Coast to Coast: Restoring normalcy

We are finally here, settled (somewhat) in our apartment in Irvine, California. The road from Pittsburgh to Irvine was long and tiresome, but we had our fun, memorable moments, too. Gabe and I were very blessed to have his parents and his sister make the trip with us. His parents helped us move our things into a Penske truck, which we packed up and drove the six hours to their house in Kentucky within a day. I think Gabe and I agree that the day we left Pittsburgh was our longest and most stressful. But it wasn't until we had picked up Kala, Gabe’s sister, in Springfield that we felt like the move had truly begun.

We must have made quite a strange sight on the road. We had the truck towing one of our cars on a trailer with our second car following behind (cars with license plates from two different states, on top of everything else). Surprisingly, the two and a half days it took us to get to California were not so bad. We started seeing new and interesting landscapes after our first day and especially once we entered New Mexico. Along the way, we were even able to stop at the Grand Canyon. We went to the Canyon early in the morning, and we were all freezing. I never knew Arizona could be so cold!

Any landscape can become boring after a while, no matter how beautiful or grand it is. We were all happy to finally reach California after five days full of packing and travel. Once we reached California, however, our new source of anxiety was finding an apartment quickly and finding me a job. Gabe had already been in contact with a UCI (University of California-Irvine) student willing to sublease her room for the summer. And I already had an interview set up with a school where I was hoping to teach ESL students for the summer. I am thankful to announce that both the living and the job situations worked out. We are no longer homeless and we'll have enough money to pay the inflated California rent so that we won't have to return to being homeless.

Gabe’s family stayed for a few days after we moved our essentials into the apartment, so we were able to explore Irvine and even take the hour long trip to Hollywood to see some sites. Gabe and I will have many more chances to explore Los Angeles further, but what I first saw of Hollywood definitely made me cringe. I enjoyed seeing the Hollywood stars etched with names of famous actors and actresses, but the surrounding shops were dirty, grungy, and honestly a little scary sometimes. I was glad to leave and go to Rodeo Drive, which had dramatically different scenery. I came so close to buying a purse that was far too overpriced for its small size just so that I could say I bought something there. But $40 for a purse that can barely fit my phone? I still can’t do it.

You can tell there’s too much that I want to cover here since so much has happened between the time we left Pittsburgh over two weeks ago and now. Living in California is a big change in a lot of ways, but every night Gabe and I come home and have dinner together, like always. Although it was hard to say goodbye to our family, we’ve been restoring some normalcy and getting along pretty well, just as we have had to do in Springfield and in Pittsburgh.

And more details about Gabe’s internship will be coming later, but he’s loving it so far!