Phoebe Guenzel
While our question "What's your top piece of advice for newcomers?" generated much well-meaning do-gooder advice about bicycling everywhere, eating local and enjoying nature, we found some of the less expected pearls of wisdom to be the most helpful.
Allot 20 pounds for the holy trifecta: Beer, brats and cheese.
Undoubtedly sound advice, but only 20 pounds? You're not trying hard enough.
Buy a snowblower your first year. Don't wait.
Although we are writing this during a historic drought/heat wave, we have no difficulty conjuring the memory of the great blizzard of Feb. 6, 2008, when the car got stuck just before we reached home and we had to shovel about 45 yards of city street before we got to shovel the 12-foot drifts across the driveway. The wisdom of this advice is surpassing: Do. Not. Wait.
It's all about the layers. Buy a great winter coat, silk long underwear and warm boots.
Amazingly, you will see people going sockless and mincing across ice-covered sidewalks in stiletto heels in subzero weather. Don't be those people.
Choose your tavern like you would choose your church.
If, in fact, there is some difference between these two entities.
Do not walk clockwise around the Square during the Saturday Dane County Farmers' Market.
Every week, you will encounter people who are trying to do this. Remember, there is no marching to the beat of a different drummer at the Farmers' Market. You must shuffle along cow-like with the masses in the counterclockwise direction or risk dismemberment or the ire of your fellow marketgoers. If you absolutely must backtrack to a stand, get off the sidewalk and take the grass...or the street.
Don't wait seven years before going to the Arboretum.
Six years would be okay; just don't wait seven.
Exercise more than you eat... or you'll get fat... like me.
Obviously good advice, but not essential.
Hit Woodman's during Packers games.
This is the kind of insider know-how we were looking for. Woodman's, the massive grocery outlet with stores on the east and west sides, is busy weekdays, packed on weekends, and mayhem before a snowstorm. While the store does a good job of staffing checkouts during busy periods, the best way to make it through with speed is when your fellow citizens find it obligatory to be glued to the set to cheer on the Green and Gold. This is also true, pretty much, for Badgers games.
I know it is tempting to eat an entire loaf of hot spicy cheese bread from Stella's Bakery in one sitting, but don't. Save some for later.
Again, probably good advice, but we couldn't say for sure. Has this in fact ever been done?
Only date one or two people; it's an incestuous town.
This in fact has never been done.
Don't try to do it all. This city will kill you.
Well, it will if the beer, brats, cheese and cheese bread don't get to you first.
