What is this blog post all about (aka tl;dr)?
This post covers our first two weeks in Berkeley, California and
includes our struggles to find reasonable housing, a car, pitfalls with
Visa requirements, how to get a driving license, and generally how to
start a new life in the US - if all you have fits into a bag plus 1
piece of hand luggage (per person).
Day 0 (August 20st): flight from Zurich to Philadelphia to Phoenix to Oakland
When planning our emigration from Switzerland a couple of months ago we
booked the cheapest flights to Berkeley that were in a reasonable time
frame. US Airways had great flights to Oakland (OAK) airport from
Zurich (ZRH) via Philadelphia (PHL) and Phoenix (PHX). The flight from
ZRH to PHL was uneventful; US Airways is a cheap airline that has no
entertainment system whatsoever on the other hand if you carry a good
bock or a tablet the time passes quickly. A couple of years ago US
Airways decided to remove all the in flight entertainment systems to cut
down on costs. In my opinion this was a great idea as more and more
people bring their tablets (with preloaded movies and series) and no
longer need the entertainment system anyways. Plus on my flight from ZRH
to San Francisco (SFO) with Swiss Airlines earlier this year the
screen was broken on my seat and on the way back the entertainment
system was not working for the complete economy part of the plane.
When we landed in PHL we had to wait around 90 minutes for immigration
plus an additional 60 minutes at security; the immigration was smooth
but we ended up missing our flight to PHX our bags unfortunately made it
to the flight. The transfer guys at the US Airways desk did a great job
and rerouted us on the same day to SFO instead. We were told that the
bags will be delivered soon - but this is a different chapter.
After arriving at our hotel, the Piedmont House we discovered that
this hostel has no reception and is basically some sort of frat house
for weird people. A bunch of guys and girls are living there together
without any organisation whatsoever. When you "check in" you can grab
some keys from the key board and then try to find your room. The
online advertisement looked good, the pictures were nice, and the self
check-in sounded like a great idea (I assumed some online system that
would hand us a room card when entering) but our expectations were a bit
too high. Just so you can relate: I consider myself a traveler and I
have stayed in a fair share of shabby hostels without much troubles but
Piedmont House is pretty bad.
The house and the rooms are very old, smelly, and the bathrooms are sub
par (i.e., there are two showers for 10 rooms or so but only one shower
works, the other shower stall is used as storage for old lamps and
stuff). The house features a shared kitchen as well; watch out: if you
store food in one of the shared fridges it might disappear plus there
are rats (and mouse traps) in the kitchen. Unfortunately we booked a
double room for one week. As we were arriving in the first week before
the new semester all hotel rooms in the area were booked and the hotels
tripled their prices, yet I would still advise you to stay in a
different hotel, with a friend, or just sleep in the park! We were
trying to get hold of somebody (i.e., the owner or some staff) to tell
them that we were expecting our bags from the airline but no luck. We
managed to tell them the next day that we were expecting bags but nobody
of the staff seemed to care. Later when we were reunited with our bags
we found out that the US Airways delivery guy tried to deliver the bags
twice and nobody answered the door nor did anybody answer the phone
number that is listed on the Piedmont House contact page. That's what I
call a shitty hostel!
Day 1 (August 21st): a brave new world (and apartment)
This was the time when Lumi (nickname of my wife Anna Barbara) hit rock
bottom the first time: the combination of new country, immigration,
loosing our bags, a crappy shabby 'hostel' room, and disgusting shower
stalls. As soon as we had breakfast we started looking for an apartment
in the area.
The areas we considered were Berkeley (obviously), Emeryville,
Oakland, Albany, and El Cerrito. Berkeley is a very vibrant
student city and offers everything you need. South of the UC you find
all the student housing, fraternity parties, cheap eats, and Telegraph
avenue with lots of shops and food options. West of the UC you find the
so called gourmet ghetto with even more food options and a couple of
hotels and motels along University avenue. Prices for a 1 bed room
apartment are around 1300 to 2000 plus there is a huge competition when
you look for an apartment (an owner told us that he got 60 calls in 2
hours for one apartment; 10 people would sign the contract without even
looking at the apartment). Emeryville is south of Berkeley and a 3 to
6 mile commute to the UC and housing is a little cheaper. If you like an
all inclusive resort: have a look at the Watergate community, they
offer swimming pools, tennis courts, and whirl pools all included in the
rent. Unfortunately no free apartment was available when we were
looking. Oakland is even further from Berkeley and comes with a 4 to
10 mile commute to the UC; if you want to live there you should consider
taking the BART or the Bus. Apartment prices are even cheaper but
the area can be a bit dodgy, so watch out. Albany is a small village
north-west of Berkeley and comes with a 3 to 4 mile commute to the UC.
Albany offers many shops, restaurants, pubs, and other small village
perks around Solano avenue and San Pablo avenue. El Cerrito is a bit
further up north from Albany and comes with a 4 to 8 mile commute to the
UC.
If you want to find something in the bay area that is not new you will
have to check out craigslist. Craigslist is like an online black
board with millions of postings and listings. You can get everything on
craigslist from second hand toasters, to bikes, to cars, up to
apartments. We looked at more than 200 apartment listings in the areas
described above, sent more then 20 emails to the different owners,
called around 10 owners, got 5 appointments, and looked at two
apartments. All on one day. The market is very competitive and you have
to sweet talk people into leasing you the apartment right away. We
decided quickly to get the second apartment we looked at, stuck around
after the showing, and settled the lease with the property manager
(including handing over the cashiers check for the deposit and the down
payment) before the others could even hand in their possible application
for the apartment. The 2 bed room apartment we got is in Albany and the
commute to UC is around 3.2 miles plus there is a bus stop right in
front of the apartment. Good news: we can move in on Sunday (in 5 days).
A note on transportation: public transportation in the bay area is
reasonable (good compared to other areas in the US, bad compared to
Switzerland). Caltrain (a commuter train) connects San Francisco with
San Jose; BART (a light railway) connects both international
airports, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Richmond. AC Transit (a bus
line) connects the cities on the east bay.
Day 2 (August 22nd): organizing a ride
No matter how good public transport is you'll still need a car in the
US. In Zurich we were able to live without a car for the last 10 years
but the distances are just longer here in the US and even for basic
tasks like grocery shopping, going to a workout, or going to the movies
you'll need a car. Our plan was to get the smallest car possible and we
set ourselves a budget of 4k$ for a used car with less than 150k miles
and not older than 10 years or <10k$ for the smallest new car that we
could find. We talked to a couple of friends and I read tons of online
posts about the topic and the chime was: never buy a used car at a used
car dealer. They basically offer the same guarantees as private sellers
but they add 1k$ to the private and they will tell you anything (aka
they are professional liars). That's why we started with craigslist.
Generally we followed this great checklist on how to buy a used car
and we used Autocheck to check the VIN numbers of all the cars we
looked at. The VIN number shows the registered mileage, any accidents
the car was in, and other general information that helps you make up
your mind about the price.
It was actually harder than expected to find a car that met
our criteria (<10 years old, <150k miles, <4k$) but finally we found a
Mazda Protege from 2001 with 138k miles for 2650$ and a Toyota Corolla
from 1999 for 3500$. We called both guys and organized test drives on
the next day.
This afternoon our bags finally arrived. I had to call US Airways a
couple of times until I got to the right person and I was then told that
they already tried to deliver the bags twice but nobody picked up the
phone at our hotel and that nobody would answer the door. Luckily I got
a very understanding and friendly person on the other end and she
organized a third delivery of our bags. I waited on the veranda until we
were finally reunited with our bags. Thanks again Piedmont House for not
answering the phone nor opening the door when a delivery guy comes by.
Day 3 (August 23rd): banking troubles (1) and meeting our ride Marvin
As we were slowly running low on dollars we tried to wire money (10k$)
from Switzerland to our Wells Fargo account and asked a Wells Fargo
banker to write down the wiring instructions for our checking account.
From an earlier fraudulent charge I ended up with two checking accounts,
one with the money and one with 0$ in it. We closed the account with 0$
and found out afterwards that the banker gave us the wiring information
for the checking account with 0$ in it. The wire ended up somewhere in
the air, Wells Fargo removes 72$ from the 10k$ and sent the money back
where we payed the conversion fees twice (CHF to USD and USD to CHF) and
we basically lost 250$ in this transaction thanks to confusing
information from a Wells Fargo banker. Compared to Europe the US banking
system is completely broken; everything relies on checks and money
transfers between banks is completely inconvenient and a huge hassle.
