I totally get this, I have been working one full-time and one part-time job, seven days a week since January, have been involved in a labour dispute (lucky that second job opportunity came along when it did) and am being laid off from the primary job at the end of May. In February, when the cheap tickets to Iceland came to my city, I booked them as sort of a bribe to myself (if you don't quit this job, you can afford to go on this trip!) And now I'm five days away from going and it's really hard to not feel selfish and ridiculous. I should be saving that money for after I lose the full-time job! I should be going somewhere less expensive! (never mind that I got tickets on a deep deep discount and am staying at a hostel with a kitchen and avoiding expensive tours). My family never took "vacations" when I was little and I think that the idea of Needing A Vacation = Weakness was therefore ingrained in me from an early age (even though I need a vacation, for real). This has happened to me almost every time I've booked a trip in the past couple years, but I never regret taking the trip once it's done...

If the idea of booking a longer getaway is stressing you out, are you able to take the time off in little chunks rather than all at once? Especially in the summer, sometimes a long weekend is enough to come back to your work refreshed and might help you feel less panicked about leaving your lab (especially if you go to a cabin or a beach two hours away rather than somewhere further afield).

I also like to keep in mind something a counsellor told me when I was planning a trip to the East Coast after quitting a crappy restaurant job a few years ago - that vacation is not only valuable for the time you spend on the vacation, it is also valuable for the time you spend looking forward to it and the memories that you keep from it afterwards.

Also, look into local rental laws and customs. I live in Quebec which has some slightly different customs and laws from other places I've lived. For instance, the vast majority of leases start and end on July 1 (which is as inconvenient as you think it is). Instead of a 1 bedroom apartment, you look for a 3.5 (the number of rooms is in the listing, with bathrooms listed as a "half"), It's not typical for apartments to come with appliances (fridge, stove, washer, dryer), though you can often buy them off the people who are leaving the apartment. And, it's illegal to ask for a damage deposit, whereas deposits are fairly common in the rest of Canada. Doing a read-up on what's typical - or asking people who are already in your grad program, or an off-campus housing office at the university - might help clear up some questions on what is "normal" for where you're moving to!

I can't give any advice for the area but would say that if you're at all able to visit places before signing any sort of lease, that's essential - even if it means leaving your hometown a bit early and booking an AirBnB or a hostel or crashing on a friend's sofa for a few days while you visit places you've already contacted. If that's really not possible, if you're going to be living with roommates, a good Skype or FaceTime meeting will give you an idea if these are people you can live with. I also agree with the advice about having a list of "musts' versus "nice to haves". For instance, I can live without a balcony, and I don't need to be adjacent to a metro station (or whatever the equivalent in your city is, I guess in LA the car is king so you don't need to worry about transit) but I will never again live in a basement or semi-basement apartment, and I need to have laundry in the building or I will exist in a semi-stained, musty-from-hand-washing limbo until I decide to dedicate a Sunday to going to the laundromat...

Stars and the Moon by Audra Mcdonald is the first one I thought of...

When the Anastasia movie came out I was on the outside INDIGNANT about how historically inaccurate it was, but secretly I still enjoyed it. Whoohoo baby history majors!

I remember skipping over the parts about the revolutions in Massie, because I was like who CARES about the proletariat, I want to know more about what the girls did at the palace!
Then my mother moved in with a Russian guy and I dropped the Romanovs like a hot potato because I didn't want to seem like I was interested in my mother's new boyfriend or anything to do with his country. How teenagery of me. Although, now that I think of it, maybe my abandonment of the lives of Russian princesses was a necessary step on the path to becoming interested in social history and popular movements. I might have become an insufferable reactionary monarchist otherwise...

I am Olga! Which makes total sense, because we share a birthday.

Where were all of you when I was eleven and making my way through all the Romanov books at the library? (This was just after my parents' split so no one thought to screen these books for mentions of, you know, Russian Orthodox sects fond of orgies, murder, infidelity, tsaricide, peasants getting trampled to death (they just wanted those souvenir mugs!) etc etc.)

I have been living in Montreal for nearly five years and it's home to me now, but the English speaking community is either people whose families have lived here for generations, or a younger, student/artsy population which is pretty transient. I had a few good friends move last year and know people who have decided to move because their French isn't proficient enough to find work. (If you work in technology for Ubisoft or similar, then no one will care what your native language is.) Salaries aren't as high as elsewhere in Canada (at least compared to the West, from what I've heard) but the cost of living is lower ...like, to be fair, I've only shared apartments here in cheaper areas of the city, but I've always paid less rent here than I paid in Kingston, Ontario, for shared accommodation TEN years ago.

I love it here, and as someone who speaks French as a second language I love the choose-your-own adventure aspect of the city (go to work in English, go see a movie in French; spend Friday night with Francophone friends and then Saturday night in NDG with Anglophone work colleagues) but if you don't speak both languages you may feel a bit more isolated.

Julie and Julia. (Or, in a pinch, my dad or brother imitating Julia Child's voice.)
Good-bye Lenin! is a really sweet movie too - I may need to hunt that one down again.
Bake-Off! How can a competitive show be so comforting?
Seasons 2 and 3 of The Office (American version).
I also just binge-watched all of Parks and Rec in January (after following it while it was on the air, but losing track somewhere around season 6) and loved it even more that way.
And...travel shows! Whether Anthony Bourdain or Rick Steves is more your style, sometimes it is really nice to be taken far away from your own existence...

I know you're looking for destination advice, but as you're figuring out what's feasible for a 2-week trip, I want to say...Don't be afraid of the night trains! I've done a couple (most recently, from Paris to Bayonne, France) and it won't be the most comfortable night you've ever spent but can be a good deal for getting across a big swath of land. I did one from northern Italy to Prague a few years ago, so if Italy and the Czech Republic are both on your list, that might be a good option. Whether you're travelling in Germany or not, the Deutsche Bahn website has complete schedules for all of western Europe - they might not be able to give you prices for all train journeys but can at least give you an idea of the best route from, say, Paris to Berlin, or Milan to Madrid, and how long you can expect it to take). While low cost airlines (your Ryanair, Easyjet, etc) can be really cheap in terms of base fares, they charge you extra for everything possible (checked luggage, "premium" seats, food and drinks) and their airports may be located far enough from the cities you're visiting that you'll spend the whole day going to/from the airport anyway.