Pretty much all new homes have garages. Many older homes throughout the area do not.
I think summer came on a Thursday last year.
Not a Portsmouth resident, but I and friends have been a few times.
You’re sure it’s not Portsmouth, Virginia, right? It would stink to get that wrong.
I love York Beach. We take day trips up and occasionally stay in a friend’s grandmother’s summer cottage.
The Funorama is delightfully cheesy and rundown, though I haven’t been in a couple of years and heard a rumor they might have renovated. :eek:
How far is it from Portsmouth to Boston? Is there any train availabe?
Also see City-Data Forums it is a great place to learn about local areas all over the United States
About 50 miles, figure an hour into Boston and 45 minutes back. There’s no train service to Portsmouth itself, but the Amtrak Downeaster does stop at nearbly Durham (on the UNH campus) and goes right into North Station in Boston. There’s also MBTA commuter rail to Newburyport, MA (about 20 miles south). The easiest way to Logan Airport is probably the C&J bus from the Portsmouth bus station (on I-95 at Pease).
No seat belts required on adults either.
And don’t cut down trees or your view tax may increase.
I was looking particularly at older homes - nothing built after 1940. 98% of them did not have garages and, as sparky! and ElvisL1ves mention, the ones that did were being used as either storage or workshops. All of the houses I saw had either a basement or cellar.
I lucked out and found a home with a garage (in which my car is diligently parked!) but the house has a cellar with only outside access through those Wizard of Oz doors like Dorothy had in Kansas. The floor is dirt and the walls are semi-cut granite stone blocks. Unfortunately, I can’t stand upright in it and it was chock-a-block full of giant spiders until I had the exterminator in. It’s cool though in a creepy haunted house sort of way. When the previous owners were moving out, they found a coin way in the back from the early 1800’s. There’s also a tombstone from 1812 in my back yard but the previous owners assured me the occupant had been moved to the cemetary down the road. Any time I hear an unidentifiable noise (frequently in a house 260 years old), I attribute it to Sarah Trimble - the woman the gravestone belongs to…
Bulkheads?
Yep! I didn’t know what they were called. Everyone understands when I call them Wizard of Oz doors…
I’ve never lived in NH but I visited my cousin there several times and sometimes for extended visits. I loved Portsmouth. Beautiful city with lots of great old buildings and great Federal architecture. Used to have a lot of New Age style shops if that’s of interest, but it’s been about 10 years since I was last there.
My favorite touristy place was America’s Stonehengewhich was mentioned earlier.
My favorite things as a visitor:
1- The whole state turns into one big yard sale on weekends in good weather; you can find some great stuff
2- Point your car in any direction and you’ll find some great day trips- the beaches in Maine and Mass., Boston’s not far away from anywhere in southern, the mountains of NH and Vermont are nearby, and even NYC isn’t that far.
3- The architecture. The postcard New England farmhouses not only really do exist but they’re everywhere and they’re beautiful. (My cousin lived in one: heating and cooling those suckers is something I wouldn’t want to do, though having grown up in the south where every old house is a central hallway with rooms off the side it’s cool having an old house so rambling you get lost in it.)
4- The people- similar to southerners in that they said ‘hi’ and were generally nice, would stop to help you if you had a flat tire" type thing, and a bit rednecky (but rednecky is not a bad thing- it’s just been conflated with white trash by Jeff Foxworthy).
The weirdest thing to get used to coming from the south was the near total absence of black people in most places; it took me a while to realize “what’s wrong here?”, or the fact that restaurants didn’t serve sweet tea. And took a while to realize “please?” is the same as “Excuse me?” and “wicked” means “very”. These may be dated though.
I went to grad school at Dartmouth but I have lived in Central New Hampshire as well. I am very Southern and my family is as well. When they came up to visit me in New Hampshire, they would say “The people up here are so nice!” but it implies that all Yankees are rude. That is mostly true by the way but not in New Hampshire or most of Northern New England. You could hire a fleet of tugboats to tow it down South and it wouldn’t be that far off except for the lack of minorities. The stereotype of sliding off in a snow covered road into a ditch or getting stuck and waiting 5 minutes for a group of men in a pickup truck is literally true I swear. I had it happen three times to me during extreme snowstorms. There are some good salt of the earth types in New Hampshire and you don’t have to worry about people trying to scam you or be concerned about crime much. People just take care of each other.
I live in the outer Boston suburbs in an extremely white area of Massachusetts now. My mother, who spent years teaching in all black schools thought that it was great as well until it struck her that everyone she saw was white and she wanted to know what they did with everyone else.
We had one in my childhood home but I never learned the name till I came up here. We just called it the cellar door.
Bulkhead is commonly used all over New England. I think people would just stare at you blankly if you said Wizard of Oz doors and mark you down as “from away”.
I went to Dartmouth for undergrad, then lived in Southern NH for the next 15 years. But I’ve spent a lot of time up in the northern part of the state, “above the notches”. There really are two states, with the dividing line somewhere near Concord IMO. South of there is turning into Northern Massachusetts (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but it’s quite a bit different than up north. It’s more liberal in the south, but NH conservative is mostly fiscal, not moral. Fences make good neighbors, and all.
However there is certainly a bit more reserved nature in all of New England compared to other areas of the country. You’re not considered to be “from here” for at least 2 generations. After all, if your cat had kittens in the oven you wouldn’t call them biscuits, would you?
Well, I didn’t say that they didn’t think I was an idiot - I just said they knew to what I was referring. 
Surly Chick, I e-mailed you about the realtor thing. I’d love the name of yours. Thanks!
Route 16 is only a multi-lane highway as far north as the tolls at exit 12. Milton is exit 17. Wiki notes that it’s only multi-lane in the southernmost areas.
If you want to fit in instantly once you get to New Hampshire, learn how to make fun of people from Massachusetts (I live in Massachusetts now but I understand perfectly where it comes from). Throw out terms like “Masshole” every now and then and you are in. The cultural divide between Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire is about as pronounced as it gets for bordering states even though it is all part of New England. It isn’t based strictly on the state line exactly because I-93 on the Southern New Hampshire border is still part of the Boston metropolitan area but the changeover still happens very quickly. The six New England states are small to tiny but they still have distinct personalities and people. Northern New England which includes New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine likes the Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut money coming in but not the people flooding in from the Boston area so much. Use that to your advantage and nod and agree when someone complains about those people.
That reminds me of the Wisconsin/Illinois divide. Those poor souls from Illinois are FISH (Fucking Illinois Shit Heads). My husband is familiar with this kind of rivalry and will probably be better at scorning the “others” than I will, but but I’ll do my best. Good tip, thanks.