Arent y'all hot down here?

San Antonio is not a town for walking or biking... First of all, just standing still outside will make you break out into dripping sweat, and second, things are just too far apart - it's a humongous sprawling city. Our first week here was filled driving through the different neighborhoods, trying to get a feel for where we want to live. We looked at hoods, houses, apartments, stores close to hoods, flight paths of the airport, houses next to, and across from, houses, and spent lots of time on walkscore.com, just to finally realize that we will be "car dependent" here. I guess nobody would even think about walking anywhere here... you might melt on the way.

Our house search was complicated by the hurricane that came through while we drove down south over Labor Day weekend. Looks like every time we move into a town, we're welcomed by weather. When we moved to Denver in 2007 there were two different snow storms coming from different directions, and this time we had Tropical Storm Hermine accompany us. When I moved to LA in 2000 it was below 70 and raining. Anyways, we had lots of road closures and we had to imagine all the gardens and roofs without all the debris and fallen branches sitting around. I could handle the outside mess, but I was very surprised in what terrible condition some of the houses were inside. Just unkempt, messy, dirty, cockroachy. Made us wonder how serious these people were about renting their place, and how responsive they'd be as a landlord.

We finally ended up with two places on our consideration list. One was in a very nice neighborhood, but very close to the airport (so I guess not that nice after all... but at least the neighboring houses were pretty and well taken care of). The other house was in a grittier area (albeit still in the prestigious ZIP code area of 78209 as we found out), but everything else about it seemed right. So, although the houses next to and across aren't in the best condition, we decided to move into that one, and join the club of the '09ers - as the residents of this ZIP code area are called. Come October we'll have four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and some kind of room off of another room, and a utility room, and a big back yard with a utility shed. Right now, we own a bed, two night stands, a sofa, a sideboard, a bookshelf, a little table with two chairs, a desk and three empty three-gallon jugs full of wine corks. I'm not worried about filling the shed with our stuff, but I have a feeling that most of the rooms in the house won't be used right away - until we can take that trip to Ikea. Yay!

I've also been researching growing a garden here in Texas, and was very pleased to find out that fall is the perfect time to plant lettuce, kale, chard, spinach and other greens. We've also received the okay from the landlady to get chickens (Rob has been so very happy to hear that...), and I'm telling y'all - you need to grow your own food here. Whole Foods is much more expensive here than in Colorado, and food in general is pricey. There is a nice alternative to Whole Foods though. It's called Central Market, and they are working hard on creating a pleasant upscale shopping experience - worthy of the '09 ZIP code - y'all know what I mean, right?

We cooked our meals at home (in our temporary residence) most of the time, but we also checked out two restaurants. One was La Gloria where we had Mexican street food. Again, it was pricey, but yummy. It's a stand-in-line-and-order-at-the-counter place (I guess that's how you would order street food), and then you'll get your street food order delivered at a very nice outdoor setting. We had Ceviche Verde, Puerco en Chiles (pork simmered in chile and spices, served in a hot stone dish) and Puerquito Echado (diced crispy pork seasoned with a dry rub of spices and chilies). And beers... but we should have tried the margaritas. Next time, we'll be here for a while. The other place was wonderful. It was the bistro connected to the Botanical Gardens, and we had breakfast there this morning. Crepes with asparagus, ham and brie with hollandaise sauce and delicious 'taters.

To sum it up... the first few days here have been a bit overwhelming, but we've been productive in our quest for shelter. There were times where I was very homesick for Colorado, our friends, our neighborhood and our pad, but I think it'll all work out here in SA. The nights are supposed to get cooler towards the middle of the week (from 76 to 72, daytime temps will fall as low as 91) - I don't think we'll be ready for the down blanket, but maybe a morning jog can be completed without the fear of fainting. I also want to join a Crossfit gym very soon, and maybe see if I can start teaching yoga someplace air-conditioned.

Tomorrow will be my first day back at work. Three months of traveling, visiting family and moving has been a great time, but I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.