From reading the OOT gift bags... some of you had mentioned some items that you were adding to your bag that are specific to your local area.
What are some things that your area is well-known for?
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas?
What are your/FI's favorites?
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything?
Re: QOTD
What are some things that your area is well-known for? - multiple sports teams, malls, diners, tomatoes, pizza, Italian food in general, blueberries, the shore
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? - We're not called the Garden State for nothing... our produce is insanely good in the summer. Also, the great "Taylor Ham" vs. "Pork Roll" debate.
What are your/FI's favorites? - Sub sandwiches. On the beach.
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? - I wish things weren't so damn expensive here.
ETA: JACK IN THE BOX... why are you not available anywhere near me???
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Wine, fortune-cookies were invented here, Jelly-belly factory is here, Ghiradelli, sourdough bread, Dungeness crab, rice-a-roni, the martini, cable cars, its-its (it's an ice cream sandwich, I don't think they're available everywhere).
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? Wine, asian food, seafood, drug paraphernalia.
What are your/FI's favorites? Wine, Asian food, cable cars, sourdough, it's-its.
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? Pei-wei and jimmy johns. We have no chain restaurants and sometimes they can be nice. Air-conditioning. AC is hard to find for some idiotic reason.
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Corn, car racing (the Indy 500), sports in general (Colts, Pacers, tons of Olympic sports (I used to work for USA Track & Field - lots of the Olympic governing bodies are here), conferencing facilities (we have soooo many national conferences here, it isn't even funny), breaded tenderloins, meat + noodles + mashed potatoes.
The thing that I think we are really known for, but that people don't realize until they visit, is how nice everyone is. It's called "Hoosier Hospitality". I was a volunteer at the last Super Bowl and I met HUNDREDS of tourists during my shifts. The one thing that people kept saying to me was WHY ARE YOU SO NICE?!? WHY IS EVERYONE HERE SO DARN NICE?!? It's really true. The best thing about Indiana is the people.
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? People are just really, sincerely, kind and caring here. I routinely have long conversations with strangers on the street. I don't find that to be the case when I travel. We also have good home cooking and lots of sports here. We also have super pronounced seasons.
What are your/FI's favorites? We are really social and love making friends. Sometimes we go to bars/clubs, just the two of us, and spend all night talking to random people and making new friends. We love to eat, and love Hoosier tenderloins. There are also lots of health-focused things to do (like great yoga studios and boot camp places and incredible running/biking trails on all sides of town).
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? The only thing we are missing is a beach. and year round warm warm weather. I HATE the snow and the ice. We also only have good, local, organic produce for about half of the year, since it's too cold at other times.
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Coffee Milk, and no, not the kind that is coffee with milk it is actually coffee syrup like hersey's chocolate syrup and you add it to milk. It is delicious!! Dells Lemonade, Newport, Federal Hill, the Italian Mafia, Waterfires.
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? RI is very small, but we probably have the best beaches in the Northeast.
What are your/FI's favorites? Like mentioned beach, and clam cakes and "chowah"
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? People who are a lot nicer, lol. RI is just a miserable state and I can say that because I lived my whole life here and people just look out for themselves and the state is corrupt as eff!!
Maybe more parks also.
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Roses! Ecuador is the one of the largest exporters. As for the city itself it's known for yummy bread, great nightlife, Old Town/ historic Spanish colonial downtown center, orchids, butterflies, cheese and certain typical dishes I won't bother mentioning lol
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? Bread. Bread in other regions isn't that great. Because it's the capital, just about anything is easy to find. Except for super fresh seafood. But you'll find a larger variety of everything compared to what's available in smaller towns in Ecuador.
What are your/FI's favorites? FI and his fam are bread fanatics and his city life. My favorite is the food!! Mmmm
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? Cheaper electronics, shoes in my size and since I'm in wedding DIY mode... a wider variation in crafting supplies.
What are some things that your area is well-known for? We're known for our UConn sports teams (esp. basketball), our New Haven nightlife and Yale University, and our shoreline. We have great shopping and food down by the shore and cute little towns like Mystic and Old Saybrook.
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? More so than anything, I think CT is a great location to live. Where I am, I'm only 1.5 hours away from NYC and 1.5 hours away from Boston. We can either go to our own shoreline to enjoy the beaches or make a quick trip to RI and Newport. Or we can take a quick trip on the Ferry to Long Island or Block Island. In CT, there's a lot of great historical towns to visit and the Italian food is soo good.
What are your/FI's favorites? Our favorite thing is that we're right in the middle of everything. Since CT is so small, we can spend the day here or make quick trips to nearby states.
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? My parents also have a house on Hilton Head Island in SC and I used to spend my summers down there. I notice a huge difference in the hospitality between the two states. Whenever my friends from SC come visit they don't understand why strangers are 'so rude' and people don't wave hello to each other.
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Sports fans being awful (I love us but if you are from another city you hate us) Cheesteaks, hoagies, tastycakes, WaWa, Reading Terminal, Independence Hall and so many other historical things right downtown
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? Eat a cheesteak
What are your/FI's favorites? Anything with food. We love Reading Terminal and going to find the "best" Cheesteak
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything?I wish it was cheaper to live here and that people were more friendly.. that is something we are definitely not known for.
colleen - Re: Philly sports fans.... YES
[QUOTE]butterflyjumper - I'm willing to bet that 99% of the Superbowl tourists you spoke to were probably from NJ/NYC... people here are the opposite of nice. colleen - Re: Philly sports fans.... YES ;)
Posted by k8888[/QUOTE]
HAHAHA totally this.
