So I made it into Manhattan yesterday, totally exhausted. I had flown in on a red eye from Portland, OR, and had spent the whole day before packing every item I owned. Although I could only take two pieces of luggage on the plane, I had to get everything else ready so my dad could ship it.

I don't remember any of the plane ride – I couldn't even tell you how long it was! I had a layover in Cincinatti on my way to LaGuardia, and all I remember was transferring from one plane the next. If the plane was in the air, I was out cold; only when I had to walk somewhere did I keep myself awake.

 

I met my Mom and my aunt Susan in the LaGuardia airport. They had flown in Atlanta, Georgia to help me with the move, and came in about a half hour after I arrived. For some reason, all but one of Air Tran's baggage claim carousels were broken, and so three flights ended up sharing the same one. After about 15 – 20 minutes of waiting, my mom and aunt finally got their luggage, and we were ready to leave.

 

We took a cab into the city to a vacation rental apartment between 41^st and 42^nd on 10^th avenue. My mom was shown pictures of the apartment before she rented it, and the owner seemed legit; however, my mom still had doubts whether there'd actually be a room for us, so she was relieved when the front desk handed us a key.

 

The apartment may be called “small” by some standards, but by mine, it would have been perfect had I been the only one staying in it. It was fully furnished, and was as if someone was already living their. In the closet there were suits, in the cupboard there was food, and on the wall, there was a master's degree from Harvard. The person we were renting from had graduated from Harvard.

 

After getting settled in the apartment, we now had to find some food. We walked the streets to see what we could find, and we eventually stumbled upon a swanky little pizza place serving pizza by the slice. I forgot the name of it – apparently they're a dime a dozen – but the pizza hit the spot, and got us ready to do some apartment searching.

 

Unfortunately, the only thing our vacation rental didn't have was an internet connection, so that meant going down to a coffee shop to do our searching online. We started at Starbucks just down the street, but had to pay to get online. We ended up paying the fee, but we used the one time payment to find another coffee shops with free wifi. To our surprise, there was one about 500 feet away.

 

We searched Criagslist for some apartments in my price range, but didn't find a whole lot in the areas I was looking for. I wanted somewhere South of Central Park – preferably somewhere in Greenwich Village – but we found most of the postings were either for Harlem or the Upper East Side. I eventually found two apartments I was interested in, so I made some calls and set up an appointment. Here's some links:

 

http://www.prestonny.com/MainSite/Listings/Listing.aspx?ListingID=116661
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/fee/399547610.html

The first apartment is in Murray Hill, and the second one is in Greenwich Village. The first one looks nicer than the second, but the second is a lot closer to work.

 

After finishing our apartment search for the day, we visited Times Square, and then ate at a nice Italian restaurant on Restaurant Row (46^th street between 8^th and 9^th avenues). We forgot what the restaurant name was, but it ended up being really good for the price.

 

That's the end of day one. I'm looking forward to day two as I'll be seeing my first two apartments. Although I don't want to be too desperate and ruin my chances for something better, if I see an apartment that's a good fit for me, I'm going to snatch it up as quickly as possible.