I'm not superstitious, honest

Really, I'm not. I don't hesitate to walk under ladders, I don't avoid black cats, and I have opened any number of umbrellas inside the store to see how they work. And I know, I don't breathe when I go under an underpass, but that's not so much a superstition as a sort of weird habit.

But I really, truly believe that we haven't found an apartment in SB yet because we keep telling people about them before we have actually signed anything.

Finding an apartment in Grenoble was (comparatively) easy. I scoured the housing ads and websites until I found Elsa's ad, went and visited, fell in love with the place, TOLD ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT, gave her my deposit, and moved in. But here? In the months before we got here we saw any number of perfectly acceptable places that we didn't or couldn't rent. Then a few weeks before I got back Susanna found a nice place on Pasado and talked to the people renting it, who told her that she didn't have to sign anything but that we could have the place and come sign the paperwork when I got back, that they'd call her first if anyone showed any interest. So we got all excited and told all sorts of people, and I the day after I get here we go in to sign the papers and are told that someone had rented it the day before. Since then this same thing has happened at least three times.

Today I gave her permission to forge my signature on a lease for any place she thinks is appropriate. That way she won't even have to tell me about any place she finds.

(In other news, I'm back in Santa Barbara, and I absolutely love it.)