Living in DC, I am used to having to schmooze, charm, and finagle your way into the landlord's good graces so that he/she will deign to rent to you. I also know something about paying a lot for small spaces. Or sacrificing comfort (such as slightly lower ceilings in our current place) for location. That said, New York is a whole other ball game.
First, there are brokers fees (where you can't rent the apartment without paying someone up to 15% of the annual rent just for the privilege of signing a lease). There are the bait and switch scams: You see a nice apartment and then find out it's unavailable BUT, the rat infested postage stamp is free for the same amount. And, of course, there's the whole size issue . . . I'm still flabbergasted by how people live in some of those spaces. But, of course, it's all worth it to live in the greatest city in the world, right? Right.
I knew that the apartment-finding process was probably going to be frustrating and tedious. And, I wanted to make sure that I brought the right things to get me through the weekend. We were going to be on our feet for most of the day, while we explored neighborhoods. So, comfort was key. But, we knew we would be meeting up with friends for dinner so we needed to look semi-presentable. To top it all off, we were trying to pack light since we knew that we might be carrying all of our stuff with us if we went to see apartments on our last day (which actually happened).
This is what we fit into one suit bag and a tote:
(the striped dress I own is actually this one and I highly recommend it)
P.S. we did end up finding the PERFECT apartment at the last minute. Literally, we saw the apartment at 11, signed all the paperwork by 12 and still managed to navigate our way through the Pride parade in time to make our 1 o'clock bus. We were a sweaty mess but at least we looked cute :) )
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