Settling In

After scouring Seattle's eastern suburbs for places to rent, Pearl found an apartment just down the road from work. Rent in this area seems pretty high for what you get. Most of the places in our price range were either tiny or run down places that you would think twice about taking a step into. So we were really surprised (at first) at the size and quality of the apartment we finally settled on.

Most of the places were around 1200 sq ft (111 m2) and had 2-3 bedrooms plus one bathroom. This seemed just a little tight because it left little to no space left for Xander to play in. But I have to say some of the locations were spectacular. One was in a private community on Mercer Island in the middle of Lake Washington, the other in a private community on the side of a hill overlooking the city. The place we settled on was a 2 bedroom, an office and 2 bathrooms. The apartment is about two blocks from work which is pretty much in the center of downtown Bellevue, close to lots of shops and restaurants.

The apartment was being rented out at about 25%-30% below market rate, and it quickly became obvious why. Just across the road were three major constructions, and our apartment has a grandstand view of all of them. Not being too fussed about the noise nor the view, this was a bargain. Xander was really enjoying himself playing with the blinds and watching all the activity across the road and in the street below.

We will hopefully be moving in around mid March when the container finally arrives. So now that we have a place to stay, the next set of decisions are being laid out in front of us. What voice provider do we use? Which long distance carrier do we use? DSL or Cable for internet? Cable or Satellite for TV? Or do we not even bother?

The interesting thing over here in the US is that VOIP (voice over IP) is pretty well established. The cost of getting a broadband connection plus VOIP is about the same if not cheaper than the equivalent landline plus broadband. The only caveat is that emergency calls can't be made if there is no power or no network with VOIP. But cellphones can still be used, although they too are susceptible to power outages. The biggest attraction to VOIP is that many of the providers also have free calling to a number of countries.

It seems that over here, pretty much nobody uses the terrestrial TV broadcast signals anymore. The apartments are not cabled with an aerial, only a cable TV jack. So we'll just have to take our chances and see if we can pick up anything with a pair of rabbit ears :)

There are just so many providers over here, you really need to do your homework before making a decision about anything. Even then, you can't always be sure you have covered all the options, and the providers sure don't make it easy to figure out the true cost of things, nor make them easy to compare one service to another.

This is an interesting learning experience, and also quite frustrating when you can't get a straight answer out of anyone.

View photos of the new apartment
View photos of the temporary housing