I have heard that Yale has some listings just for people who are affiliated. You may want to check in with your advisor or department secretary to see if they know more.

I could be wrong, but I didn't interpret OP's complaint to be about the presence of the Popeye's, but about the condition of the bathroom inside. They specifically mentioned that the door on the bathroom in it didn't close and faucet didn't work when they tried to wash their hands.

I like New Haven. There is a lot to going on for a small city. However, it's not New York or Chicago. It's not big enough to just wander in a random direction and be guarantee to stumble upon interesting places. Unfortunately for you, the Popeyes you stopped in is at the unofficial demarcation between the tonier part of New Haven and the poorer. That was some bad luck. I'm sorry you didn't find what you were looking for, but with a bit more research I think you could have put together a worthwhile day trip.

Yale has some interesting architecture. There are some cool gothic-style buildings about a block away from the Shops at Yale. If you walked down Wall St you would have seen law school, the Beneicke Library and Woolsey Hall.

Most of the restaurants and nightlife are concentrated in the area bounded by Orange St, Howe St, George St and Elm St. You can also find some small pockets of restaurants along Whitney Ave, Wooster St. and Whalley Ave in Westville.

If you want culture, there are plenty of plays and classical music concerts because of the Yale's drama and music schools. Yale also has an art gallery and a center for British art. There are some great festivals on the green when the weather is nice. You can hike up East Rock Park to see views of the city and Long Island Sound. Light House Point is also a nice walk. They have a festival of Christmas lights in December.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

I completely agree with your sentiment. Making streets more friendly to pedestrians does wonders to foster community and create a livable city.

However, unless I'm overlooking something important, even pedestrian streets need to plowed. Often times these streets have an early-hours window for deliveries. More importantly, there may issues related to safety. Emergency vehicles need access in case of fires and other unforeseen situations. I am not an expert in fire codes, but this may have something to do with the need to clear the snow from the road.

I think technically it's his front yard that he's concerned about. It's NIMFY energy.

Just a clarification for anyone looking for the answer in this link, it comes about half way down in the comments, not in the main text of the post.

The two places are very different. Chicago is a huge city with tons of cultural options and New Haven is a small city that is decent for its size. However, I think it's important to know that your choice isn't between the two cities, but rather being in Chicago or being part of the Yale community. Yale is a very large part of the New Haven. Though it is integrated physically with the rest of the city, the university is pretty secluded socially. Since you'll be a part of the Yale community, I'd recommend talking to be who have firsthand knowledge about the social life there since there will be social options available to you that are not open to the public.

I never attended Yale, but I know there are opportunities to socialize outside of your program with other Yalies. For example, Yale has an on-campus pub called Grypon's for graduate students and postdocs. Yale also has a lot of events for its graduate students. You may be better off asking on a Yale subreddit or Facebook group to get specific information on graduate student life.

I second the recommendation for New England Cat Care. I have only had great experiences there. They are not the cheapest, but they really do care about the animals and their owners. The staff are kind, attentive and thorough. A lot of other veterinary offices rush you through a 15 minute appointment. The vets and vet techs are New England Cat Care spent over 45 minutes with me and my cat. They made sure my cat was comfortable as could be (in a veterinary office, anyway) before doing any tests.

Unfortunately, there's no good way to get to or near Edgewater from Connecticut on mass transit. Edgewater isn't served by any train lines. Neither Amtrak nor Metro-North will get you very close.

That being said, if you really want to take transit as far as possible, you can pick up Metro-North at any stop on the New Haven Line. Many stations have free parking on the weekend. Which station is the best for you depends on where you are coming from. If you are near New Haven, West Haven and Milford both have free weekend parking. If you want to go during the week, parking will generally cost $5-$10.

