I'm home in Milwaukee for the Easter weekend, and while I only moved out of the city eight months ago, it was amazing how much brighter the city looked today when I was passing through some neighborhoods that I used to frequent. The city's warehouse district, aka the Historic Third Ward, has filled in quite a bit with new condo construction. Some storefronts downtown have been filled. And on the whole, it looked as if the whole place had been given a fresh coat of paint. It was kind of weird, in a very cool way.
I'll admit that there isn't a lot of weight to this post...but isn't it great to return to a place that you used to find mundane and see it in an entirely new light? I always loved showing people around Milwaukee when I lived here, because introducing people to new places allows you to see your daily environment in a new way; by being the tour guide, you get to be the vicarious tourist, as out-of-town friends will often notice little details about your daily environment that you had overlooked.
It's really a lot of fun to come back home and see what changes have been made, and perhaps notice things that had always been there but that you had never taken the time to observe. It has made me appreciate the city that I had taken for granted for so many years. I guess it's true what they say about distance making the heart grow fonder, hey?
