April 13, 2013 - Apartment Hunting

My brilliant method for looking for an apartment so far has been to:

1. Walk in a nearby shop with the word Real Estate in it
2. Search on 99acres.com (and send messages to the dealers using their system)
3. Map the address of an agency in several results on 99acres.com and walk there

Method 1 worked pretty well, getting me the possible “Orange County” apartment, 3-bedroom, fully furnished, for $550/month. Pretty good deal. However, there is a 2-month (at least) security deposit and 1-month finders fee. That’s 3 months rent worth of fees when I’m only going to be here 8 more months, not to mention I’ll have to pay for all my utilities and internet. There is still savings compared to my current place, no doubt, but not enough to make me take it right away.

So Method 2 confused me, implying that 30,000 rupees ($550) was way too much. Every search result was under that amount. My co-workers, however, told me that 30,000 was about what I would expect to pay and that the internet prices were just to get you in the door. (Incidentally, my co-workers quoted 25,000 for a 2-bedroom. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a one-bedroom apartment.) Sending messages to the dealers did get through, but not always as quickly as I hoped. I also learned that nothing was available in Sector 62 near my work, despite that I can SEE a lot of apartments there.

Method 3 has been the most interesting. I found the real estate agency called “Shubham Assocates” right where Google said it’d be and talked to some folk who spoke very little English but understood it pretty well. This led to the last 24 hours, which has involved all sorts of emotions like excitement and frustration and fear and confusion and fun. But I satisfied my curiosity. I’ve seen apartments in several societies now. My real estate guides were two twenty-something guys who took me from place to place on the back of their motorbikes. Notably, using this form of transportation did not stop them from taking cell phone calls from various apartment owners as they organized the venture, holding the phone in one hand while they steered, controlled the throttle, and braked with the other. My normal Delhi vehicle internal monologue of ohmygod, don’t hit that truck/car/auto/woman/motorbike/bicycle/dog/cow was a bit more persistent since a mistake would involve me in the hospital, not just me mildly injured or inconvenienced.

View from 14th Floor of “Exotica Elegance”

They couldn’t always get the keys to places they asked me to meet them at. But they didn’t like to tell me until I’d already walked through the 97-degree weather to the complex in question and waited about 20 minutes. That led to the “frustration” part of my emotions. They did always have a backup place in mind, though.

Problem is, I have not actually found one I liked yet. My favorite complex so far “ATS Advantage” right across the street only has “semi-furnished” apartments which means no beds, couches, or tables. I don’t want to deal with having to buy/sell furniture so that’s out. “Exotica Elegance” had cute, furnished apartments, but no TV and the gym looked like it was for storing, not using, exercise equipment, the ellipticals were so tightly packed. “V3S Indralok” was the cheapest by far at less than 20,000 ($330) but it was farther away and not in as nice a neighborhood. Not sure I’d be comfortable there. The other ones they showed me in Orange County were either not completely furnished or quite nearly as expensive as the original 30,000.

(They really wanted me to close a deal with them today or tomorrow morning. But the best offer they had was 22,000 for a mostly-furnished two bedroom. The only catch was… they hadn’t actually shown me that place, yet.)

So, apartments in Delhi… The ones I’m looking at are in “the best housing societies” in the area so theoretically pretty nice comparably. These societies all tend to be gated (with armed guards) and have several high-rises surrounding a park and a pool. The ones I looked had nice furniture, but oddly small living rooms, and thin mattresses. (I have yet to see a thick mattress in India.) None had bathtubs, but there were usually several bathrooms (with a variety of toilet cleanliness level). All the ones I looked at had not just one, but multiple balconies, and a special washroom by the kitchen. The lobbies, if you could call them that, had a functional feel – just concrete walls – and the elevators were slow and not very confidence inspiring; the fitness centers varied wildly. My favorite parts were the awesome views of the city from so high. These apartments are not the luxurious ones you might find in an ex-pat neighborhood in South Delhi – these are clearly used by Indian families. In short, they are just good enough to do the job for this picky American girl.

In other fun news, I got to go to another Indian Wedding! And this time, they did the Walking-Around-The-Fire (the real, final part of the marriage ceremony) before the buffet, so I got to see it! And I even got a spot near the front.

The wedding was for (breath) the Major’s daughter’s husband’s cousin. And it was colorful, large, and beautiful as always. A funny side issue was that I had a doctor’s appointment at 8am the next morning for my insurance, so I was required to fast for 12 hours beforehand. And of course, the buffet didn’t start until 9:30pm. But the Major’s wife was very insistent that the fast was really only meant to be *10* hours and made sure I ate plenty at the buffet right up until 10pm.

I’ve been continuing to avoid raw veggies – that I didn’t wash myself – and ice. But my attempt to avoid ice cream is simply not happening. I might get back on the wagon during the summer months, just because I know there will be more outages. I still amazingly have not gotten badly sick! I still expect it to happen any day as I’ve gradually become less careful.

This week is Navratri in India, a special nine-day festival with a lot of celebrations and, more to the point, special fasting rules. Some people avoid grains, meat, garlic, and onions. Others only consume fruit and milk for the whole nine days. Having a wedding buffet during this time meant they were also apparently obligated to provide a special “Navratri” version. Our cafeteria at work also has a special version of the usual choices for this festival. It is apparently a very big deal, but I didn’t even know about it (the reason being because I don’t get any days off work. I always notice the festivals which involve a day off work.) I’m eating my usual assortment of food.

Maybe I’ll try a sari next time…?

At any rate, it was perfect weather for this outdoor wedding (the food was indoors.) Instead of a receiving line, the bride and groom set themselves up on stage with a professional photographer. Then, everyone who comes through gets to greet the bride and groom AND have their photo taken with them. Good system!

When we went through, they asked where I was from and I told them. Then I said, “I came all the way from America just to come to this wedding,” and I got some laughs. “That’s a long way,” they said. They were really friendly. I’ve heard brides and grooms are usually exhausted by this point, but they looked good.

The Major was trying to help me solve my apartment problem. (He knows everyone!) He could offer me a comparably-priced place, but only one with a much longer commute, close to an hour. Not sure I can do that, but it was a very kind offer.

Even hanging in through the Turning On of The Air Conditioner

The oddest part of the very quick home medical test was the electrocardiogram thing. Felt vaguely like I was being hooked up to The Machine, with the suction cups and all. But otherwise, it all went smoothly.

I was very proud of myself this week. Every week at work, someone on our team does a “tech focus” where we talk about something cool we know or learned. It was my week. I’m bad at thinking of things, but I had a couple small ideas, nothing that was making me excited. Then the previous presenter gave me an idea and I went with it. I learned how to create a Browser Add-On! It took a couple web tutorials and a couple late nights, but I did it! I created a very silly add-on for Firefox.

If you’re curious, right-click Affirmations.XPI and do Save Link As… Then, once you have it saved, open Firefox and go to the Tools menu and choose Add-ons. Then drag the file into the window (or use the gear menu and choose Install Add-on From File) and you should get the pop-up asking if you want to install. Install. You may have to hit Enable after it is added to the list, then restart Firefox. You should then see a new item in the Tools menu called “Affirmations”. If you choose it, you’ll get a little encouraging pop-up message. (If you have View->Tools->Add-on bar checked, you will also see a new icon in the lower right corner that does the same thing.) Simple, silly, and not nearly as hard as I expected. Though apparently, doing the same thing in Internet Explorer would be horribly, terribly hard.

What makes Firefox Add-ons fun is that, if you want to change it, like to add additional inspirational messages, all you have to do is change .xpi to .zip (you may have to tell your computer to show you extensions), and look in the files yourself. The files needed for an add-on are only XML, HTML, Javascript, and CSS pretty much. Nothing super complicated; you can make any change you want in Notepad. Then change the file extension back to .xpi and re-drag to install it again. (Commercial add-ons are signed preventing you from making changes without re-signing, but mine ain’t signed.)