Here are some options:

1. Metro-North and Uber: Metro-North to Harlem-125 St. Take an Uber to the spa. This Uber ride will be at least $50 each way. Note that the ride could easily be over $100 if there is traffic or surge pricing.
2. Metro-North and Bus: Metro-North to Grand Central, walk 15 minutes or take the Times Square shuttle train to the Port Authority. At Port Authority take a bus to Edgewater.
3. Metro-North and Ferry (Weekdays only): Metro-North to Grand Central, walk or take a cab to the 39 St Ferry Terminal. Take an Uber or walk a mile to SoJo.

As others have said, a staying warm starts with a comforter that insulates well. (Real down is the best at this.) A heated blanket is not the best approach. Heated blankets aren't designed for a full night of use. They are not made of material that keeps the heat in and as you have noticed, they shut off after a few hours. This is understandable. If the blankets got really hot, insulated well and didn't shut off, they would be a huge fire hazard.

After getting a down comforter, I second the recommendation for a heated mattress pad rather than a heated blanket. Heated mattress pads provide more evenly-distributed warmth because they won't bunch up like blankets. They keep the heat under a layer of insulation provided by your blankets so they maintain heat better. Most of them have 8-12 hour auto-shutoff.

I have used and like the SoftHeat brand. In any case, you should focus your search on low-voltage mattress pads. Low-voltage mattress pads reduce the risk of fire and electrocution. They have the additional benefit using much thinner wires. Unlike with normal voltage pads, you won't feel the wires when you lie on top of it. A low-voltage mattress pad won't immediately make the mattress hotter to the touch, but that heat accumulates in your mattress and comforter. Even after a minute, it is noticeably cozier under the blankets than without one.

In summary, start with a comforter filled with real down so you don't lose as much body heat to the air. (Down-alternative make feel similar, but it does not insulate nearly as well!) Use a low-voltage electric mattress pad to provide add a gentle, cozy warmth, which is all the extra heat you need under a good down comforter. The combination of the two will keep your friend toasty all night.

You seem to know this already, but I wouldn't listen to the other people on this subreddit unless they have specific information about your situation. There may be a better subreddit on which to seek information, but I am not sure which one that is. I don't know anything about immigrating to become a nurse, but please don't be discouraged from moving to the US from the responses you have gotten here.

For some reason people on this subreddit are very jaded and try to discourage everyone from moving to Boston. Maybe the happy people in Boston are out enjoying their lives instead of answering questions on Reddit!

Boston is a very nice city. It is one of the nicest in the US. There is a lot of great art, music and culture in the Boston area. There are a lot of nice public spaces. There is a great variety of landscapes since Boston is right on the water, but also a short drive away from the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Housing in Massachusetts is very expensive for America, but most other expenses are roughly the same. As a nurse, you could certainly afford to live relatively comfortably in Boston.

Compared to many other cities in America, it's true that it takes longer for people to warm up and become friends. However, in practice this just means that you are unlikely to make friends with a stranger at a bar. If you are in school or work at a big hospital, it will be easy to make friends with your classmates and coworkers. If you join a sports league or other activity, you will develop friendships there as well.

I agree with other people that American medical system has problems, especially relating to the expense people incur getting care. Many people accrue debt as a result of treatment especially for diseases like cancer. Some people will delay or forego treatment because they worry about the expense. This is terrible and should be changed. However, it is illegal to deny people lifesaving emergency care on the basis of ability to pay. You may hear otherwise from people here, but surveys consistently show people who have medical insurance are satisfied with their insurance and medical providers. Anecdotally, my friends who are doctors and nurses are very satisfied with their careers.

Anyway, good luck making your decision! The US can be a great place to live especially when you have an in-demand job!

Let me suggest a couple of budget options.

Trader Joe's Pound Plus chocolate bars are 17.6 oz and cost $4.99. They have milk chocolate and dark chocolate, but no white chocolate that I've seen.

You might also want to look into melting wafers. You can find them in the baking aisle of the supermarket. They are designed to be melted and reformed. They are usually used for fruit, like chocolate covered strawberries. However, they would work for bark as well. Ghirardelli makes them in dark, milk and white and they sell for about $5 for a 10 oz bag.

