I moved from my home state of Iowa to Kansas City, Missouri for work in late 2004. Over my time there, I gained valuable resume-bolstering experience and a deep dissatisfaction with the locale. KC is nice and low-cost and sleepy, and not a bad place to settle down and die... but I'm not quite ready to do that. So a few weeks ago I accepted a job in Hartford, Connecticut and did a one-way, three-day road trip over ~1,300 miles. Bing bam boom. I have half-formed ideas about Connecticut/New England/East Coast living, based on prior visits and friends' testimony, but for now I've only soaked in the surface differences that are obvious to a lifelong Midwesterner: kickass landscapes with things other than flatness or gentle hills, psychotically aggressive driving, insane rent (from $611 for a 1-bedroom in KC to $1275 for a slightly larger 1-bedroom in Middletown, Connecticut), amazing restaurant selection, British city names like Glastonbury and Windsor and Manchester, relatively easy access to the megalopolis that stretches from Boston all the way down to D.C. Connecticut itself seems an oddball even by the standards of the area - the divide between the haves and have-nots here is very stark, to the point where there's an ongoing conceit about "two Connecticuts". There's mass transit into NYC, but the rest of the state is connected through a lunatic webwork of highways that motorists strive to make seem as small as possible through hard driving. (Not that I mind; just means I have to revert to my teenage driving habits.) And I thought I was done with Prohibition-holdover liquor laws, but it seems that the state legislature just decided to allow Sunday alcohol sales, and even with that, prices are higher than they should be due to an array of other absurd restrictions. BUT! I'm here. So. What should I do? Where should I eat? Advise this mid-country bumpkin! Assume I'm open to anything!
Now what? You get to watch Monday Night Football, Saturday Night Live and any other live television program at the time it was intended. Enjoy!
Pick one: Red Sox or Yankees. (The Mets are not a choice.) This is going to be tricky for you. It's more Red Sox in Hartford than in Middletown and more Yankees in Middletown than Hartford. Unless you like to drink a lot, Hartford is notoriously dead at night. You'll have to look at surrounding towns for entertainment. The river makes commuting a b***h in CT. Everyone on the highway is trying to make it to one bridge or another which does nothing but bottleneck the traffic. If there's an accident, then traffic will move towards the other bridges and everyone is f***ked. The right lane is driving the speed limit. The middle lane/lanes is/are for traveling faster than the speed limit. Wait 6 months before you even contemplate driving in the left lane. If you see a Mass license plate in the next lane, that vehicle will cut you off. So will half the cars will CT plates. The only difference is that the CT driver might put his/her turn signal on after starting the lane change. If you don't like rotaries/roundabouts, don't go to Mass. I swear there's a law that every town has to have one. Quick tip for Mass towns: Worcester is pronounced "Wooster." Speaking of pronunciation: Water (wahder) rhymes with quarter (quadder). Unless it appears at the beginning or end of a word all t's are pronounced as d's. (Similarly, you work in Hardford, the capidal of Connedicut.) "Wicked" means very. "Wicked pissed" either means drunk or angry. Sometimes it means both. Alcohol is purchased at a "package store" otherwise known as a "packie." The package part refers to the laws that require that the alcohol be placed in a bag at time of purchase. Soda. If ask for a coke, no one is going to ask you what kind; you're getting Coca-Cola. Ask for pop and they'll point you to an old guy. Sneakers = cross trainers/running shoes. Grinders = subs, hoagies, heros (though sometimes you may hear "sub") When someone says that they're going to Dunkin' Donuts and they ask you if you want something, they're usually asking if you want a coffee. The first time it snows every winter, some drivers will act like they've never seen anything like it before. Just leave plenty of room between you and the car in front of you. When you lose control (and you will), tap the gas lightly (this is why you leave room), don't lay into the brake and jerk the wheel. There is an insane amount of restaurants in Connecticut. Try everything once. Everyone has a favorite pizza place, bar, steak house, Italian and Chinese restaurant. Everyone has a favorite coffee shop. Nobody cares about your religious or political views. And you're not likely to change anyone else's view. If I can think of anything else, I throw it in there, but the major thing I think you'll find is that people around here are - for better or worse - brutally honest. Some people think it makes us rude (and sometimes we are). But on the bright side, within about two minutes of talking to someone you'll know whether or not you want to spend anymore time with them. You're right about the have and have nots. The amazing thing is that in can vary not only from town to town but from community to community. It's not uncommon to see $250,000 houses and $1,000,000 houses only a couple of blocks away. This really makes for some unique town governments. The liquor laws existed that way for a reason. There are laws on the books that prevent anyone from having more than two liquor* licenses to their name. Therefore, most of the package stores are family owned and are staffed by the owner and/or their family. Sunday was usually the only day the owner would get off. You get used to it. If you were planning on having a party on Sunday, you just bought extra on Saturday. Well, I spent more time typing than I expected, but Welcome. It's Connecticut, you'll get used to it. (Screw that "transplanted" stuff, that should be the state motto.) *Liquor license is separate from beer permit which allows you to just sell beer and wine coolers. Every store without gas pumps has a beer permit.
Forget that any other part of the country even exists and you should fit right in. Yes, I live in Seattle.
I grew up outside of Hartford and Still live in ct, it grows on you, welcome to the state. I live in Fairfield County and I like it. Hartford county is nice but I like being close to NY.
I'm indifferent to pretty much all sports except pool, because I have a raging boner for 2D mechanics, but I'm willing to feign (extremely) vague support of an appropriate team in the interest of social lubrication. I do! I do, I do, I do. I'm an A-number-1 beer, wine, and whiskey snob and I enjoy being around similar snobs, though I'm not above tossing back Bud or Coors if they're all that's available and/or free. I've discovered the CT Beverage Mart whose selection has not disappointed. They even had my favorite trappist ale, Westmalle tripel! I had fun in the left lane with a rental car while I was here apartment-hunting. Seriously, I was giggling all the way. I have naturally aggressive driving tendencies so it felt like a very liberating experience. I expect I'll be a little more conservative with my own car, but only a little. I AM GOING EVERYWHERE. In eastern Iowa it was pop, and in Kansas City it was soda. One way I sidestep this is by tending to eat at places that also offer alcoholic beverages. Win-win. My experience has been that absolutely all drivers everywhere do this. Presumably snow contains some kind of senility-inducing substance like in that Stephen King story "The End of the Whole Mess". Absolutely. I tried Frank Pepe during my apartment hunt - an "original tomato pie" with no layer of cheese, just a little grated, plus olive oil, crushed garlic, and oregano. LE FOOD.TXT on my desktop is my growing list of establishments to try out. I've yet to detect any general difference in disposition, but then, most of the people I've talked to so far have been service staff of one kind or another. I'll see what happens when I break through the surface and into this morass of... honesty. Now it feels like the only way I can justify expectations is to have an actual choir on hand to sing as I step out of my car. And floodlights and a fog machine.
Went there last night, then came home and washed it down with Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA which I was never able to find in KC. Magnificent. Going on another food-trip today. My apartment is in the Westlake cluster in Middletown, and I seem to have five Indian restaurants near me. And three Greek restaurants. And a Jamaican restaurant and a Pakistani restaurant. I just. I. I can't even.
