First Impressions of New Haven

We have been in New Haven a total of 11 days so far and aside from being totally different from California (as expected), we are learning alot about the East Coast.

If you didn't know, it is pretty historical out here. New Haven, also know as Elm City because the first settlers planted lots of elms, was founded in 1638. The Amistad trial took place here and it was considered one of the first towns because it had a plan. That plan consists of the city being built around a green, which most of the towns around here duplicate. What is a green you ask? Well, it is basically just a big square with grass. People hang out there, on the green in New Haven there is 3 churches surrounding it.

What you may not know about New Haven and Connecticut in general is that people are crazy drivers. People decide to straddle lanes for miles, merging is a totally foreign concept, and I basically fear for my life every time I get into the Saturn. Now, I know what you must be thinking...but Angela, you're from California and have lived in LA, that's where the crazy drivers are. Oh, contrare monfrair!! In LA it is a controlled insanity....people drive crazy, but you can predict it, you know what is going to happen. Here....it is just insanity. Another thing that makes driving difficult out here is that they apparently don't belive in hanging street signs where the signals are. You are really lucky if here is a street sign anywhere at all. You just kinda have to guess or piss off people when you realize you need to be turning right because you just noticed the tiny highway 1 sign way to the right of the road, not visible unless you are the first car at the light. One more thing about driving, there is rarely a on and off ramp at the same exit. You think that if you head towards the highway you can get on going either direction, No you fool! It isn't so.

Aside from the driving hassles, the people seem to be pretty nice and welcoming. For instance we went to Wallmart to pick up some necessities and the checker woman is going off (in her brooklyn type accent) that so-and-so told her that she had to ask her when she needed to go to the bathroom and she didn't need to listen to her, she just got out of the hospital the other day, and she can go to the bathroom when she wants and she is going to take this up with the management. Seriously, she was talking about this to the lady in front of us and to us. But seriously, the people do seem to be nice and extremely nerdy. What can you expect though...we are up the street from Yale. I think I should start selling pocket protectors, fo' sho!

These 11 days have been spent exploring New Haven and CT in general. There is a nice running trail just down the street from our place that goes around a lake and I took a nice bike ride on another trail today. There are tons of trees here! The humidity is taking some getting use to, but hey~ I figure I can bring sexy back even while sweating and having fro-ey hair! We went up to Mystic, CT on Saturday and ate at Mystic Pizza. The pizza was really yummy...the sauce really is spectacular!

Other than that, I have been applying to jobs like a mad woman. I have put out so many resumes I don't even remember where I have sent them anymore. We have also been searching for a good grocery store. Trader Joes here just isn't quite the same, and there is no Whole Foods! AHHH! What am I going to do? I don't know, I had a mini panic attack, but I think I will pull through. I have no money to buy food anyways. We did go to a gigantic store that was out of the way, but pretty awesome. It is called Stew Leonards, I think it's a big deal around here, it's the largest dairy farm according to Ripley's Believe it or Not. It was kinda like Disneyland, the corn and milk statues sang songs....that resembled It's a Small World for sure! They had really good produce though, something that we totally take for granted out in Cali. I almost cried when we went to the normal grocery store and I saw the lettuce for the first time.

We also got internet and cable hooked up. One week too late though...sadly we missed the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance. I seriously almost cried then!!! Good thing the beers with Jeremy's fellow students kept us occupied. Don't worry, I got filled in on all the haps.

Oh! Some breaking New Haven news from this weekend. It's pretty funny actually. The Hash House Harriers, the drinking group with a running problem (they put on the red dress run in SD), well they were marking a trail for a race and decided to go through the Ikea parking lot and people mistook it for a bioterrorist scare and the entire Ikea was evacuated. They were marking the trail with arrows made out of flour on the concrete. Here is the artice....big news! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20441775/

So all in all, New Haven is pretty nice (well except for the outskirts...that's where the ghetto is...Jeremy swears he saw the aftermath of someone getting capped), but it's going to take a while getting use to going South on the highway and having the ocean be on our left hand side. Too weird!

The trip of a lifetime?

Well, for those of you who don't know....we made it to New Haven!


Let me re-cap a little bit of the trip for you. Jeremy and I drove a 16ft Budget truck complete with car carrier 2,901 miles...coast to coast. (well, actually Jeremy drove the whole way, he wouldn't let me drive) Although most people go from East to West, we just had to be difficult and go the opposite way.

So at 4am on a lovely Friday morning, we set off into the dark. Jeremy was sweating, hoping he wouldn't crash the truck or lose my car from the carrier. I was crying. That lasted about 2 hours before I passed out from tear duct exhaustion. When I awoke we were almost to Stateline..things were going smoothly as we passed into Nevada...then....trouble!


A nice couple in an RV signaled to us that something was wrong with our truck and we should pull over. Oh shit! So, we get out of the truck and we see smoke billowing from our car carrier. Awesome! Jeremy starts to freak and I see it in his eyes that we should just turn around...this has to be a sign. I get on the phone with Budget and we make it to a gas station.


Long story short, we got the car carrier changed out in Vegas and it was smooth sailing from there on out. We passed the time with our "clipboard of fun"~kudos to mamacita! So as we played license plate bingo and crosswords the miles just flew by.


On our trip we listned to alot of NPR, oldies, and my fabulous singing! The NPR was great along with the spectacular views of corn fields to lull me to sleep. About every 30 minutes I was nodding off. We stopped in Cheyenne for a day and saw the sights. Thanks Rene & Doug for entertaining us with a tour of their new abode furnished with the most beautiful red and gold carpet I have ever seen!



After Cheyenne we were ready for Chi- Town. But, before Chicago we really got into corn country. Besides seeing fields and fields of corn, where you could almost hear the whiperings of "If you build it they will come" I asked Jeremy..."Is this heaven?" to which he replied, "No, it's Iowa." Besides seeing corn and pondering life, wealso got hit with the knowledge bomb that Kool Aide originated in Nebraska. Kool!



So we finally made it Chicago and found a place to park the truck. Only one tree was scarred in the process. Melinda took us sightseeing and we saw "The Bean."





If you have not been to Chicago and seen this beautiful piece of art, put it on your life list. It will entertain you for at least a half hour. Amazing! Jeremy entertained himself flicking the bean and laughing about it for at least 3 minutes.






We have also checked off "seeing Wrigley Field and take a picture in front of the sign" from our life list. Chicago was awesome and it was great to have a couple of days out of the truck.



Then we had to get back to reality and get in the truck again. We almost made it through Pennsylvania, but couldn't take it anymore. That is a really long state. So we headed to the Comfort Inn just in time for "So you think you can dance." Perfect end to a 14 hour day of driving.



The next morning we woke up and were excited that this would be our last few hours of driving. We were really excited, but the though of moving all of our stuff up 3 flights of stairs didn't seem all that appealing. We made it to New Haven, Thursday the 16. The drive was over! Moving up the stairs wasn't too bad. It was humid, but anything was better than driving another 14 hours. With all of our stuff in our new apartment, we had one last task...return the Budget truck. We would no longer be truckers, which entailed waking up at 4am, drinking endless cups of horrible coffee, and navigating highway 80. A tinge of sadness crept into our hearts, but was diminished after a hassle of driving through narrow one way streets in New Haven and dropping it off at the Ikea parking lot.



The trip was officially over. We were now in New Haven. The next week was filled with unpacking, getting to know the area, and cursing Connecticut drivers. More on that in the next post....