Agreed. The hotdogs are famous because they are cheap, not because they are especially good. For at least 25 years a hotdog with a soda at Costco has been $1.50. Costco famously refuses to raise the price. They even started manufacturing their own hotdogs instead of raising the price.

The pizza at Costco is not good. That being said if you want to try it, you can almost certainly do it without a membership if there are only a couple of you. If there is a big group, the advice below probably won't work.

You need a membership card to get into the club or to buy regular merchandise. However, once you are in, you don't need a card to buy items from the food court.

Enter through the exit. Tell the person checking receipts at the exit that you want to go to the membership desk. Wait in line for a few seconds and tell the people at the membership desk that you just moved there and are deciding if you want to join. Ask if you can look around the store. They'll say yes. Walk a few dozen more meters into the store and you'll see the food court. There are giant pictures of the food up on the wall and tables. You can't miss it. From there, you can order the pizza without a membership card.

For takeout, they raised their prices by about 8-10% in May and they raised them another 8-10% this week. I can't speak to the on-site prices as I don't dine in regularly enough. I'm not sure about the reasoning for the price increases, but on weekends, the wait for a table is in excess of an hour. Additionally, by the early afternoon they literally book up all of the take-out orders their oven can make. The demand is there. I understand why it's a good business decision to raise prices. I don't like seeing prices go up either, but it's not family-owned anymore.

Large pizzas were still available when I dined-in last month. I could be mistaken, but from my recollection of ordering takeout from their website since March, you have only ever been able to order small and medium pizzas online. They increased the maximum order size recently from three pizzas to four. The large pies are an irregular shape and won't fit in standard pizza boxes. When the Consiglio's still owned the place, they said the takeout boxes were pretty expensive. This could contribute to why they won't do takeout for larges.

Food is a subjective experience. So if you enjoy air bubbles in your pizza, there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Savor your food and don't worry about what other people say. However, they detract from my enjoyment of pizza. Let me explain why.

From my perspective, air bubbles negatively impact the pizza in two ways. The first is that the air bubble stretches out the dough. This stretched dough is much thinner than other parts of the pizza. Especially if you are cooking in a very hot oven as is the custom in New Haven-style pizza, this causes the area to cook faster and dry out before the rest is ready. In fact, these spots will be crunchy when the pizza is done.

The second drawback to bubbles is that they create a slope. When the cheese and sauce heat up, they will flow down off the bubble. So, on the bubbly spots there is no cheese and very little sauce. Since the dough is also dried out in that spot, it's like having a lightly tomato-flavored, crunchy, pita chip in the middle of your slice. There's nothing wrong with pita chips, but it's not the experience I am looking for when I have pizza.

As far as what makes a high-quality charred pizza, the key is finding the happy medium. There is a difference between burned and charred. The black char should be a dusting or a light coating on the outer layer. The analogy that comes to mind is grilling meat. You can make a juicy steak if you grill it on very low heat for a long time, but it won't be very flavorful. Those black stripes from the heat of the grill give the meat a different flavor and texture. However, that doesn't mean that a darker steak is better. There is a point at which you are drying out the meat and burning it.

The ideal for me is a light dusting of black char, with the crust still chewy and moist. If the crust on a pizza is dry and brittle, then it is overcooked.

I like the author Robert Sietsema. He has covered the New York food scene for decades formerly for the Village Voice, reporting on spots with no-frills-but-still-delicious food. A lot of the places he reviews are hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the outer boroughs with hard to find regional cuisines. That being said, I also go to Sally's every week and enjoy some char on my pizza.

The headline is a little misleading. His take is a little more nuanced. He's not pro-char, but he isn't entirely anti-char. I interpret what he wrote to be lamenting that expensive pizza places will make a poor quality, overcooked pizza and use the word char to excuse it. The bubbles on the pizzas in the pictures are indeed indicative of lack of quality control.