Jessica and I found a place!

For those of you who don't already know, Jessica and I have been looking for an apartment together for well over 3 months now...maybe even longer. We have had our eye on Little Italy, downtown for quite some time, but it seems as though the only places affordable in that neighborhood have been less than 500 sq feet and in random, older, scary buildings.

With little luck in finding any places for less than $1600 a month (mind you some studios were going for about $1500 with only one parking spot!) we turned east and starting looking at more affordable places in east village, but no luck. Anything that was in our price range lasted for moments on the market and were very hard to find. Facing a choice between a 400 sq foot shoebox of an apartment, or giving up and looking elsewhere in San Diego, like Hillcrest or...well...I get depressed even thinking about it. We had our hearts set on Little Italy, and we desperately wanted a place there. It is, without a doubt, the most energetic, least trendy, least expensive, best culture, best food, best beer fests, greatest art walks, best parks, best views part of the city, the list goes on.
Enter craigslist.
I got pretty emotionally spent looking at all of those places and coming to a sad realization that our aspirations may have been a little too high, when in a stoke of luck, I saw a posting on craigslist. $1350 for a 1 bedroom in Little Italy. This wasn't something new, a few postings like this had shown up in the time we were looking, but either they were some weird situation involving odd lease agreements, a scam, or they were taken in seconds after they were posted.
Anyhow, Jessica showed a lot of interest in the place so I called up the landlord. Apparently 5 other couples were chomping at the bit and had already contacted her. I set up an appointment to view the place, but it really sounded as though this lady was very busy, and was not concerned with showing this to too many people, as it was assured to go quick. She gave us the last time slot she had open that day, we were 3 hours later than the first couple, and 5th to be shown the place. I actually met Jessica downtown for some brunch an hour before our meeting with the landlord and unknowingly passed by the landlord walking a couple around the property; later reaffirming to me that she wasn't scamming us, and that there were actually other people trying to get this place, and you can't blame them.
Here's the building it's in:

Better yet, this is a condo complex, so it's very clean and quiet. As opposed to the unmentionable conditions of most of the apartments we were considering. It's nuts, some of the places we were considering were FAR worse than my freshman dorms.
So we met the landlord and walked to the unit.
We walked into this:

A remarkably cool, small 1 bedroom unit with odd dimensions, cool wall angles, a large bathroom, a full washer and dryer and porch that can actually fit a weber grill so I can finally COOK!mmmmm weber grill....

The unit overlooks the "piazza" courtyard which has a really nice Water fountain that fills the place with the gentle sounds of a trickling stream in the crisp valleys of the Italian alps....good thing we have a big bathroom, I have to pee just thinking of it.
Needless to say we loved it the second we walked in. Other than Jessica's concerns that my California King Pillow Top mattress may be too large for the bedroom, the place is perfect (and i will make that bed fit, so help me if I have to tear down an exterior wall that bed will fit).
We told the landlord we really wanted the place but we had to talk about it first. Understanding if we didn't act fast this place would go in a second, we got in all our paper work, ran our credit, kissed some major landlord butt, and impressed her enough to choose us over the other applicants. Jessica is dropping off the deposit today, and we'll both be signing the lease when I get back from Yosemite.
So that's it! We found it. And will be calling Little Italy home in about 2 weeks. So when you come to visit here's some of the amazing things within walking distance of our pad:

I don't know what this is, but that lady looks like shes having fun. And that little kid has a really cool flag...

Little Italy has some of the best Deli's and restaurants in the entire city.


This is Basilione Plaza, home to concerts and art walks


I don't know, but tents generally mean food and beer, and lots of people can't be wrong.


This is the Princess Pub and Grill which looks like an awesome "Brr-ish" Pub with some sweet dart boards, great beers, and I'm sure a soon to be second home for me and anyone else visiting. Jessica may grow to hate this place, as well as my liver, beer belly, and dart throwing arm.


And finally, the trolley stop is 3 blocks from our pad. Giving us cheap access to Fashion Valley, the Chargers, Old Town, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Oceanside, LA and the rest of the rail connected world.

We should move in in the beginning of October, and I'll be sure to post some photos of the place.

-David