Goodies in the mail!

So it's official!

In the beginning, everyone was a little bit suspicious. Roger Carr doubted the sincerity of the whole New York Experience, my parents doubted my ability to commit to such a lofty goal and often doubted the security of acting as a profession (what they didn't count on was my understanding of such a sad sad truth). In moments of self doubt I questioned my abilities as a young lad taking out a massive line of credit to pursue some hair-brained scheme.

Now, after months and months of planning, preparation, auditions and money earning the only person I need to convince is the big bad scary border guard. All my papers are in and accepted. My final payments (of $19,500) are due, and all I need to do now is pack, alert my landlord of my immediate arrival, and fly away. Packing is going to be the fun part: Giordana and I are toying with the idea of packing our entire lives into airplane luggage. Or at least enough of our lives to allow us to survive for a couple weeks before our folks can DHL the rest of our stuff to us.

At this point in the game, reality is biting me right in the ass. It kind of clicked recently that I may very well never be living at home with my parents again. And that, family and friends, is a scary thought.

Ow!

It's the female half of the B.A.E (Big! Apple! Endeavour! I made an acronym!) here, just giving a small and insignificant update on our steady progress.

A week or so ago, we went to the main health clinic to get some forms filled out by a health practitioner, stating that we'd had immunization against mumps and measles and rubella. It turns out we'd only had a shot for mumps once, so unfortunately for the one with the intense needle phobia (that would be me), we were directed into a little room where wham bam thank you nursey health practitioner ma'am, we had our second shots for that. This whole moving-to-NY thing is turning out to be a lot bigger of a pain in the ass than I thought. You're not only taking my money, you're giving me shots? Seriously?

Anyway, I'm glad we're almost done. I've been out of commission for four or five days because of a very slow and painful (did I mention painful? PAINFUL.) recovery from getting my four wisdom teeth removed. Needless to say, Garry was there with me in the operating room pre and post surgery, and is still by my side feeding me yogurt and making me whipped cream for putting on my pudding.

It's getting to summer now (as you can tell by the ... rain ... and freezing weather ...) so we're basically on the last leg! Good luck to us!

Holy smokes things have been happening quickly!

Financially, in about a week I'm going in to get approved for my student loan; I've already received my USD Visa card, and my American Dollar cheque book. George and I have also recently discovered that the forms we have to fill out are brutally extensive. Medical and financial proofs, etc etc. With graduation right around the corner and all sorts of other poop hitting the fan things are a little more than hectic. However, we will prevail!

It's all coming together.

So the lease is signed! Flights are booked! I have probably already told you this, but it can be said again. A more recent development is the financial one:

TD Canada trust saved our butts.

We were both unaware that by saving USD in our local credit union, we were actually being counter productive. In order to access it in America we would have had to transfer it back to Canadian, then back to American. How dumb is that? Anywho, long story short: I'm getting an American Dollar Visa from TD Canada trust and coupled with their awesome "Borderless US Savings account" (shameless plug) we can pay our USD Visa bill with USD. No exchange rates. Thank god for that. I also get a checkbook! Awesome eh? All that's left now is to apply for a massive student loan, and we're good to go. Then these posts will be less erratic as we will be living in a city with non-stop action and excitement.

Get ready for us, Brooklyn.

Congratulations to us! Not only has every single one of our flights been booked (including the flight back home for Christmas, that we all knew would happen), another small detail has also been taken care of:

WE HAVE AN APARTMENT!

This happened through a wonderful New Yorker acquaintance of my parents (mad connections through the wine industry, yo) that none of us have ever actually met in person. She got us in touch with a broker who quickly and efficiently sent us the heaps of paperwork that we needed to sign in order to access the pretty furnished apartment we'd seen online and wanted so badly. Well, I probably wanted it the most. The bedroom is painted yellow. I love yellow. ANYWAY, yesterday our broker (how grown up does that sound?!) confirmed that the landlord had approved our request for rental, and that it will be ours to live in for a glorious 8 months 17 days (the exact time we requested -- no longer, no shorter -- YAY).

So, as of October 1st 2008, we will be residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Garry is a happy boy, probably because we have a gas range and proper oven, and I am too, because of the aforementioned yellow room and the (drumroll please) bathtub! Bathtub = bubble baths, bubble baths = nirvana, the answer to all problems, and most likely world peace.

Anyway, now we're off to the bank to discuss opening up an American account. If I missed anything, I'm sure Blog Hog Garry will let you know!

:)

"Yes, I would like some bubbly"

Flights are booked! Man! Things are very tangible now. We have our flights to NY, and back for Christmas Holiday. Booking our flights back to NY after the break, and then back home for summer break will be occurring later in the year, but for now we're leaving at eight in the morning on the thirtieth of September, connecting in Calgary (where we will be flying FIRST CLASS! BAM!) and then to NY NY.

As far as apartments go, we have an inside woman named Melissa, she runs a winery down in New York State, and she's given us the link to this awesome website that lets us set our dates for staying and it matches the criteria with the available houses etc. etc. We almost booked a place today, but some guy swept it out from our noses an hour before we contacted the landlords.

Yeah. Damn.

Well, as my friend River's always said: "Keep Fishin'"

Hunting for Housing

So we've had a couple leads on the housing crisis in New York. Thus far we have been contacted through Giordana's parents by a nice woman who lives near the city who is currently hunting for housing herself. We also have a potential place at the international house in NY, of course they only normally accept students who are twenty one or older, but I believe with constant harassment they might give us a room just to shut us up. Finally my mom recalls my grandfather knowing someone who is a landlord in the City, but not to quote her on it. Sorry mom.

Now none of these are solid, so if you, any of you have any leads, any glimmer of hope, please give us a hand! We need your help!