Photo by Wellington Rodrigues
Hello everyone, I am Armen Haroyan. I want to start a blog about my experience in the US as a permanent resident. The blog is going to be in English, and as it is not my native language, it is not going to be perfect, anyway :)
I moved to the US with a Green Card in 2018 from Armenia and want to share my experience with all of you, especially the ones that gonna have similar experience.
Few words about me, I am 29, born in raised in Armenia, now married, have a wonderful son, almost 4. I am a web developer enthusiast with 10 years of experience with PHP and web development, 4 years of experience with managing/leading/supervising technical teams. I have experience with startups, and was able to grow 2 startups from 0 to profitable state. I like competitive gaming, mostly like multiplayer games. Yup, that's me :)
I will not cover all the processes before entering the US, like the paperwork needed for the Embassy interview in home country, preparing for interview, buying tickets, etc. because it can be different based on country from which you are moving to the US.
I always wanted to live in Los Angeles, very attractive as seen in movies, perfect weather, biggest Armenian community and many memories. I visited my relatives few times before, and I loved this place.
I stood in the US in June, arrived at the LAX airport. I already knew where I was going to stay for a month until I find an apartment for rent, so I found a taxi right there in the airport and arrived to my hotel.
This was the first mistake I did in the US :)
If you need a local transportation, and you don't have a car, the answer is Uber. You can also try Lyft, which is basically the same thing, but I went with Uber. So for the taxi that I got from the airport, I paid $95! And later, when I checked with Uber, it would cost me only $45 with UberX. So basically I payed twice the price.
I arrived to Days Inn which is the name of the hotel, and I payed $120 for 1 night. Good part with this hotel is that it had another hotel in the same building which was called Extended Stays, and you can stay there paying monthly, and compared to Airbnb or other hotels, it is SUPER cheap. I payed $1600 for 1 month for 2 double beds, which is considered cheap in my area. I also had to pay $1400 security deposit, which was returned to me in next week after I left the Extended Stays. The down part of this place was that the room had no kitchen, so we had to bring food from outside or just dine outside. But it was totally worth it.