Visiting Home

For the first time in our lives, Lisa and I are tourists in a city in which we used to live. I'm sitting in the Corner Bakery in downtown Atlanta, enjoying a good cup of joe and wondering why we ever moved away from the "big city." Lisa's several blocks away at the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) Conference, where tomorrow she'll be presenting her graduate research on the corrosion of anchor bolts on bridges.

And I'm just along for the ride. Last night, we walked the streets a little, ate at an outside table at a restaurant by Georgia Tech, then hit up our favorite Atlanta spot: Cafe Intermezzo. It's a perfect European coffee bar and dessert house. If you ever visit Atlanta, don't miss it. I promise you, it'll be worth your time. We think about it almost weekly now that we are no longer living here.

It's an interesting feeling being back in the place you once lived. First, we notice things we never did when we lived here, like how much interesting architecture there is downtown. Second, we wish we still lived here, because we love the city atmosphere. Lisa spent Saturday afternoon in Piedmont Park (Atlanta's version of NYC's Central Park), and she observed that one of the great things about urban areas is that people are free to be themselves. There's no judgment in a city park -- just people living their lives the best way they know how.

Sure, we love the small town where we live, and we love traveling into Pittsburgh for the "city" atmosphere. But every once in awhile, like today, we miss city life. Of course, memories of places one loves tend to be seen through rose-colored glasses, so we'd probably get sick of the traffic, the lousy subway system that doesn't go anywhere, and the inability to see the stars at night. We'd probably hate the unbearable summers here, where it's still seven trillion degrees at 11 pm. But we do love Atlanta, and we loved our time here. And we're glad to soak in a few spring Atlanta days this week, remembering the city how we want to remember it -- without all the drawbacks.