Another huge problem is that the average banker (at any bank) is just a
trained monkey. The bankers will lie to your face and tell you any
misinformation they want just to 'help' you. All of them are very
friendly and sound kind of competent. But different bankers contradict
whatever the previous banker said. As a banker in the US you don't need
any training, education, or you don't even need a clue what's going on.
For example, I had a life-long-free-account and I got a fraudulent
charge on my debit card. Instead of just issuing a new debit card (with
a new number) banker A decided to sign me up for a new checking and new
savings account that is no longer free as there was no way of issuing a
new card with a new number according to her. That's how I ended up with
2 savings and 2 checking accounts in the first place. She told me that
the account would be free and she would set up some transfers and get
everything ready. Banker B told me that we can close the old bank
accounts so that I only have one checking and saving account each left
(shortly thereafter the wire arrived and we lost our 250$). Banker C
then told me that Banker's A and B were full of shit and that we could
have kept the other free accounts. Some bankers told us that we can use
our European Maestro (EC) cards to withdraw money, others told us we
couldn't. Basically no two banker told us the same consistent story or
information. This makes it very hard to trust the US banking system as
Wells Fargo appears to be one of the better banks. My conclusion: never
leave too much money in the US, transfer as much as possible back to
your home accounts where banking is a serious business and not just a
joke.
On the afternoon we had our appointment with Jason to test drive the
first car. We liked the stick shift Mazda Protege from the start, the
car was in good shape and the test drive went smooth. One of the most
important things when buying a second hand car is to bring it to a
mechanic and after reading the Yelp reviews we decided to go to
Steve's Auto Care in El Cerrito. We didn't have an appointment and
Steve told us that we were a bit too late and that he couldn't do a full
check, yet he looked at the cor for almost 30 minutes and gave us great
information about the state of the car and what to expect. That's when
we decided that whenever we had any repairs we would go to Steve! In the
end we decided that we would buy the Mazda as it was a good deal and we
both liked the car. We scheduled to hand over the money in cash on the
next day as the amount was low enough not to bother about a cashiers
check.
Day 4 (August 24th): happy birthday
Today was my wife's birthday and I surprised here with breakfast in bed
with some cake and a nice card. After breakfast I started calling
different people. We organized home renter insurance for our apartment,
car insurance for our new car so that we could drive from Jason's house
to our apartment. Geico was the insurer of our choice for both the
car insurance and the home insurance as they offered a reasonable deal
and coverage (around 250$ each). After covering the insurance we got
ourselves appointments at the DMV for our written driving tests - the
international driving licence is not accepted in the US and you need to
redo both the written and the behind-the-wheel test. After sorting out
all our telephone calls we went on an online shopping spree on Amazon
prime and bought router, modem, and other stuff to start up our digital
life.
In the afternoon we celebrated Lumi's birthday by going to the movies
and watching Brave. Later we took the BART to Jason and finally bought
our car - we named him Marvin and parked him in the garage of our
apartment.
Day 5 (August 25th): the lush life
In the last couple of days we were able to find an apartment and to buy
a car, we deserved a day off! We slacked around for a bit, walked around
on the campus, and went to an all you can eat pizza place near Telegraph
avenue. Afterwards we went to the movies again. I guess we deserved it!
Day 6 (August 26th): moving in
In the US you can actually move in on Sundays. We were very happy to
leave crappy Piedmont House and took the bus to our new apartment.
Unfortunately we got quite an unpleasant surprise: the apartment was not
cleaned by the previous tenant. The whole place was quite yucky, the
kitchen and bathroom floors were not cleaned and very sticky, the
shelves very dirty, or there was left over stuff in there as well, the
stove and oven were super dirty and sticky. We taught hard what we
should do and in the end we decided to go to Target to buy cleaning
material and to clean the floor and some of the shelves and cupboards we
use. We just put all the baking trays and all other stuff that was
laying around into a cupboard and closed it until we move out. That's
when Lumi hit rock bottom the second time. For our safety we took lots
of pictures so that the owner cannot complain if we do not clean the
apartment when we move out.
In the morning we bought a GPS navigation system for our car - these
things are so convenient! In the afternoon we went to Ikea and bought
all the basic kitchen stuff, a mattress, a table, a couch table and lots
of other small things. Until late at night we spent our time building
all the stuff we bought and I even managed to wreck our living room
table by turning in the screws so tight that they came out at the top
end.
First week recap:
We managed to move out of the worst youth hostel ever without getting
any diseases (I was bitten a couple of times by something that lived in
the mattress), we found a place to stay, we bought a car, we got the
apartment cleaned up and made it livable. If you are interested in how
much money you'll need for the start: apartment 2000-4000$ deposit and
first week, car 2000-4000$, furniture and basic appliances: 1000-2000$.
Day 7 (August 27th): building a place to live
We went to Ikea again to buy a second table plus more chairs. This way
we can use the wrecked table as a desk in the second bedroom and if we
have many guests we can put both tables together. Our next item on the
list was to go to Target and buy all the basic food stuff that we need.
We spent the rest of the day building, constructing, and cleaning.
The sad part of this day was that our Swiss Mastercard was blocked. The
fraud protection kicked in when we tried to buy furniture from Ikea the
second time. I had to call the emergency number to get the card
reactivated.
Day 8 (August 28th): the written DMV test
We assumed that we have an appointment but you have to wait at the DMV
even if you have an appointment (for 30 minutes - if you don't have an
appointment than you have to wait up to 3 hours). The written driving
exam was a peace of cake. We learned for about 3 hours each and Lumi
aced the test, I had one mistake (6 mistakes are allowed).
In the afternoon we went to another shopping spree and bought our couch
at Target and a huge amount of other stuff online: a bike to commute to
UC, a TV from Woot, and a bed box from Walmart.
Day 9 (August 29th): getting settled and meeting the gang
While I had to attend one of the most boring meetings ever Lumi had fun
with the Comcast guy who installed our internet access. As part of the
J1 visa I had to attend the mandatory visa information meeting. If you
don't attend this meeting then you don't get authorization to travel
outside the US during your postdoc. As this was my second time as a J1
the meeting did not yield any additional information for me and I just
had to sit it out.
I thought that I could visit the other postdocs and PhD students while I
was at Berkeley. During lunch I met with the security reading group and
got to know some interesting people.
Day 10 (August 30th): meeting Mario and family
This was the first time we tried to do sports here in the US. We went
running but the GPS did not pick up a signal until we finished our
track. We found some spots with a great view over the bay area. Later
that night we were invited by Mario and his family to have dinner at
their place. What a wonderful and chilling night.
Day 11 (August 31st): trying to work
Our last Ikea and Walmart trip. We bought the last couple of things we
forgot the last times and completed our furniture.
Day 12 (September 1st): beautify the apartment and checking out the nightlife
Lumi started painting the walls and beautifying our apartment while I
tried to work a couple of hours. After almost 1 1/2 months of holidays
it's kind of hard to get back into "work mood". After work we went
bowling to our local bowling alley. Later that night we found out
that it is kind of hard to get food in the US after 10pm if you are not
driving around. Sizzlers, Taco Bell, and McDonalds all close between 9pm
and 10pm for walk-in customers. On the other hand the Taco Bell and
McDonalds drive-ins are open all night long. We actually have to get
used to this kind of mentality.
Second week recap:
We started making the apartment livable, built all of our furniture,
passed the written DMV test, got internet access, went to the Visa
information meeting, and had a meeting with other post docs. This week
was kind of productive and we managed to get settled in our new home.
Conclusion: so far, so good
We had a hard start, got lucky with the apartments and the car and
managed to play our cards well. Our experience shows that you need at
least one week to organize an apartment and a car. The second week is
optional and helps to construct all the furniture and to get settled in.
During your first two weeks you have to accept to hit rock bottom once
or twice - the culture shock combined with a huge list of stuff that you
need to do can be demanding and tough, but you'll get over it. Plan well
and it will end well.
One of the things we have to get used to around here is that the culture
is so different: everything is built on the cheap and optimized for low
cost of ownership combined with high current costs. Apartments have no
isolation but gas heating, cars are cheap but need more fuel per
distance compared to European cars.
We have settled for the next year and we are ready for visitors. We
already partially explored the area but there is still lots to see and
we are always happy about people who join us!