This morning I waited near the phone for a long time, and I found out that I've been approved for the apartment! The landlady was very busy with appointments and people coming by (there were like three other apartments available), so it's not until tomorrow, at 11 am, that I have an appointment to sign papers and pay a deposit to hold the apartment.
I've added one more night to my stay at the NW hostel, so I'll be leaving Portland (temporarily!) on June 1st, show up at Val's house that evening and spend at least one night there, before I visit my cousin Teddi in Los Angeles for one night, and then I'll next go to Phoenix and crash at my brother's apartment for a few nights, before I spend one night at a comparatively cheap hotel (probably in New Mexico) and then return to Topeka. And then it'll be the last of my packing and figuring out the moving van thing. My brother and dad will be helping.
I told the landlady I'd move in on July 12, and that's when I pay the rest of the first month's rent. It'll probably take about a week to move out there, like from the 6th to the 12th.
My favorite neighborhood is SE Portland--the Hawthorne Hostel is in the bohemian neighborhood, and I never got tired of wandering there. And the whole neighborhood is like a botanical garden!
I neglected to mention quite a number of things about that neighborhood, but here are some. I ate lunch at an entirely vegetarian Thai restaurant (I'm trying to be frugal, and that was the only time I ate out at a restaurant), sipped tea in the very atmospheric Tao of Tea before going across the street and seeing The Spiderwick Chronicles at the Avalon and looking around at the pinball machines after the film--I thought for sure I'd have a dream about goblins playing with a pinball machine. And I wandered into a cat lover's store and petting a couple of fluffy kitties....well, you get the idea. I also made myself at home in the hostel--it's an old house where each room is brightly and differently painted, and there was a cat, and I attended the Sunday brunch.
I was at the very Zen Japanese garden the other day, and here are some photos I took there.
