Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Swiss side or French side?

So for everyone back home, you probably dont know this but it is pretty much impossible to find housing in Geneva. There is like a 2% vacancy and there is tons of people coming in and out all the time so people are trying like crazy to find somewhere to stay, and Jorge and me are not the exception. When we first go here we were living in the French side in St. Genis de Pouilly, which we completely hated only because their transportation system kind of sucked. There was only 1 bus an hour, so if you missed it then you are pretty much screwed until the next one comes and hour later. And let me tell you Jorge and me (mainly my fault) nearly missed it plenty of times and had to run pretty much the whole way from the house we were staying in to the bus stop.
Here Jorge is waiting at the bus stop at posing for me in front on Champion

That and the fact that we were living in house were other CERN people were staying for random amounts of time made us decide to find a place as quick as we could so that we could have some privacy.
That is when we discovered that finding and apartment here is hard. We ended up getting an apartment (or actually studio) that is a bit small but enough room for the two of us in Meyrin, Switzerland, which is where we live now. Now, only thing is that since it is a CERN apartment they only allow you to be here for a maximum of 6 months and Jorge is scheduled to be here until at least October 2010 so in other words we need a place for longer than 6 months.
Which brings me to the point and where we are now. We met up with a couple on Sunday who also work at CERN and are from California that told us that they were leaving their apartment/studio next month and if we wanted to they could put in a good word to the landlord for us to try and improve our chances of getting the apartment (because it really is impossible to get an apartment unless you know people who are moving out). So we sent and email to the landlord and she wants to meet on Friday so that we can discuss details (which I think means we might have a good chance of getting it).
So I set up a list of pros and cons for the apartment:
Pros:
•it is in the Swiss side, which means better transportation
•it comes furnished
•it would mean we finally have somewhere stable and no more searching for housing
•it comes with tv (so I can finally have something to watch)

Cons:
it is pretty expensive
•it doesn't come with an oven (okay not the end of the world and I could live without and oven but it would be nice if it had one)
•it doesn't come with a balcony so no more grilling for us
•We would not buy a car after all

So then I started reconsidering living in France because it is cheaper to live in France and I saw a place advertised so heres a list of Pros and Cons there:

French Place:
Pros:
•it is about half the rent of the other place
•we would be able to buy a car since we would save more money
•also comes furnished
•comes with internet

Cons:

•it is in the French side (I think biggest Con yet)
•there is crappy transportation there (although if we have a car perhaps it will be less of a big deal, but I haven't told you that parking in Geneva is a nightmare)

I have no idea what we are going to do. I guess we will talk about it more when Jorge gets home and we can finally make a decision before this weekend since we are leaving to BARCELONA this Friday and won't be back until Tuesday.

Here are a couple random pictures from Geneva:


This is Jorge and our friend Matt playing on these lifesize chess boards


This is us in Geneva when we explored it by ourselves for the first time

This is a super yummy Gelato that I had right by the lake. I still had long hair then!


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