Long time Chicagoan first time Austinite.

I'm finally back from my long Thanksgiving "vacation" in Chi-town. Thanksgiving was fantastic; it was a real treat to see my little cousins (one for the first time). As you may or may not know my family is nuts, and enjoys eating Thanksgiving Linner in the woods. Fortunately the weather actually held out this year. On one previous thanksgiving we actually had snow, and were pulling the cousins around on sleds.

I spent a bit of time downtown; I walked up Wells to see the Merchandise Mart (where I used to work), ate some Lou Malnatti's, and later walked around Michigan Ave. with friends. It brought back memories of a slimmer, more aspiring upper-class Dave. Eventually I'd like to see that slimmer Dave return once again.

Speaking of friends they're mostly married/engaged, and either have kids or have a one on deck. I met my sophomore room-mate's fiance, and reminisced about all the crazy things we did in college.

I went dancing at all my old hang-outs. It was good to see everyone at Fizz and Willowbrook.

One night I tried to find a free wifi hotspot. I spent almost 2 hours driving around, and when I finally found a decent signal, I tried to leach from inside an IHOP only to find that the signal disappeared completely inside.

It was all very familiar but nothing was the same. Some of my favorite old restaurants have closed, and many new ones have replaced them. I loved getting to see the old town, but everyone has moved into geographically distant parts of the city. It felt like I spent more time getting to where I was going, than actually being there. It was so hard to get people together to do even simple things. Then once we got together, it was once again very difficult to figure out what to do (most things were just too far away). Chicago has so much to do, but so much of it is too far away. Austin may not have as much, but what is there is very dense. For that alone is a great reason to love Austin. You can go downtown start out at the theater, and end up at a karaoke bar. That'd be much harder to do in Chicago.

I missed home. I missed my friends. I missed my cars. I missed the freedom of being at home. A small bit of me even missed the yard work. Austin you have me for at least another 1.5 years.