The important thing is, I'm meeting new people

Shawn and I recently took a long trip back to Pittsburgh, a place that I still consider home in a lot of ways (and in a lot of ways not). This trip, possibly more than any other, brought up lots of thoughts and feelings about the concept of home.

But that shit’s boring. The trip was great. Saw a lot of friends (cue feelings of home), but didn’t get to see as many people as we hoped. The weather was perfect - beautiful true fall days with vibrant colors and crisp smells that only occur when you’re visiting and not actually living there. Even the gray and rainy day felt right. Spent time in Shadyside, Bloomfield, Polish Hill, Lawrenceville, the Strip District; neighborhoods filled with people and buildings that don’t seem to exist outside of Pittsburgh, but which are all feeling the changes that are setting in to the city.

Went to a picture-perfect wedding, where I hugged a heat lamp most of the night. After that sentence, it’s impossible to say anything that doesn’t sound sarcastic, but it was honestly a really lovely wedding.

Ate way too much, but got to visit some restaurants I’ve been missing (Coca Cafe, Tessaro’s, Udipi, Park Brugge) and check out some new ones. We took a trip out to Cecil, PA (about 30 minutes from Pgh) to The Golden Pig, a Korean home-cooking restaurant run by one amazing woman. 

Was blown away by the Pittsburgh Public Market, which came in after we had already left. Also walked through the Italian festival in Bloomfield, where I ate both a meatball sub and raviolis (yes, raviolis, this is Pittsburgh). Took every chance I could to eat pierogies.

And took a trip out to coal country the following weekend, where we visited Shawn’s family, played some games, saw the seven dwarves (nieces and nephews), but also got to hear about Obama =(

Sometimes I don’t know if Austin is the place we’ll end up. There are so many great things about this place, but I’m still really drawn to the Northern/Eastern post-industrial cities. It’s the aesthetic I feel most comfortable in - the crumbly, generations-old buildings, the warehouses and manufacturing plants taking up valuable waterfront real estate, the real blue-collar foundations, a sense of real history. But fuck being cold all the time.