Palmdale? Seriously... Palmdale??

Since we've arrived in California, we've been staying at my Aunt Rachel's house in Littlerock (which is just outside of Palmdale) with my cousins Martin and Mariana.  And I must say that I am very grateful for their hospitality.  Honestly, I don't know what we would have done without them.  The only real drawback to staying here is that their tiny rural town of Littlerock is about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles, so we've been doing quite a bit of driving to do our apartment searching. 

Our first drive down to Los Angeles was on Tuesday.  My 20-year-old cousin Martin came with us, and we had a pretty good day.  We saw quite a lot of studio apartments in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles.  Brian and I really liked that area for the most part.  It felt safe, with lots of quiet tree-lined streets and older buildings with a historic 20's charm.  We basically just parked and then walked the streets ringing buzzers and calling phone numbers.  A lot of places wouldn't answer, but we managed to get inside and see about ten apartments.  Oddly enough, all the walking and hoping someone would answer reminded me of my time serving a mission in Chile...  Martin and Brian just thought I was weird.

On Wednesday we went back to L.A., but swapped out Martin for my 15-year-old cousin Mariana.  We had an appointment to see an apartment that morning, then we had lunch at Jack-in-the-Box and went over to Burbank where Brian attended a cattle call to be an extra in a new Justin Timberlake movie.  They took his picture and his measurements, so we'll see how that goes.  After that we just drove over to Hollywood and checked out the Walk of Fame and Grumman's Chinese Theater which was a fun little diversion.

After those two days, the seemingly obvious realization came to us:  we would have to get a job in L.A. before we could get an apartment there.  The difficult part about getting a job in L.A. (besides the fact that nobody is hiring in January) is we would have to drive clear from Littlerock to go to work every day.  Not exactly a lot of fun. 

And that's when we entertained a notion that we never planned on in our wildest dreams:  What if we got jobs and an apartment in Palmdale?  I know what you are thinking, dear reader.  You are thinking, "Palmdale?  Seriously... Palmdale?"  Trust me, I never thought I'd consider it either.  But life is crazy sometimes.  And a 6-month lease in Palmdale just might be the perfect transition.  Besides, we can rent a one bedroom apartment for only $650 a month here in Palmdale, and still be close enough to Los Angeles for Brian's auditions.

So we're going to the Palmdale Workforce Center later today to see about some jobs.  Wish us luck.