Closet Case

Behold!  One of the joys of living in Texas: closet space!!

Now before you go thinking that the Texpatriates might need to join Clotheshorse Anonymous, please note that in San Francisco we were dealing with closets about half the size of an an airplane bathroom with the same amount, if not more, clothes inside.  So three cheers to the wide open spaces of Texas and the invention of the walk-in closet. 

Moving to Dallas!

We know that our dear readers have been waiting in suspense after our recent post regarding our upcoming move. Where is it this time?!  Well here it is.....we are moving to DALLAS!  No, not our hometown of Dallas, Texas, but rather Dallas Street in downtown Houston (Rotation Location Destination #3), an entirely new city for the Dos Texpatriates.

Since our placement in Houston is only considered temporary, we will be moving into a lovely, if a bit generic apartment just blocks away from our Houston buds, Chris & Sarah. We discovered that our Houston apartment is more than 100 years newer than our SF unit.  It is likely to have less personal touches than our lovely parkside dwelling but honestly, we are super-pumped about a modern heating system.  As much as we love our place in SF, the Victorian icebox effect has definitely worn our its welcome (apparently insulation wasn't a la

mode 100 years ago).

So cheers to sun! And sweat! And swimming!

Uh Oh...Surprise Visitor

This little hellraiser just slid under our back door and decided to camp out in our kitchen yesterday.  Anybody have any suggestions?  Really could use Tsunami's assassin skills about now.

Breakin' the law!

No one has ever accused me of blindly following the sometimes-arbitrary suggestions called "rules."  So when we noticed that our apartment rooftop could be accessed via a creaky, poorly lit, back stairway we forged ahead despite signs prohibiting passage ("it is a violation of your lease agreement to use the rooftop for anything other than emergency purposes").  From an early age, I realized that things are usually forbidden because some people hate fun and excitement.  Our rooftop is no exception as it offers fantastic views of the city skyline and the undulating expanse of the city's neighborhoods.

Luckily, on Saturday night we did have an emergency- a beautiful sunset that required picture taking- and had a valid excuse to access the rooftop.  Enjoy the fruits of our rule-breaking emergency.

Moving Pains

Although we have found a place and moved in, I would not say that we have exactly "settled."  For the first time in our lives, we don't have 50 friends and family members within driving distance willing to provide all of the necessary hand-me-down furniture to stock the house and also take any unwanted goods off of our hands.  So, bascially, this has left us with an eclectic mix of furniture.  Some useful, some... not so much.  Let's just say that while two end tables, an unneeded TV stand, an ottoman, a coffee table, a poker table, and a huge chair do completely fill our new, smaller living room, they don't exactly provide the type of lounging experience one normally aspires to.  The good news is that the end tables and the poker table are on Craigslist, we have bought a couch, and pretty much everything else is on the chopping block.  Unfortunately, the couch will not be ready until Friday.  Normally a week wait is actually a pretty quick turnaround for a custom-colored couch (oh yeah), but when you don't have a couch to start off with, it seems like an eternity.  Luckily, Jared and I are not the type to let a lack of seating get in the way of something as important as catching up on LOST, marathon style.  Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain an actual picture while still preserving the actual experince, so I have used the advanced photo editing program, Paint, to recreate the feeling here:

Looks cozy, doesn't it? 

The Best Nest

Some said we were crazy to try to find an apartment in a city that we didn't know very well in just 2 days, battling jetlag and navigating the city without a car.  Obviously, those people don't know us very well.   When on a timeline, there is no such thing as an extension.  Or compromise.  Or defeat.  We came, we saw, we leased (venimus, vidimus, leasimus). And not only did we find a place, it is absolutely the Best Nest!  For mere $200 more a month than some of the subterranean rat holes we viewed, we have a lovely, light, airy apartment facing a park in a really cool part of town.

We also managed to achieve what one might have thought was previously unattanaible: a modern kitchen with a dishwasher. It is true and it is all ours... well not really ours, but ours for a bit and ours to share with you, our faithful reader (after a rigorous screening process, of course).

Earlier in the post, I mentioned that we lived near a park.  This park is called Dolores park as it is very near the famed Mission Dolores.  We had heard that this was a cool place to hang out on a sunny weekend day, but WOW! we had no idea what we were in for... check out this video that jared took from our balcony on Satuday afternoon.

Clearly, we live in a happening spot! So, this is it our first West Coast travel soliciation: come visit us at our new place in San Francisco and find your inner hippie by hula-hooping the day away!

City Toad, Country Toad

Monday morning started with a bang, or should I say, a hop. Barely awake and going about my morning routine, I was startled to notice (insert high-pitched shriek, here) that I was not alone in the bathroom.   Alongside the toilet, hopping along was a smallish toad.  For those of you who have not visited us, I should mention that we live on the third floor of a concrete high-rise apartment, increasing the strangeness of this appearance.  It is very difficult to imagine how a toad would have gotten into our apartment.  Did he take the elevator? Open the door? Come up through the drain? I soon realized that the most likely transportation method was one of our bags that we had brought home from the camping trip.

But forget the cause for a moment, and lets return to me and the toad in the bathroom.  After finding a paper wine bag that seemed an appropriate toad transporter, I crawled around after the toad, trying in vain to convince him that I would be taking him to a safe place.  Hearing me cajoling the toad, "Stop it, come on now, stop it," Jared mistakenly thought I was calling the toad "Thomas," so that became his name.  Although this post could go on much longer than necessary, lets just say that little Thomas did not go easily into his new home at the golf course but that he is now a city toad, rather than a country toad. 

"But what type of toad?" you might ask. Well here are the most likely suspects:

         Karoo Toad                                                                                                  Raucus Toad

      Leopard Toad

Feel free to contribute your identification suggestions and queries for the story rights to the childrens' book my way.

Happy Festive Season!

As my ole friend Dorothy once said, "there is no place like home."  Despite this, Jared and I are doing our best to have ourselves a Merry little Christmas here in sunny Cape Town.  Christmas lights, overdone malls, and contemporary carols everywhere you go haven't quite caught on here so we are attempting to remind ourselves that it is indeed Christmas time (or Festive Season as it is known here) with our very first Christmas Tree.

If the tree looks very small, well, that's because it is.  Although the color-coordinated decorations were a nice addition to our x-mas-tree-in-a-box, you and I both know that no tree would be complete without some personal touches.  This being our first Christmas tree, and definitely our first African Christmas, we don't exactly have a buch of extra ornaments lying around, so we had to improvise a bit.  Our improvisation also makes a nice game for our blog readers.  See if you can find the following in the picture to the left: 1 belt, 1 necklace, and 2 earrings.... maybe that is a bit tricky.  It is a pretty small picture. 

Either way, we would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.  Please know that although the sunshine is nice, we would prefer to be in the chilly weather with friends and family any day.  As a departing note, we will let our one ornament that we do own (belts don't count) speak for us:

Love, Lindsay & Jared

We're Famous!

Well, not exactly... but our apartment is!  The South Seas Apartments got a brief moment of fame in the new movie "Invictus," which takes place in South Africa.  Just before the big match, Matt Damon and crew are shown running along Beach Road and for a brief moment, you can see our apartment!  Although I was unable to get an exact screen shot, I was able to create a pretty close replica for you....