thought about them.  Cool name, but strange guy.

I got through customs fine and everything was going great and I actually thought to myself, ‘Wow! That went smoothly. I guess everything was meant to be.’  Low and behold, and literally 10 seconds later, they announced a problem with the plane and they said that the passengers of my flight had to go to a new gate.  This gate just wasn’t 40 or 50 feet away though.  They made us walk all the way to the other end of the terminal.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a kilometre.  It was a long walk and carrying 2 enormous suitcases and 2 other carry-on bags, plus two coats, was a pain in the ass.  Needless to say, I was sweating my ass off by the time I reached the other gate.  I’m sure you can all picture it.  That was the only blip on the trip really.  I slept through both flights and when I woke up, I was in DC.

DC is a nice place.  I haven’t been mugged yet and people here generally like Canadians.  They can tell that you’re not from around there cause we’re generally more patient and a lot nicer.  I haven’t had a chance to do much out here yet.  I’ve spent the last week and ahalf  ’settling in’.  And that means, grocery shopping at the local Safeway, and heading out to places like Linens-N-Things, IKEA, Walmart, Costco, etc…  For the first 4-5 days, I think I always came home with 4-5 bags worth of stuff.  It was mostly food or home items.  Don’t get me wrong though, I love that kinda stuff.  I can spend hours at Safeway, scouring the flyer and going up and down the aisles looking for a deal.  I felt pretty good leaving with 5 full bags of groceries and only paying $40 for the whole thing.  If you come down here to visit me, my cabinets and fridge will be full.

Life without a car is very humbling.  I mean, I’m so used to driving around to pick up one or two items and now when I need to get anything, I need to commute my Metro train or bus, or good ol fashioned walking.  The other thing is that I hate walking to Safeway, cause it’s still a good 12-15 min walk away and it’s getting really cold here.  Five to six heavy bags of groceries gets pretty tiring on the body, and my hands start to hurt from the weight of the bags and the cold weather too.  And guess what?  By the time I get home, I’m sweating again.

Check out my photos on Friendster, I’ve posted 3 photos of the temporary apartment that I’m living in.  I get this sweet ass place for 2 months.  It’s very nice and I’m going to be extremely sad when I move out of this place.  It’s only 3 short blocks away from work and it only takes me 7-8 minutes to get to work.  I can even come home for lunch!  I’ve already started looking out for my next home, and I’m hoping it’s even half the style and beauty of this place.  The hunt goes on!

On a side note, I wanted to mention that so far, the funniest name for a bar out here is The Big Hunt.  If you say it carefully, it sounds different…….. 

I’ve picked up a cell phone out here too.  I couldn’t decide between a Pay-as-you-go type prepaid phone or a monthly plan, so I cheaped out and went for the prepaid option for now.  If I burn up the minutes too quickly, then I guess I’ll switch to a monthly plan, but hopefully I don’t have to go that route cause it’s more expensive and then I’ll be tempted to get a nice phone that I don’t need. IM me or drop me an e-mail if you wanna get a hold of my number(s).  Once I get my US credit card, I think I’ll set up Vonage too.

In terms of work, it’s been alright.  It hasn’t been my worse fears, but I guess it hasn’t been superb either.  It’s been so busy, I can’t even stop to think or reflect on things.  It’s not the greatest, but at least the days go by quite quickly now.  The crew at the office is pretty good.  They’re all really nice and it looks like working here will be fine.  I’ll reserve other comments for the future or for face-to-face conversation.

If you haven’t seen me for a while, then you probably don’t know that I have been growing my hair out.  I haven’t had a hair cut since September and it’s getting really thick and shaggy.  I shed hair like a dog and I haven’t bought a drain cover for the tub, and I fear that I’m gonna clog that thing in a couple of weeks.  In the past, I always thought that conditioner was a waste of time and money, but with hair, I’ve discovered it’s importance.  It’s awesome stuff and I love what it does to hair.  I’m such an amateur.  This is the longest I’ve ever ever had my hair.  I still don’t know when I’m gonna get a haircut, but I think it needs, at the very least, a trim soon.  I’ll kill myself if I ever tie my hair in a ponytail.  One day I’ll just get fed up with this hairdo of mine and snip it all off, but before I do, I’ll be sure to give myself a mullet and take some pics for kicks.  Anyway, I felt it was fitting to have a new look in a new town.  Don’t cut your hair Andy!  Don’t do it!  Keep it going!

I really like the independent lifestyle that I’m experiencing here.  It’s a lot of fun in it’s own little way, and I’m enjoying the freedom of living on my own.  Cooking has been fun too.  My frying pan has gotten a lot of use and skinless, boneless, chicken breast appears to be my meal of choice thus far.  I was hoping to wait for something more exciting and funny to happen to me out here, but in all honesty, nothing out of the ordinary has really happened to me.  I guess that’s the dull side of DC coming through. Hehe.

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap things up here.  I want to say a big big BIG THANK YOU, to all my friends who chipped in to get me a plane ticket home and some AMTRAK gift certificates.  It’s much appreciated and I love you all!  I’m always thinking of you guys!  Miss ya’ll lots!!

Anthony