Erin and Travis return to America, part one

Hi. Yes. We're alive. Yes. We'll keep blogging--reverse culture shock is an odd thing and certainly deserves being written about. Sorry for the obscenely long lapse between posts. I'll get a nice, long update on what's been going in the last two months posted soon--very, very soon.

Until then, please enjoy this nice tale of how we narrowly avoided living in Crazy Cat Lady Trash Heap Hell.

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So, up until we moved to St. Louis, we'd been pleasantly surprised by how well things were going for us with our Indonesia-to-America transition.

Friday morning we headed down the road with a fully-loaded 17-foot U-Haul truck and arrived at our new apartment by 5 p.m. We'd never even seen the place, and were a little nervous.

Right.

The apartment itself was fairly cute--the living room had nice wood floors and there were plenty of big windows. The rest of the building, however, was an absolute disaster. It was a small brick fourplex, and apparently the other three apartments were rented by complete lunatics.

The rickety wooden stairs to our second-floor dwelling were covered in dead plants and cobwebs. The hallway between our door and our neighbor's was almost completely blocked by an assortment of junk-cat litter tubs, broken furniture, stacks of newspapers and boxes and other unidentifiable crap. Our lovely new neighbor had been thoughtful enough to leave an eight inch space for us to squeeze into our front door.

There was no way we were getting anything, not even small boxes--let alone furniture--up the stairs. Upon further inspection, the basement was even worse. We'd been promised by the real estate agent that there was "ample storage space, PLUS washer and dryer hookups for each tenant" in the basement.

Um.

In reality, the basement featured junk piled at least seven feet high, filling every single corner so that there was only about two square feet of space to walk amongst the heaps of trash. Additionally, there was a rather inexplicable pile of chicken feathers and dog poop in one area.

I burst into tears. My mother burst into tears. Travis's mother stood looking horrified and as if she could also burst into tears at any moment. My father, on the other hand, was furious.

I called the real estate agency in a frenzy and played the powerful "I just moved from Indonesia, and today I drove nine damn hours with a huge moving truck and cannot move in" card. Within 25 minutes, one of the real estate company's brokers showed up--not ours, but another woman. Ours, I think, does not really exist. We've only been able to correspond through e-mail, as she apparently has neither office hours or the courtesy to return phone calls. A few minutes later, the owner of the entire realty company arrived.

Long story short, he's a powerful man. He says "jump," his employees say "how high?"

He, too, was appalled with the condition of the building. I have a feeling our real estate agent is in some serious trouble for basically lying to us about the building and not taking care of her properties.

He said he would have the basement and the rest of the place cleaned up within a week, and that if we weren't satisfied them, his company would personally find us a new place and pay to move everything for us. We told him that wasn't good enough.

Somehow it was mentioned that we were on a tight budget because Travis was starting grad school at Webster University. The owner said, "Oh! We do have an apartment complex in Webster Groves, not even a quarter mile from the university." He offered to show them to us and, if we liked them, we could move in. The rent was quite a bit higher, but he said he'd drop the price just for us because the one we'd initially rented was so awful.

Within 60 minutes of this offer, we had a new place to live. It's PERFECT.

We live in Webster Groves, which is probably one of the most gorgeous, fascinating areas of St. Louis. The houses are gracious, charming and ludicrously expensive. The historic downtown is too adorable for words. We are a five-minute bike ride from Webster University, a five-minute walk from a Starbucks, a St. Louis Bread Co. (Panera, for you non-St. Louis folk), and so close to the most amazing boutiques, bars and cool little cafes and restaurants. I am head over heels in love with this place.

Even better, our apartment is wonderful. Sure, it's small, but that's OK. It's on the ground floor of a very secluded, quiet complex. For its little size, it has a TON of storage space. There are three closets in the bedroom, one of which is a giant walk-in. There's a front and back door, with a little patio/yard just outside our bedroom for Charlie to sniff around and do his doggy business. Our neighbors are friendly, and the property's manager is on-site. The guy who oversees it has his office in the apartment two doors down from us, and is incredibly nice.

It's so funny how things work out. If we'd never signed the lease on that horrible apartment, we'd never have found this great one. We wouldn't have ended up in Webster Groves, either, mere minutes from almost everything we need.

I've always said God has a weird sense of humor, but He does seem to know what He's doing, and for that I am infinitely thankful.