Thursday, March 18, 2010

Road Trippin' in the Midwest: Madison, Part 2


The last two days were a nice mix of hanging with English prospectives/grad students, wandering around sunny Madison and looking for places to live. On Monday I found three apartments to look at and scheduled showings for them on Tuesday. The first two were rather horrible affairs that reminded me very firmly of dorm life. Seeing our reactions, our agent took us over to another apartment on William ("Willy") Street, an area that we had heard many good things about. It was pretty much perfect- lots of natural lighting, hardwood floors, good amounts of storage, laundry in the basement, a parking spot for my car, and it had lots of good coffee shops and restaurants, as well as a good co-op. AND it was on the bus line. Of course, it was a bit more expensive... definitely up towards the maximum of our theoretical budget. But it its tempting.

The last place that we looked at seemed to be a good middle ground between the two. OK parking options, nice amount of space and a fairly good neighborhood, as well as a pretty good price that included utilities. Still I think we are going to look at more places like our expensive choice before we make a final decision, as it was REALLY nice and probably affordable.

There was also plenty of wandering around the city and getting to know it- so much good stuff here it's unbelievable. And pleny of partying with the English dept., which was always fun.

We drove back really late at night, reaching home at just before 2 in the morning. Fortunately we had my recently re-found copy of World War Z to guide us in. It's an AMAZING audio book that takes everything into account with a zombie infestation, watching its effects politically, socially, scientifically, militarily- and it's entirely serious throughout. Plus, Alan Alda is in it!

Anyway, that's all for now... until next time...

Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.
- Mark Twain

1 comment:

Rachel Herzl-Betz said...

Oh really? Did you think that quotation would just pass right by without notice? The Isles Buns post was very cute, but it will not stop me from foisting my new army of English Majors in your direction to avenge Jane Austen's honor.