Making friends and finding my way

The first week here was a little hit and miss: Andy’s cousin Rebecca generously let me me stay at her house for the rest of the week, but she lives in Weston which is a suburb northwest of Miami and southwest of Ft. Lauderdale, so it took about 30 minutes or so to get anywhere from there; then I got a room at a hotel for a couple of days (and wireless internet!), but was figthing off a little bit of a cold, so my energy was lower than usual; then I hung out with my friend Tammy in Ft. Lauderdale and stayed at her house for the night before heading down and staying at an acquaintance’s mother’s house in Miami on Monday.

I don’t know if is was me being in Miami proper or what, but this last two weeks have been very different and really great since I have come down to Miami! Check it out: got to Barbara’s house on Monday, had dinner with her and her husband Al, and met their four dogs: Fred, Baggy, Dulcena, and Louisa, and their two cats: Mirada and (the black and white one).

On Tuesday, I had two appointments to see apartments before my 12:30pm haircut appointment. The first apartment was shady, and definitely NOT anyplace I was interested in living. The second was a place in Coral Gables that I found on Craigslist that was month-to-month. I had scheduled an appointment with this woman the previous week, but she had rented the apartment by the day of our meeting. Then she called back a couple of days later and said that the guy had to leave the apartment, and that it would be available again at the end of the week. So, she gave me directions, and I went to take a look at it.

A friend told me that Coral Gables is like the Beverly Hills of Miami, but I was not prepared for how beautiful the neighborhoods were. Large, high-end houses, manicured landscaped yards, tree-lined boulevards. Gorgeous. Really, really nice. So, I find the street, turn down it, and find the building. The guy, Shawn, shows me the place: tile floors, celing fans in all rooms, cute little bathroom and kitchen, off-street parking, lots of light. In comparison with the other places I checked, this place was like a soho loft. And Shawn mentioned that he is getting free wireless from somone’s network in the building, and I was sold. I called Samantha, and told her that I would take the place.

I left to get to my 12:30 haircut appointment. Once I figured out how to get there, I pulled up, parked and walked in. “How in the world did you find someone to cut your hair after having been there less than two weeks?” you may ask. Well, the first weekend I was here, Andy and I were in Nordstrom Rack (they only have one in the whole area! These people live like savages! And there is NO Trader Joe’s here either, which is the ultimate insult), and I saw a sista with a short natural and I practically dove on her to ask her where she gets her hair cut. She told me that Rocky at Lyon’s Salon and Spa did it, and she gave me their number. When I called them, I had to schedule the appointment a week later, since Rocky was going to be out of town, and no one else in the salon cut black hair. “Rocky” turns out to be a short Jewish dude, but he seems cool, and the woman at Nordstrom Rack didn’t seem to be upset about it, so I sat down and got my hair cut. Afterwards, I even got my eyebrows arched as well.

As I was leaving, Rocky walks up with another woman and says “your name is Denise…well, her name is Denise too!” So, i start chatting with this new woman Denise, and we immediately hit it off. She tells me that she just left a career in banking, and is trying to figure out what she wants to do next with her life. I ask her, “what are you doing after you leave here?” and she says “nothing, you want to go grab a bite to eat?” and so I followed her and we had a gret lunch at an Asian bistro, and then we ended up going shopping at the Target nearby. It was a wonderful afternoon, and I even though I just met her, I felt that we would continue being friends, just because she is my kind of folks: genuine, down to earth, funny, and intelligent.

I left to finally get to the real estate office and give them the deposit check and sign the papers for my new apartment. I walked out elated; here is was, less than two weeks of my arriving in the area, and I already had one brand-new friend that I had made all by myself, and an apartment!! How cool is that?