It took me about ten hours in total to get to my temporary housing, here in Seattle. I was supposed to be on a plane in CT at 1:40 but due to “weather related incidents” it didn’t take off til 2:30-ish. Thankfully my connecting flight was also delayed, and for the same reasons, so I walked from one jet, through gate 25, and went directly into the next jet, through gate 23 – shortest layover, ever.

What I noticed, throughout my day o’travel, is that WA residents are very, very quick to offer you information on things to do in their state, and it all seems to come from the strong amount of pride that they have for where they live. That is something that is sorta new to me. [Right now, all of the CT residents just nodded in agreement]

Actually, this probably reflects more on CT than all of the north-east, because I’ve seen the pride New Yorkers have for their City – it just sorta stops at the CT border. When people tell me that they’re relocating to CT, I simply asked them “why?” and left it at that. There’s not much out there. There’s a couple of casinos, sure – one of them is even the largest in the world right now – but that’s out east and there’s nothing much else out there. Hartford has lost almost all of it’s night life and a good part of their business; north of there isn’t anything much but a couple of interstates. Aside from Yale, in New Haven, there’s nothing much else to the south – the beaches are there, but they’re along Long Island Sound so they are almost like a lake-front beach. Also, since the richest people still flock to the coast, it’s not always easy to find a place to throw a towel down. And of course, there are malls galore, so if shopping is a hobby, you’re in good shape.

And I also thought that I was never able to think of anything to do in CT, because I had lived there all my life – that might still be the case, too, but I’m beginning to not believe that, anymore. On my way out here, every single person I talked to – after they heard I was relocating to WA – instantly told me about what there is to do in the state. Snow? Step out of the local area and go up towards the mountains. Have a Jeep? Go east, and you can go off-roading in the sand dunes out there. Ski? We’ve got that. Like the ocean? Head over the the peninsula and you’ll be in a fine state park, right on the water. Every person offered some insight on an activity and not one of the activities overlapped with another. What’s even more interesting is that they all talked about this stuff with a good deal of pride. That they’re proud that their state has all this to offer. It’s a much better response than the “why [are you moving to CT]” that I used to give people, but that’s the best I could do with what I had to work with.

The fact that people here are friendly enough to talk to people they don’t know well is another lifestyle change, but that’s another story entirely.