I arrived in Taipei August 27th and hit the ground running. Got into the airport at 6 am, was out by 7, at the hostel by 8, and out on the street to begin my apartment search by 9. Fortunately, during the week I was able to use the Fulbright office as a base of operations. They let me print out apartment listings and helped me interpret a lot of the Chinese, which was awesome. I spent mornings looking up new listings and making phone calls, then in the afternoon I'd go around to look at the places. Although the listings all seemed promising, it became apparent after looking at a few places that most of the reasonably-priced apartments were disgusting/tiny/in a basement/had windows that looked out onto walls, and anything nice was going to be a lot more expensive. Blah. After 3 days of searching, I finally made a decision, but when I called the place, it was already rented out. Frustrated and delirious with jet-lag, I made the rash decision to just call another place that I thought I remembered to be decent and tell them that I'd take it. They told me to come over right then to sign the lease.
When I arrived, the landlady wasn't there yet, so I had to wait outside for half an hour. When she finally got there and we went in, the room really wasn't as nice as I had remembered, and from half an hour of observing the outside of the building, I had realized that the window in the room didn't actually face the outdoors, just the hallway. Moreover, the landlady's two young sons had come down to the room and were jumping on the bed, hiding the keys to the drawers, and apparently breaking the blinds. It was a slightly stressful environment, and I just wanted to get the lease-signing over with and go home to sleep. I signed the lease in a hurry and handed over the first month's rent plus a deposit equivalent to 2 months' rent.
As soon as I got in the cab to go home, I realized that I had made a terrible mistake, and started to freak out. When I got to the hostel, I called the landlady and got her sister-in-law (I think) on the phone. On the verge of breakdown, I choked out that I realized that I couldn't live there, but I had already signed the lease and put down the deposit, and what was I going to do???? Don't cry, don't cry, she told me, just come back over and we'll fix it. I hopped back in another cab and headed back. The landlady met me at the door and asked why I was back. Apparently the sister-in-law hadn't told her anything (the two ladies seemed to be in the middle of some kind of disagreement), so I had to pour my sob story out all over again. The landlady was less inclined to be sympathetic. She offered me the rent money back, but not the deposit. My sister didn't know we had already signed the lease, she said. But she did! I told her on the phone! I replied. The landlady didn't look totally convinced. How old are you, she asked. I replied sheepishly, twenty-two...
Looking much less than pleased about the situation, the landlady finally took pity on me and let me have my deposit money back. Shaken, I headed back to the hostel, too exhausted to even think about where I would look the next day.
The next morning, I talked to my parents on Skype, and they talked me down a little bit and promised to put in a prayer request for me at church. My booking at the hostel had run out, so I moved to a different hostel and made a fresh start on my apartment search, printing out a bajillion new listings at 7-11 (Fulbright is closed on weekends). I checked my computer one last time before embarking on my new search, and noticed one more listing that looked promising. I scribbled it down and started making calls. When I called the agent for that listing, he told me he was there right then and how soon could I be there? Startled but intrigued, I headed over immediately.
When I walked into the apartment, I was immediately impressed by how much nicer it was than pretty much everything I had looked at so far. It was clean and spacious, with wood floors and big windows and a couple of balconies, the location was a short walk from my program at NTU, and the price was cheaper than anywhere else I had seen. Then I walked into a bedroom and found a piano! I exclaimed my surprise to the agent, who told me not to worry about the things that the landlords had left behind, they could be taken away. Actually, I play the piano, I told him. He told me he could ask the landlords, maybe they would leave it for me. It was beyond what I had dreamed. I left the apartment singing and practically skipping with glee, and although I looked at a couple more places that afternoon, none of them could compare. I called the agent back the next morning and went right over to sign the lease. The landlords turned out to be a sweet older couple who had to move out because they couldn't handle the stairs every day. We had a pleasant chat, and they told me I could keep the piano there if I liked. Score! One lease and a couple hundred bucks later, I had a home!
Next step: Making multiple trips to Ikea in my quest for beautiful curtains. It took me a couple tries to do the measuring correctly, but now I have the WORLD'S BEST CURTAINS, which, among other things, have mountain goats on them. LOVE. And I have a piano, and a room with my own balcony! Life is good.
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