Are you planning to relocate to Boston? If so, congratulations, and welcome! Moving here is definitely a wise decision. However, no matter how awesome the destination, moving is stressful and usually involves a period of adjustment. We’d like to make the process a little smoother by alerting you to these 13 things that you quickly learn when you move to Boston:

1. Unless we're talking major storms, weather forecasts here are constantly changing and not particularly helpful - kind of like this rock!
Flickr/Bill KINCHLEA
Dress in layers and, if you have a car, keep an umbrella and ice scraper in the trunk.
2. In fall we have corn mazes but in winter (which seems to last for at least five months), we have snow mazes.
Flickr/Ted Eytan
Snow melts slowly in Boston and, by the end of the season, you may well find yourself struggling to toss snow on top of the giant, frozen wall you've created.
3. There’s more than one kind of Boston accent.
Flickr/Hernán Piñera
Movies are misleading; once you listen to born and bred Bostonians from different neighborhoods in and around the city, you'll notice the distinctions.
4. So. Many. Students.
Flickr/Lorianne DiSabato
This is a good thing. Education revitalized Boston's economy, but the sheer number of colleges here is staggering. BU alone has more than 33,000 students.
5. You’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day from now on…
Flickr/BU Interactive News
...regardless of whether or not you’re Irish.
6. Once you’re a Bostonian, you’ll have even more holidays to celebrate.
Flickr/City of Boston Archives
Here, we celebrate Evacuation Day, Patriots Day… the list goes on. (Pictured is the Evacuation Day Parade in 1930.)

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7. Always fancied yourself a rebel? Then you’re in the right place.
Flickr/Mike Steinhoff
Dissent and protest have been part of life here since before the Boston Tea Party.
8. Almost everything in Boston is old or the first of its kind.
Flickr/anokarina
Try and maintain the sense of awe you feel when you first move to the city, before your eyes start to skim over historic plaques without really appreciating them.
9. Dunks is now your religion.
Flickr/Thomas Hawk
By all means keep following your existing faith. Just be aware that you acquired a second one. This is what your house of worship looks like and you’ll be super devout!
10. Every horror story you’ve heard about driving in Boston is kind of true...
Flickr/William F. Yurasko
…from off ramps with insanely tight curves to signage that seems to have been designed by drunk sadists. Good thing we’re all such careful drivers (and rarely sarcastic). But that’s okay, because the city is very walkable and there’s always the T.
11. You are now required to hate New York or at least never praise anything about it in public.
Flickr/Tom Simpson
Sports rivalry is taken pretty seriously here.
12. You've moved to Boston, not Beantown.
Flickr/SFEPbancourt
Only tourists call it Beantown.
13. You now live in the best city in the country.
Flickr/Wally Gobetz

What do you tell new arrivals about life in Boston? Let us know on the Only In Boston Facebook page.

You may also be interested in our past article: “16 Ways Living In Boston Ruins You For Life..”

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