We have arrived

We have arrived in Jersey City. It has been a crazy couple of days, as we try to get settled in, get things unloaded and unpacked, and navigate a new place. When we arrived, we discovered that the apartment number given to us by our landlord was wrong. We are in 2R, not 2L as previously told. But there was someone there to give us the keys, so at least we had an apartment. This apartment, by the way, is a bit larger than we previously thought. There is a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and then two other spaces as well. None of these rooms are what I’d call large (and a couple are glorified closets), but it is still more space than we anticipated, which is great. This apartment is on the second floor, so we had a huge move-in job when we arrived. Luckily, a couple friends from the area agreed to meet us and help us unload. It was really great to have their help—these stairs are narrow and tall, and after several loads with heavy boxes, we all needed to take a break. It would have taken at least twice as long without their help, and my legs were protesting after just a couple hours. I’m not sure how other people move furniture into these apartments, since the doorways and stairs and extra narrow. Eventually we did get everything loaded into the apartment, which was great. Since we still had the truck for another day, we went out to look for furniture and groceries. After a few false starts and wrong turns, we finally found a Walmart. The furniture selection was not great, so we decided to wait on that. We did get some groceries and other items (we forgot to pack Brian’s pillows, we needed a trash can, etc). The NJ roads are really horrible—definitely the worse I’ve ever seen. It was a bumpy ride back to our new place. By the time we got back, it was past midnight and we were dead tired. We put away the groceries, ate some sandwiches, and headed to bed.

This morning, we walked to Goodwill to look for furniture. Their selection was very poor, so we did not decide to purchase any. Then we walked back to our truck, since we had to return it. (Last night, we couldn’t find a spot to park it for a while, so the truck was several blocks away from our apartment. I am happy we don’t have a car here.) The truck return location was difficult to find (there was an address, but the place we wanted was a couple blocks further down the road past the address?), but we made it and got the truck turned in on time. Then we walked back to our apartment. The walk was quite long (about 2.5 miles), but we don’t really have the bus system figured out yet. It was fine, just a hot day. We did some more organizing and unpacking today. We also spent some time switching our utilities over to the new address (since we set everything up at the wrong address). We still have some things to figure out (trash, mail), but we are starting to get our bearings. After several tries, I found a small corner market that sold onions (our only fresh produce thus far) and a fish monger, but there are still things to find. Tomorrow perhaps I will walk in the other direction and see what I can find in terms of produce (I seem to remember a fruit store). Our next major adventure will be to figure out public transportation, especially the PATH train into NYC.