Our New Area

So, when we arrived in Edmonton we had expected to find an aparent in three days. Three days would have been enough time had we come after the civic holiday, but as we forgot about it, we ended up having to wait out the long weekend before we could even begin viewings. That ended up working to our favour, as we got to explore different areas of our beautiful new city and aquatint ourselves with them. My favourite area was Southgate, for the awesome upscale mall and pretty houses and condos. Unfortunately, out of the 20 apartments available to us, none of them were cat friendly. Although a friend tells me she knows people with cats who live in Southgate, school just started and a lot of the apartments recently available we're taken by the students who lost their homes when a local boarding school closed its doors.

 Old Strathcona was an exciting urben oasis, full of little boutiques, dellicitessons, patisiaries, theaters and pubs. Much as I enjoyed two days there, I think that the atmosphere was a little too young and happening for us to live in. I will be back to visit the awesome vegan markets and boutiques though.

Downtown was just far too big and busy to live in! The buildings towering and business people dominating the sidewalks and streets gave my head a buzz just driving through it! But the areas just on the outskirts were lovely, surrounded by the lush river valley and backdropped with the beautiful Edmonton skyline.
 We ended up taking an unlikely apartment in the beautiful older neighbourhoods of Forest Heights. This area boasts safety, being south of the river, and was close to a lot of stores I felt were essential.

 Even more important is that the river valley trail is a five minute walk from my house, making my morning run a scenic one. Older trees tower over the streets here, and the down town core is close enough to access when I need to. Below are some pictures of the trail, and the bridge that takes me to the downtown core. 

 

Our apartment is not ready yet, so we are staying in the two bedroom managers suite for ten days while the floors are being redone. We got a one bedroom apartment with carpet only in the bedroom, which was a must for us that was hard to find. The kitchen area is retro, but in a sweet way, the bedroom has a rather unique built in that I thought was artistic, I'm just hoping they don't paint over the retro bird wall paper that would be so in right now!

As for right now, we have the bare necessities, a new bed (on order), new dishes and a few things to put in them. Mitsy Moo-Moo hid in some open vents, in the managers suite, on day one, then woke Doug up that night fighting to get a ziplock bag off her face! She had tried to steel treats in the night again!!! She's been having a harder transition here.