Apartment Hunting (Be Vewwy Vewwy Quiet!)

My new employers are generously putting me up at the Holiday Inn Express until I find myself a place. Between the fridge and Trangia stove I packed in my short-term luggage for some reason, I'm doing OK, but my employers' generosity has limits. Two months, to be exact. So I go apartment hunting.

New Haven has two major roads, not counting the various fossilized Colonial-times cow paths: I-95 and I-91. 95 runs from New York to Rhode Island, and 91 from New Haven to Hartford. Their intersection is a case study in poor engineering---of the 10--15 times I've been through the area I've seen emergency vehicles twice or three times, and 91 is permanently backed up for several miles before the intersection. Since anything from north of New Haven must pass this point, this eliminates the northern sub-towns from consideration as places to stay, and the question becomes, how far east or west on 95? I'm leaning to right here in Branford, where the office and the temporary lodgings are. It is slightly more expensive than some places on the other side of town, but adding in a 40-mile daily commute (total), and having to go over The Bridge, I think I can allow myself a few hundred dollars more for rent and still have money for some beer. Apartments in Branford often have fireplaces, something I enjoyed in Minnesota, and it should be possible to find something close to the water of Long Island Sound.

The locals also appear to dread going over The Bridge, by the way. TV ad I caught a few days ago. Parental unit: "We're going to buy furniture!" Teenager: "Do not make me go over The Bridge! I have hardly yet tasted the joys and sorrows of life, and I have so much to live for!" PU: "We're going to (some furniture place in Branford), so we won't have to go over The Bridge." T: "Hurray! I will live to smell the flowers once again!" I think this is more of a paraphrase than a direct transcript, but it's pretty close. I have been told that the CE who designed this intersection, was killed driving on it. He and many of his neighbors, I would imagine. If I wanted to come up with something as inimical to human life I think I'd chuck the thought of designing bridges and just build a gun!