Hello again! There are so many things to share since my last post, so let me start with the biggest update: I made the cross-continental leap from East Coast to West Coast and will be posting from Los Angeles from here on!
The move went pretty smoothly, but it's not quite complete... Most of our stuff is actually in storage in NY and will follow us here once we move into a permanent apartment in early August. Our cars arrived here separately via truck, in one piece! (The various minor bumps/scratches accumulated from tight, NYC parallel parking "squeezes" are still there - right where we left them!) For now, we are staying at Ruti's parents' place in Central LA. (Because Ruti's parents live here, we decided to do apartment-hunting post-move. More on the apartment question in a bit...)
Here are some pics of the move. First, a pic of just how much stuff we hauled onto the plane. I bet that if I strung together all these bags/items in a carefully arranged sequence, I could spell out my brand-new, lengthy Anderson email address: [email protected] !!
Side note: We chose to fly Virgin America because they charge a flat $25 rate for each checked item, compared to the other carriers which slap you around with massive incremental fees for each additional item.
Once we made it to the airport with all our stuff and triple checked that we had everything (we counted Yonatan as item #13), we were ready to board after a short wait.
Landing at LAX was awesome. We've flown here many times, but this was a one-way ticket! We watched as the carousel belched out in quick succession one item after another of our checked-in baggage - 8 items in all!
Our ride was waiting for us at the airport, and once we loaded up the van with everything, we hit the road. As we spiralled and snaked our way out of the airport and onto the open, sun-soaked road, the reality hit me: I'm in LA to stay! I filmed this on my phone, and want to share this important experience with you in a short 45 second clip. (Note: I do not have any video editing experience, so please bear with me here!)
A lot of steps (e.g., late nights, early mornings, extra coffee runs, regrettably felled and pulped trees for heaps and mounds of gmat scrap paper, infosessions, informational interviews, webcasts, research, campus visits, and crossed fingers) led up to this moment, but still, we could call this an important beginning of my Anderson experience.
So what happens next? First, we already found an apartment after just a few days of searching! We chose to look in the Central LA area for a couple of reasons. Yes, it's not in the hot spots in West LA, but 1- Ruti's parents live right there and we will be relying on some of their help with Yonatan, who just turned 14 months. 2- There's a large Jewish community in Central LA with synagogues, kosher food and other conveniences. 3- It's a beautiful area not too far from campus (~7 miles, 25 min. w/traffic drive, 45 min. bike ride) and also convenient to spots all over LA including Downtown, Hollywood, Wilshire, West LA and other spots.
In between looking for apartments, unpacking, and settling down, I have been spending quality time with Ruti and Yonatan, because we know how busy things will be in a few months. I have also had the opportunity to meet up with some awesome Anderson students in the area! Here's a pic of me and fellow '16 student Zafeer Khan enjoying kosher Thai at Beverly Hills Thai, shortly after Zafeer signed his apartment lease (see more details on Zafeer's recent blog post here)!
I have also been busy following the huge tech startup scene here in LA and Silicon Beach (see Britney Sussman's new blog post on this topic), and will tell you more about these experiences and much more in future posts!
Best,
Asher
Follow me on twitter here, and also follow UCLAMBA. You can also catch me on LinkedIn here.
