The summary: Umbra and I went to Portland the past weekend and picked out an apartment. Today (technically yesterday) I got a call saying we were approved and just had to get the holding fee/safety deposit in real quick and it'd be ours for the taking when we move.

EDIT:
Alright, so, the story.

We'd planned to go up to Portland Saturday to look at the apartments we were considering. Before we even went, we took some off the list due to distance - driving in Portland is ridiculous. It's not just heavy traffic, some of the streets are actually pretty retarded in setup, and the drivers seem fairly clueless about road safety/etiquette (don't cross the freaking intersection until you know there's room for you, so you don't block traffic!). So we wanted to be close to the school (Art Institute of Portland).

We ended up not having work that Friday, so we thought, hey, lets go Friday and keep our weekend more intact. So after work Thursday night, we got our info together. Since neither of us really felt tired though (even though Umbra had worked both jobs that day), we ended up setting out 2:30 Friday morning. Umbra got us about halfway (it's about a 4-hour trip, btw) before he needed to sleep; still not being tired, I took over driving and got us about there, Umbra took back over at a rest stop about 20 miles before the city.

Since the school is around the main urban area, we already were a bit worried about prices - we had found very little within our price range. But a bigger problem cropped up: due to restrictions in the income-based program the complexes all had, they could not rent a studio to two full-time students (wtf?), they could only rent a significantly more expensive 1-bedroom that pushed above our affordability limit.

After the 3rd (kinda 4th) time hitting this problem (and being told that pretty much ALL of them were in that program), and out of addresses for apartment complexes (as well as having no way to check online fore more, thanks to forgetfulness), we were seriously thinking we'd end up spending the night in the car in Portland and taking 2 days to find a place.

But that last one had suggested we check their neighbor, who they didn't know the price for, but believed weren't in that program. Before checking it (actually, might have been after...), we stopped in the car to try to figure things out. The way both our lives have gone thus far, I was able to muster just barely enough certainty to say, "Something's gonna happen that'll make everything work out." Something always has. Sitting there, we figured that, hey, we weren't going to be "two full time students" for at least another 6 months, which would be long enough for us fulfill any contract we might have to sign and find another apartment to move to when it became necessary.

The neighbor's lowest rate was above our range. But, they worked with another building in the downtown area. I checked the map - it was near the school, the library, the giant book store, the grocery store, pretty much everything we'd need. So much convenience... but surely something would make it not work. We tried anyway... They weren't in the program, and were quite willing to rent a studio to two full-time students, for a cost just within our range, and no contracts. It's not the prettiest building, and all the locks does make one question safety, but the lady we talked to claimed she'd never had a problem, never had a resident have any problem with crime or violence... Then again, how could they with 3 locks before your even reach your apartment door and chicken wire in the windows? It's also really tiny, of course, but hey - it works. And it's ours!

The rest of the trip involved a visit to a woman who's like a mother to Umbra, sleeping in the car (yeah, did it anyway, just not in Portland), a 3-pound burger (just counting the patty, not the bun, veggies, cheese, ham, or egg also on it), the loss of the left side-view mirror, and lots of driving. Oh, so much driving...