What are some things that your area is well-known for?
Fifth Avenue and fashion in general, cultural events, Central Park, billions of every type of restaurant you'd ever want, bars/clubs for any and all types of people/interests, anything delivered at any time of day/night, everything is open/everyone is awake at all times.
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas?
Everything's here. Everything comes here first, everything happens here first. But I tend to think that NYC is better than any other large city so I am entirely biased. Doesn't mean I think it's better for all people, though. (Another reason we're moving in 2013)
What are your/FI's favorites?
Restaurants and our friends. And taking taxis and not having to drive after having a few drinks. That's pretty key.
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything?
I wish there was more of a real neighborhood/neighbors situation. I don't know one person who lives in our building.
Also, relatedly, I wish I had a house rather than an apartment. For the amount of money we pay in rent, we could have a mortgage on a ridiculous house. It's out of control expensive to live here - from food to housing, it's just astronomical.
[QUOTE]What a fun question! San Francisco/Bay Area What are some things that your area is well-known for? Wine, fortune-cookies were invented here, Jelly-belly factory is here, Ghiradelli, sourdough bread, Dungeness crab, rice-a-roni, the martini, cable cars, its-its (it's an ice cream sandwich, I don't think they're available everywhere). What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? Wine, asian food, seafood, <strong>drug paraphernalia</strong>. What are your/FI's favorites? Wine, Asian food, cable cars, sourdough, it's-its. What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? Pei-wei and jimmy johns. We have no chain restaurants and sometimes they can be nice. Air-conditioning. AC is hard to find for some idiotic reason. ETA: Pricing sucks here too.
Posted by MeaganR12[/QUOTE]
<div>LOL</div>
Otherwise, it's a hard question for me to answer since I have only lived in Mass for 2 yrs (in June), and I don't really know the answers. I've discovered there are things I totally miss about Indiana, even other than family/friends, and I NEVER thought I'd miss a thing! But there are things out here I love that I didn't have in Indiana- Mostly, a beach within an hour's drive lol and being so close to Boston, Providence, and even NYC (same distance to NYC here as it was to Chicago when I lived in Indiana, so to me, that's close haha)
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas?
What are your/FI's favorites?
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything?
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Detroit was not ranked #1 city to live lol. Unfortunately, I think it may be at the bottom for the bigger cities. We are famous for cars, crazy weather, great sports teams and lots of lakes and forests.
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas?The best parts of Michigan are out of the city. The amount of forests and wildlife here are beautiful, although it would be much nicer if it was about 20 degrees warmer, all of the time. Also, for the most part the people are great. Very down to earth.
What are your/FI's favorites?We also love food. And bars. We try and make sure to get out often. Also, alot of good music comes here so we go to concerts often. When summer comes we like to get out and go camping and boating.
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything?
Warm weather. I hate the cold, tried to move away and ended up back here in Michigan. I could do without the four seasons. And I wish the beach was closer.
[QUOTE]Rhode Island What are some things that your area is well-known for? Coffee Milk, and no, not the kind that is coffee with milk it is actually coffee syrup like hersey's chocolate syrup and you add it to milk. It is delicious!! Dells Lemonade, Newport, Federal Hill, the Italian Mafia, Waterfires. What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? RI is very small, but we probably have the best beaches in the Northeast. What are your/FI's favorites? Like mentioned beach, and clam cakes and "chowah" :) and that everything is pretty much a 20 min drive in our state minus the beaches which take about 40 min. What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? People who are a lot nicer, lol. RI is just a miserable state and I can say that because I lived my whole life here and people just look out for themselves and the state is corrupt as eff!! Maybe more parks also.
Posted by bells24412[/QUOTE]
Ugh, I miss coffee milk...I remember grabbing the "Hood" coffee milk from Cumbie's (Cumberland Farms) when we would go from VT to CT, it wasn't always easy to find in VT for some reason.
And the chowdah, RI has their own chowdah, I love that it's not as thick as most NE chowdah...now I'm also homesick :/
What are some things that your area is well-known for? Da Bears, Da Bulls, Da Hawks, Go Go White Sox, stoopid Cubs, Lollapalooza, pizza, Italian Beef, the Goat, the lakefront, Chicago Marathon, crooks, voting when you're dead.
What can you find/do better in your area than other areas? Chicago really knows how to celebrate summer...pretty much starting this weekend the festival season begins and every weekend there is something to do outside. We can always find something to do outside in the summer.
What are your/FI's favorites? Summer, really. We love to ride up to the first northern suburb (Evanston) on our bikes along the lakefront and go to this yummy burger place and then ride back with no guilt
What do you WISH was better/more available in your area, if anything? Traffic and prices. We have horrible traffic and even though we walk, ride and take transit most place, we still end up needing to drive or take a cab sometimes. And the prices here are ridiculous, 10.25% sales tax people...10.25%!
Edit: A Chicago item in our OOT bags, we had magnets made of the Chicago flag (picture below of the flag) and put in our names and date of the wedding in the river and lake area (aka the blue).