Living in the Bay Are -- 2 (On cliches and more)

I don't really have any earth shaking observations about life here except that the cliches we hear about the bay area are mostly true!

Buying house here is crazy! A million is not sufficient to buy a simple 3 Bedroom/2 Bath house in a good school district in Santa Clara county (Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View). This translates to a house that is about 200k - 300k in Alpharetta or even lower in Lexington. A recent townhome with a bedroom and a bath on each of the 3 levels sold for 1.275 million in cash. Stop and think about that for a second. IN CASH! So yeah, the cliche about housing in the bay area is true.

The house care/nanny situation also is pretty terrible. We had a baby sitter who was great in Lexington for $7/hr -- a high school student who made Rads toe the line but while doing fun stuff with her. Here, for $14/hr, you might get a baby sitter/house keeper who will last a full two months if you are really lucky.

Everyone talks about how finding a Carnatic music teacher or a dance teacher here would be simple given the desi population here. Well, that's one cliche that's not true. I have seen 3 teachers already and each did not work out for various reasons. I also thought none of them matched the quality/price of the teacher Radhika had in Alpharetta. The search continues.

The tech scene here is really that awesome. Perks are excellent and sometimes, you really wake wondering if it is all a dream.

The weather is great but I'll wait till winter to confirm that :)

More people time. Be it family, friends that live here locally or visit the bay area, there is never a dearth of hanging out with folks. The loneliness that I experienced in Alpharetta does not exist here.

Definitely more things to do. There are so many days when I have googled and found nothing to do with kids on a given day without driving an hour out in both Lex and Alpharetta. That is definitely not the case here. Plenty of child friendly outdoor and indoor things to do and I don't have to drive to SFO to find them!

I feel like there is much less down time in the bay area but can't place my finger on whether the perception is due to a lack of sleep, 2 kids or something else. Stay tuned for life in the bay area updates!

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