Moving Out. Eventually.

So I’ve found an apartment, but it’s never easy.

I’ve decided to go with the cheaper option and I’ve tested the walk to make sure it’s doable. Now I have to get with the landlord, who’s not the same as the owner, and pay the deposit and three (not two, as I originally thought) months rent.

This poses a hassle more than a problem, but it’s still annoying. I brought $1800 US over and fortunately was able to exchange all of it, but it’s still short. So I had to hit the ATM, which fortunately worked on the second machine I tried.

Equivalent to about $2k, this pile of flus/dinero/cash represents a deposit and three months rent.

As a result, I have a literal pile of money, as you can see. This afternoon, I hope to meet with the landlord and leave it, but as far as I know it’s not ready now. Something about a door being repaired.

A girl at the office, Ratna, has been a fabulous help in getting this nailed down. The contract, which the landlord faxed to her, is in Indonesian and she translated it for me and she’s going there with me sometime this afternoon to hand over the money and sign the lease.

Taken from the fake 55th floor, this photo shows the start of my commute. Well, I guess actually it will be near the end, since my office is in the opposite direction of the apartment. Either way, walk out of the red building and turn right.

At least I guess that’s what’s happening. There’s really a lot that’s going over my head.

I suppose the details aren’t different than in the U.S. – you have your cable, utilities and Internet – but it’s vastly different than Morocco, the only other foreign country I know.

I follow that same road until it splits at the white curvy building, where I stick to the right (go left and there's a McDonalds. Of course there's a McDonalds). This is the kind-of-scary part, because at the building in the corner, there is a big branch sticking out and I have to kind of go under it to make the turn, which usually has a wall of motorcycles coming in my direction. Good thing A. they're not Harleys and B. the building is a hospital. Convenient!

There, you find a place, ask what the rent is and who the landlord is and somehow he mysteriously appears, usually with some tea and sweets within reach.

You haggle over price, then hand it over. No lease, no deposit. The electricity bill comes – probably still in the name of someone who died eight years ago – and you pay it. Life goes on.

Rounding past the hospital and the Starbuck's sign, there's a dead end at the bottom of this twin building. I can go either left or right around it, and on the other side I climb up a big creaky set of stairs to walk over a highway full of traffic.

I’m sure it’ll settle down, but it’s times like these I wish I could just fast forward a couple of weeks.

But, similarly to Morocco, fast doesn’t work here. Well, except for the motorcycles. There’s red tape and everything else, so I just have to sit and wait.

Sorry, the landlord still hasn't contacted me about dropping off the deposit so I haven't gone over there today, but basically after crossing the street, I walk take a right and walk five minutes to my building. It looks nothing like this one, but a building's a building, right? Actually, my apartment -- two towers of about 20 floors each - is right *behind* this building, which is the hospital. At times in the hotel room I cold have sworn I heard aircraft close by and when I looked out, I saw a helicopter.

And watch HBO. There is something like six different HBO channels. The “Fargo” spate passed, perhaps anyway, and now it’s “The Bourne Identity” on one and “The Blind Side” on another.

In other news, I experienced my first thunderstorm yesterday. I was inside at work, so it was merely loudness, but WOW it was loud. Kocur would have been sitting on my chest and panting heavily in my face, I just know it. Heck, had she been with me, I would have willingly hung on to her. It was scary, with the loud thunder and lightning for sure but also the car alarms that went off in the parking lot with every boom.

(And just as I write this, car alarms went off on “Bourne.” Timing eh?)

I’ve no idea when I will move into the apartment. My normal work schedule is 3-11, so unless I wake up and get to it – which isn’t likely, both because I am trying to sleep until at least 8 (though that’s not working) and because it doesn’t seem Jakarta runs like that. – I can’t get anything finalized until after noon, which is hotel checkout.

I don’t know if it’s possible to get it all done today and move tomorrow, but we’ll see. I’d hoped to get it all done today, but it didn’t pan out. Now tomorrow might be a pipe dream as well.

However, I should have plenty of time to move this week. Friday is a national holiday (Indonesia takes Good Friday as a holiday) and the paper doesn’t publish on national holidays. Therefore, I’m off Thursday. (Mental note: Check list of Indonesian holidays.)

On Wednesday, too, I work an earlier shift – 1-9 p.m., though I’m not sure why and Friday I am back to 3-11 p.m. That’s one hunk of off-time.

If I was at all familiar with the lay of the land, this would be a perfect time to go out and explore some nearby pretty place, but that’s not happening just yet.