Making Progress

Monday September 20: When Brian’s alarm went off on Monday morning, there were nervous feelings in the air.  He had to check in wearing his Alpha uniform this morning and everything had to be just perfect on it.  His Staff Sergeant came to pick him up at 7:30 in the morning.  We were set to have a meeting with housing at 9:00 that morning, and they were just going to come back and pick me up before the meeting so I could be involved.  Time ticked on and finally a little after 9, I got a text message from Brian saying that we would be living on base at Camp Foster.  There had been some question as to whether we could live on base or not because the base Brian will be working on, Camp Kinser, had no vacancies in their housing.  Therefore, we were told we might have to find a place off base to live.  I don’t think anyone was too keen on that idea, it would have been so much more added stress to us that we just didn’t want to deal with.  Saying this, I was very relieved that we would be living on base!

Around lunch time, I was picked up by Brian and his Staff Sgt. to go eat lunch and then we were able to pick between two houses on Camp Foster to live in.

http://www.marines.mil/unit/mcbjapan/Pages/LivingOki/Housing.aspx

That's the website I will refer to (scroll to the very bottom and you will see pictures and floor plans).  The first place we looked at was a duplex.  It didn't look exactly like the picture though, it was only one story.  This one we got the key to, so we could look inside.  It was pretty nice; I was sold at that point.  There were hardwood floors, or fake hardwood.  The living room was a nice size and the kitchen was kind of small, but definitely bigger than our old one!  It had a dishwasher (not named Laura).  There was a washer and dryer already in it, which I thought we were going to have to buy our own, so that's nice.  There was a toilet, only a toilet off the side of the wash room.  Then there was a full bathroom and two bedrooms, as well as quite a few closets.  The rooms were carpeted I think.  Then there was a screened in porch and a semi-nice view.  It was only to the city, not the ocean which I obviously would have loved, and there was a shed out back.  We have to do our own yard work regardless.

The second one was in a multiplex thing.  And it actually looks like the picture, except I think there are about 6 apartments in the building.  We could only look through the windows of this one because they were cleaning today.  And the only window we were able to look through was the front living room window.  From what we could see, it looked much newer than the duplex.  It was carpeted, I could see that there was a window from the kitchen looking into the living room, and I could also see the washer and dryer in there.  In the back there is a porch area, not screened in, but there is a privacy cement divider thing that is encircling the whole area, if that makes sense.  There will still be two bedrooms and the Staff Sgt. said there is one bathroom upstairs and then a half bath probably downstairs near the kitchen.

So, we decided on the multiplex because it was closer than the other one to where Brian will work, it looked newer, and it would have been hit or miss with the duplex neighbor, if they were crappy then it really would have sucked.  It won't suck as bad in the multiplex we don't think.  We should be moving in on Friday.

This Wednesday we have to go to a Newcomers meeting where they will give lots of information about the island.  We should also be getting our licenses soon as well as purchasing cars so that we will have more freedom to explore our new home without the hassle of taxis!!