Any suggestions on the areas to look and the ones to avoid.
angelicate, do you by any chance remember how long the navy gave you to get from New York to Norfolk? We still haven’t gotten the official orders and I hate not having any idea what to expect.
lawoot
I was wondering when someone was going to bring up some “off-color” remark relating to Norfolk, Virginia. Sheesh, it is a huge Navy base and as we all know, sailors have a tendency to speak in colorful metaphors about a great many things. So colorful in fact, that I can’t post many of the remarks about Norfolk. One of my favorites was:
**“Welcome to Norfolk Virginia - Dogs and Sailors Keep out !!!”
**
Since when did “bubblehead” become a perjorative term? Granted it’s an informal Navy term but whenever I’ve heard it used, it was never an insult. From what I understand, the guys in the ‘silent service’ were highly respected.
Born and Raised! Welcome to the area.
Well the Hampton Roads area has many different modes of existance. Its one of the reasons I miss living in the area. There’s plenty of suburbia and sprawl all over the place, but there’s historical areas, artsy-collegiatte type areas, rural areas, commercial downtown areas, old ritzy gazillion dollar house areas, many different modes of waterfront existance (beachs, inland waterways, rivers, lakes) outdoorsy areas. The area is ethnically diverse, thanks to the military, and the school systems are generally good. The cost of living is relatively low. Its a fun area to explore, I’d point out specific places, but it takes the fun out of discovering for yourself.
I can’t really give suggestions on what’s good and what to avoid, since we’ve only lived here a year and I don’t really know how to describe areas of town that well yet.
We left NY in late April (I think it was around the 20th) and my husband had to report to the ship at the beginning of June. I don’t know if this is standard, though, or if he took extra leave. I’d just had a baby (We were supposed to leave NY in January but stayed up there on baby hold until April), so if we’d left when we should have, he may have had to have been back at work sooner. You should get about a month, though.
Here’s to hoping that we get baby hold. Only after leaving New York. It’s nice up here, but I don’t think I can take the small town much longer. And not another one of those winters (and they said it was a mild one). I’m a wimp. I grew up in Tennessee. Cold there is warm up here.
There’s a really nice maritime museum around there (Newport News?) We spent most of a day there.
I lived in Norfolk with my (then) boyfriend for a year while he attended Old Dominion University. We rented a very nice two bedroom house with a fenced in back yard in a little neighborhood just off the university, which was also a stones throw from the base, for $750. It was residential and, while within walking distance of ODU, still quiet at night.
Hampton Roads is quite nice geographically speaking, but I found the people a little cold compared to my Kentucky homeland. Various people explained that it was the transient nature of the place. I imagine it would be different for military-related people anyway. Best of luck.
Jewish Mother closed this weekend. And they didn’t go downhill, they just never changed. Except for hiring my ex-wife.
Duck Inn is closing very soon.
1010011010 and/or ShadiRoxan, can I send you some e-mail about here?
You can send it to me. My email is in my profile.
Wasn’t meant as a comment on the sexual proclivity of those that serve - just a joke on the pronunciation of ‘Norfolk’. Hell, I live in a Major navy community myself (Kitsap County, Washington - home of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Naval Base Kitsap, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport Division, and Subbase Bangor (whose website was recently merged into the Naval Base Kitsap website).) 9 missile boats, 4 fast supply ships and a carrier all call this county home.
We even have had our women ‘immortalized’ in song form by Sir Mix-A-Lot, in his song Bremelo . Not the most flattering of songs, it’s true. Basically, it’s about the local girls who chase after Navy guys. (Most West Coast navy guys can tell you what a ‘Bremelo’ is.)
Well, you’ll probably not do any cranking, but you will be a very busy boy qualifying.
If you’re just getting out of school, you should get 30 days leave and additional travel time, like 4-6 days.
Be prepared to put down a deposit for every utility. Unless some of the utilities are included in the apartment rent. A deposit for electricity (Dominion Power) is about $180 that they’ll spread out for 3 months, unless you have a letter of reference from another power company. That’s probably a good ballpark for the rest, ie, water, gas, telephone.
Cox cable is pretty ubiquitous with the availability of broadband, and Verizon has DSL in some places. Cox cable is 49.95 per month, w/o other cable services. You can bundle up and have Cox digital cable and internet for about $80 a month.
Roads are pretty good. Most of the traffic around here is caused by accidents rather than congestion, except for the tunnels and getting into NOB in the morning.
The tourism bureau will tell you the climate is mild, but we can have some extremes. During winter, the daytime highs are usually in the forties, w/ overnight lows in the thirties. But we’ve had cold snaps were it didn’t get above thirty for a week or so. Same goes for the summer, were it really is not the heat, it’s the humidity. It might only read eighty-six, but with sixty-eight percent humidity, you’ll feel like you’re wrapped in a wet blanket.
Thanks for all the information, everyone, keep it comin’
angelicate, what carrier?
We lived in Virginia Beach for 12 years, a good part of it while my husband was still in the Navy. He also lived there for a couple years earlier in his career before we were married. We lived in the Birchwood Gardens neighborhood, which would be a nice quiet place to live, while also being close to the freeway for work and close to lots of shopping. There are more single-family homes in that area than apartments, but both the houses and available apartments there are reasonably priced - for example, you can get a 2-bedroom in the Palms Apartments on Malibu Palm Drive (walking distance from my old house) for $670 per month. There are many rental houses there too.
Other nice neighborhoods to look in in Virginia Beach would be in the Hilltop area (farther away, but tons of apartments), Thoroughgood (farther north, more expensive) Malibu (very near Birchwood Gardens), Thalia (also very near Birchwood Gardens and nicer), or Kings Grant (my husband almost bought a house there, but the Birchwood Gardens place was almost as nice and less expensive). Places I wouldn’t want to live in Virginia Beach would include Seatack, Aragona or the Plaza area. I probably wouldn’t be too thrilled about Green Run either.
I don’t know enough about Chesapeake to comment about the neighborhoods there, but that area has grown hugely over the last 15 years or so, and it’s just about as built up as Virginia Beach is now.
There are nice places in Norfolk too, but the construction will overall be older. Ghent is probably the most popular area in Norfolk - some older apartments and homes, with sidewalks (many neighborhoods just don’t have those anymore) and shopping, restaurants and a movie theater within walking distance. There’s also a neighborhood on Hampton Blvd. not too far from the base called Larchmont that I always really liked. The Granby area near the base is pretty nice, too, and there’s some really sweet houses tucked away on little side streets near the eastern branch of the Elizabeth River as well, though probably most, if not all, of them would be too expensive for you at this point. If you like city living, there’s a place called the Hague Towers real close to downtown Norfolk that I thought would be neat place to live - a 2-bedroom there is $865 a month. The downtown area of Norfolk has come a long way, particularly since the addition of the MacArthur Mall.
I think that’s enough to read for now!
And Sean Factotum, do you mean that Duck Inn is closing permanently?? Please no! 
They had the greatest fat pills … I mean hushpuppies there!
Yup. The owner’s retiring, and selling to a condo developer for about $6mil. The plan is for 180 units.
Now that is a drag.
Ditto except for the Aragona area. It’s older and just at/below middle class. I’d not live there if I had high school age kids. And another major area to avoid is Lake Edwards in VA Beach.