I’ve made it back to California. The journey was eerie. I only came across a handful of people while I took two buses and a train to get to the airport.

I thought I had read something about Air New Zealand reducing the number of passengers on flights in order to spread people out more. That certainly wasn’t the case with my flight; it was full as far as I could tell.

I took a Lyft from the airport to my Airbnb. Again, it was eerie to see everything so empty.

Driving on the freeway was a different story. I was shocked to see so many people still out and about. I think that’s subsided a little bit over the past couple weeks, though I haven’t been on a freeway since then.

I started apartment hunting earlier this week. I had really good luck with my last two apartments: I basically found them within a day or two of my initial search.

My new one was no different. Over the weekend I made a ranked list of ~30 apartments I was interested in, then I started contacting them for “tours.”

Touring apartments in this era is… weird but fun? I’ve had FaceTime and Skype tours to “see” the apartments: the agents would walk through the apartment to show its features, then we’d chat about any other questions I had. I don’t quite know how to describe using FaceTime with someone you don’t know.

The last apartment I “toured” on Tuesday was in-person… where “in-person” means they disinfected the apartment and left the door unlocked, then I was able to go in and look around while on the phone with them. I showed up to the leasing office to get a map of the complex; to maintain distance, they kept their doors locked and slid the map through the crack of the door while we talked on the phone.

I knew I liked the apartment from what I saw online, and seeing it in person made me fall in love. I applied on Tuesday night and got approved the next day (yesterday). I’m picking up the keys and moving in tomorrow. 😃