As a high school junior touring colleges, I fantasized about a weekday night at a college bar. Especially as someone growing up in a big city, and seeking colleges in smaller North East towns, something seemed so sweet and intimate about sharing a night with your friends, your class crush, and the person you were friends with for the first week of freshman year and now half-wave occasionally to. I fell in love with Mezzo’s unpretentious sporty energy, and its two floors! And a deck! The playlist sucked, the vibe was chaotic, but I treasured my connection to my Wesleyan Mezzo-attending forebears. Unfortunately, things are changing, maybe forever…
I miss Mezzo. Everyone I know misses Mezzo. Although Mezzo is temporarily closed, their bar night numbers have been dwindling since the fall. And the culprit of this insidious shift is the Forbidden Llama, Main Street’s newest bar/club/restaurant.
This is an update of Meli’s update of wilk‘s update of his previous post!
This is part of our 2022 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
Toto, we’re not in Bushwick anymore. You’ve now left the comfort of deep Brooklyn, as they call it, for the not-so-dissimilar milieu of Wesleyan. Just kidding, a vast majority of Weskids are from not-Brooklyn, not-LA, and not-Bay-Area, although it might seem otherwise.
For all of you from those (wonderful) places, and all of you from other places, Middletown is different than those places (shocking!). It was once the largest city in Connecticut, circa pre-war-of-1812. Can your hometown claim that title? Nah. Unless you’re from Middletown, in which case you are probably way more qualified than me to write this post.
While Wesleyan is fine and there is usually never a shortage of things to do on campus, Middletown and the surrounding area truly have some wonderful gems that are worth knowing about as you settle in and look for things to do other than vape on Foss.
And if you’re really bold and somehow have an abundance of time before finals arrive, there’s some cool shit beyond the local area too. Here’s our 2022 Outing guide!
This is an update of Meli’s update of wilk‘s update of his previous post!
This is part of our 2021 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
Toto, we’re not in Bushwick anymore. You’ve now left the comfort of deep Brooklyn, as they call it, for the not-so-dissimilar milieu of Wesleyan. Just kidding, a vast majority of Weskids are from not-Brooklyn, not-LA, and not-Bay-Area, although it might seem otherwise.
For all of you from those (wonderful) places, and all of you from other places, Middletown is different than those places (shocking!). It was once the largest city in Connecticut, circa pre-war-of-1812. Can your hometown claim that title? Nah. Unless you’re from Middletown, in which case you are probably way more qualified than me to write this post.
While Wesleyan is fine and there is usually never a shortage of things to do on campus, Middletown and the surrounding area truly have some wonderful gems that are worth knowing about as you settle in and look for things to do other than vape on Foss.
And if you’re really bold and somehow have an abundance of time before finals arrive, there’s some cool shit beyond the local area too. Here’s our 2021 Outing guide!
When I first told people that I had decided on Wesleyan (and then explained to them what/where Wesleyan is, I swear to god, nobody has ever heard of this school), they would say “Oh wow, fall is going to be so beautiful up there! You’re so lucky!” I entered my freshman year with a fervent anticipation of the legendary New England Autumn. I allowed myself to get swept up in the hype and the beautiful foliage. But now, in my junior year, I’m at home for the semester, and I can say definitively that New England fall actually SUCKS.
Expectation vs. reality.
I grew up in Rhode Island, in a small town about an hour and twenty minutes from campus. This past semester, I saw hundreds of poor freshmen from more hospitable climates struggling to adjust to the weather, culture, landscape and general ~ethos~ of this very strange, very cold part of the country. So as a veteran New Englander (and I do say veteran because sometimes living here feels like a war), I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the region — its history, culture, and some relevant life hacks — so that we can all feel a little more at home here. Hopefully this is the first of several such posts. Its focus, aptly for the season, is the terrible weather.
We have entered––and are surviving––finals hell. While I am proud enough to say that I have not (!!) pulled any all-nighters to finish up assignments and study for exams, I am still spending lots of time on assignments over the last week.
Why you may ask?
I am studying abroad in Denmark this semester! My program DIS has a…slightly strange…calendar system in which #finalsszn starts after over a month of two weeks of classes, then a ~travel week~, then two weeks of classes, then a ~travel week~, then two weeks of classes, then ~Thanksgiving break~, then two weeks of classes, and off I come back to ‘Merica. Needless to say, I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, gathering my papers, group projects, and coffee to make it all happen.
A budgeting note: Cafe Paludan (the place with the books and the coffee) offers a large coffee for 10 DKK ($1.52) from 9:00-10:30 in the morning. I am currently here in a little nook I have claimed for myself (gotta be a colonist somehow) writing this blog post as I procrastinate my Danish essay. You can say I’m being productively unproductive.
I’ve been gathering my thoughts about a few things: DIS, Denmark, my physical body being abroad, my mind being abroad, homesickness, and existential crises re: identity. It’s been a truly exhausting few months, and although I was preparing myself for some of this busyness, I did not anticipate that I would have to carve out time on my commute to and from central Copenhagen to stare out the train window, Türk Sanat muzi?i blasting through my earphones, pondering my existence, train officer nudging me to check my train card.
This is an update of wilk‘s update of his previous post!
Toto, we’re not in Bushwick anymore. You’ve now left the comfort of deep Brooklyn, as they call it, for the not-so-dissimilar milieu of Wesleyan. Just kidding, a vast majority of Weskids are from not-Brooklyn, not-LA, and not-Bay-Area, although it might seem otherwise.
For all of you from those (wonderful) places, and all of you from other places, Middletown is different than those places (shocking!). It was once the largest city in Connecticut, circa pre-war-of-1812. Can your hometown claim that title? Nah. Unless you’re from Middletown, in which case you are probably way more qualified than me to write this post.
While Wesleyan is fine and there is usually never a shortage of things to do on campus, Middletown and the surrounding area truly have some wonderful gems that are worth knowing about as you settle in and look for things to do other than vape on Foss.
And if you’re really bold and somehow have an abundance of time before finals arrive, there’s some cool shit beyond the local area too. Here’s the 2018 Outing guide, advice from a Connecticut local.
A new CTRail Hartford Line train
There have been some big changes to public transit in and around Middletown!
The new CTRail Hartford Line launched service on June 16, which means Meriden Station, only around 17 minutes away from campus, will have a reliable and frequent rail service going between New Haven and Springfield, MA. But one-half of the puzzle is still missing–the running of the M-Link Express to connect Middletown and Meriden Station.
This past March, the vision for Connect Middletown was published.
Read more about what’s happened since then after the jump:
A few weeks back, I wrote a feature ranting about Usdan’s hummus. The next day, I very sadly paired my sad Usdan salad with sad Usdan hummus, and it was not a highlight of my life.
I’m finally settled into my home for break, which means a few things: I have not left the house unless it’s for work or for IKEA, I have eaten approximately 567 loaves of bread, and I’ve spent a particularly significant amount of time in the kitchen.
“Making my family proud of my ability to take care of myself,” aside, my house is currently under construction and the kitchen is one of the only places where I can’t either fall through a ceiling or trip over some wood planks.
On the way home from IKEA, I force my mom to make a pit stop at the local halal market. Once home, my mom gave me her recipe, and I cross-checked with some Turkish recipe site for measurements, and I made a…beautiful…batch of hummus. Seriously, it’s really good. I posted a short recipe on Instagram, but I decided this recipe deserves a home on the blog because of my past writing on the subject. Here we go:
