Red Den

Oh look - there's a new reply button, I don't need to reply to everyone individually!

I'm back in the UK now until just after Christmas and my mind is spinning..... but your welcomes made me feel so much more confident about the whole move - thank you so much.....

Spirrelbabe

A new year, a new place. I know how the mind can spin, mine still is but things get easier, and you soon pick up on how things work here. Enjoy Xmas at home, trying to find where I can get a tin of quality streets to make It properly seem like Xmas!

SJD_Schenectady

Hello, I am in Schenectady. Moved here at the beginning of August with my husband and daughter. We had no choice where we are living as it is a year long exchange with a us teacher and we are in her condo. We havn't made any friends yet! Everyone seems busy with their own lives, also we live out in the countryside and everything is a loooong drive!!

Juswus

Hi and welcome everyone

Spirrelbabe

Hi SJD_Schenectady,will you be here over christmas? How does your family find it?

I don't like the fact that you have to drive everywhere here, even if its just to get some milk, because there are no local little corner shops like at home.

We have just got a puppy so then i'm not so lonely in the daytime, and it gets me out the house. I find you bump into people with other dogs, and you get to know them bit by bit, because you end up seeing the same people everyday. Also will be taking him to puppy classes so hope meet new people there too. Not that i'm suggesting you get a puppy, but having a hobby or something like that can help. But we don't have anybody yet who you can call a proper, 'lets have a gossip' friend.

I guess it takes time.

Neko128

That's one negative thing I will admit about the area - mass transit and public transit are not terribly good. There are buses (http://www.cdta.org/), but they're infrequently used and, frankly, not very good in my experience. No subway, difficulty getting to/from a lot of places.

It's not even so much that it's impossible to get place-to-place on the bus; it's that it tends to take a long time, and because of how spread out so much of the area is, it's frequently not easy to get to the nearest bus stop...

Then again, the train line north from the city goes straight through Rensselaer. Though honestly, if you want to go to NYC, you might be better off driving south to Poughkeepsie and taking Metro North rather than Amtrak (Metro North is *much* much cheaper than Amtrak, and Poughkeepsie is closer than halfway to the city).