4 pm on Saturday. We've spent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and today looking for apartments/houses. The system here is very different. You look online to find some places you think you might like. You call the real estate company to arrange an "open inspection" - except you're totally at their mercy! They tell you when to be there, e.g. January 12th, 2:30-2:40. If you arrive at 2:45, no one will be there (believe me, this happened once). When you get there at 2:30, you know instantly that you're in the right place because there are 20 other random people sitting/standing around on the front lawn. The real estate agent arrives at 2:30 sharp, you do a walk through, and then grab an application if you want. THE APPLICATIONS ARE 4 PAGES LONG! They also have to be filled out by each person over 18 who will be living there. Jeremy has appointed me official application filler outter, so that's 8 pages. You also have to be quick. Today we found two apartments that we loved. We got the applications, filled them out ASAP, jumped in the car and went to the appropriate real estate office, and someone had beat us to it! We had wasted no time at all! They only accept about 4 applications for each property and ours was one of the 4...so I guess we'll see.

Only 5 days here and we've already devised a system. Go to the real estate office before the showing and grab an application. Fill it out completely. We have made photocopies of the gazillions of things they need (passports, bank statements, drivers licenses, Jeremy's acceptance letter, etc etc etc) as well as a written cover letter explaining our situation. Go to the place, and if we like it, hand in the already completed application with our photocopied package to the real estate agent. We perfected it today.

They don't let you cheat, either! Yesterday, we went to see a house that has an open inspection Jan 12th. We decided to go early and liked what we saw, so headed to the agent's office to fill in an application. The girl had just taken our papers when she clued in and asked if we had seen the property. We said yes, we had seen it that day. But no...no...we have to go during the OFFICIAL time or they won't accept our applications. WTF!!!!!!! Oh well. We have it all sorted out now and will be there Monday with our applications and photocopies in hand. Cross your fingers for us - it's a 3 bedroom house in the perfect area and those of you coming to visit would definitely benefit!

Sorry for the boring-ish update. Such is my life the last few days. Tomorrow = day of rest!