traveling back to your old haunts...

Out of curiosity ...when any of you travel back do you find things the same? totally different? I went back to Norfolk and it's been 3 years since I last been there. They revamped pembroke area to turn it into the new downtown ....what was really small retail parks is now jampacked with business complexes - I was slightly impressed- It looked totally different  ( Downtown Norfolk was the business district but it was looking manky and many businesses moved out) The beach area still looks the same.

more fake boobs though 

I guess I'm one not to look back.  Even when I go visit the parents I don't spend too much time visiting old haunts and friends. 
I would love to go back to the Catskills sometime, though.  It's four years till our twentieth anniversary.  Maybe if I start planning now.  That would be a fun thing to do. 

unfortunately I managed to see the old haunts per chance ...I ended working for my dad while I was there so I got to see folks that I remembered from high school ...sadly they are still the same ..hanging out at the mall like I did when I was in my teens . ...we stayed at my old house where I grew up ...the unfortunate thing was that my dog Princess was stolen  early this year  :\\\'(  she was an English Bulldog ...idiots 

Good topic, Alicia! I've been wondering what's wrong with me lately. I have a trip to the US coming up in mid-September for a friend's wedding. But I'm just not looking forward to it at all. I do want to see my friends, but not really in the US. Why can't they come over here for their wedding??   

Anyway, I know that when I get there I'll be fine, but right now I have no interest in being in the US, surrounded by Americans, with everything that's so ... "American," for lack of a better description. Has anyone else felt this way before their first return trip?

I went back to the area where I grew up just a few weeks ago.  I've been back briefly a couple of times since we moved away in 1980, but this was the first trip there for a good many years.

The street in which we lived had the typical British 1930s houses with long thin back yards, and our neighbors on one side also owned an old apple orchard -- about a half acre -- which extended behind the adjoining gardens and backed onto those in the next street.   We all used to play there as kids.

Our neighbor's old house is now gone, and a road runs down what used to be their back garden.  What was the orchard is now covered with new houses.  Even our old garden has been truncated to about a third of its original length to make room for another house and garages.

The front yards were always small, but most at least had a little garden area.  Almost all of them have now been concreted over and the front walls/fences demolished to make room for more parking space.   The street itself is busier than I would have imagined possible.

I walked down the road to my old infant/junior school.  It looks about the same from a distance, but on closer inspection it seems to have been turned into Stalag 17, with barriers, higher gates,  cameras. and warning notices about the dire consequences that await any unauthorized person who dares to set foot over the threshold.

At least the old field/rough ground/woods across the road from the school where we used to play still looks exactly the same as it did when I last walked through it, which is well over 25 years ago.  It doesn't seem quite so large now, but I suppose that's what growing up does to one's sense of scale  (not that I've ever really grown-up, of course!   ).

All the streets in the area are just so jammed with cars now that in some it would be impossible to get anything of a decent size through the gap in the middle.  The little corner stores are completely unrecognizable, and the whole place certainly has a rather neglected, run-down air to it.

It was nice to see some things the same as I remember, but overall the place has changed so much and the general atmosphere is just so different that there's no way I could ever feel at home there now.

The atmosphere still felt the same oddly enough ...and that's not a complement. I felt so glad I wasn't living there anymore ...even my dad is sick of the place ..he's dying to move his shop out of Norfolk just as soon as he renovates the house and sells it on.

There is an old saying, "You can never go home again."
I went back to Chicago to meet my future husband after 5 years in Oregon.
Most of the stores were the same. The club I spent many a Saturday night in dancing until dawn was there too.
Nothing was  the same though. I can't really explain it, but the feel of things and places was different to me.
Anytime I'd left Chicago in the past it always felt like I was home again when I was back. Not this time. I was definately just a visitor.

It'll be 5 years in September for me being in the UK and I can honestly say that I could slip back into a US way of living just as easily as I can keep living here. There are things I love and hate about both places. Yeah, a lot has changed in my little neck of the woods (Baltimore/Columbia Maryland) but not so much I feel completely lost nor so little I feel like I'm revisiting too many bad or bygone memories.

I guess I'm one not to look back.  Even when I go visit the parents I don't spend too much time visiting old haunts and friends. 
I would love to go back to the Catskills sometime, though.  It's four years till our twentieth anniversary.  Maybe if I start planning now.  That would be a fun thing to do. 

Catskills! Mindy- are you a NY'er like me?

the first time i stepped off the plane at JFK i felt so out of sorts and almost confused!  it was totally surreal......

as far as my hometown, it keeps getting more and more like wisteria lane and that will never change.  the houses keep getting bigger and more $$$ and sometimes it drives me madQ!

My parents & sister moved from California to Texas a few years after i emigrated.  So when i go back to visit them, im 1500+ miles away from my old stomping ground, so nothing seems familiar or nice.  The town they live in is WACK and i can barely stand to visit.

 

I go back often so nothing seems to change  alot!  When I moved back to NYC from Boston everything seemed to change when I would go visit Boston again.  Harvard Square is like a different world to me, I hate that!!!!

We just got back from Baltimore this morning!  The area I grew up in hasn't changed all that much, I suppose there have been a few new developments over the years, we get back at least once per year so I didn't see a whole lotta change there.

What has changed in Baltimore City, especially the Inner Harbor area, it is growing like gangbusters.  The housing market is EN FUEGO.  $500,000-million condos and houses are sprouting up around the harbor and parts of it are a complete construction site.  A friend bought a house for $160,000 in the late 90s and it sold for $480,000.  Sounds like parts of Britain! I think I feel a bit of a renaissance for the city coming on.

The old haunts were great to see and seeing my friends there was like we'd never left except that they're all having babies now!  A really good 2 week visit when all is said and done.  now back to work tomorrow 

Matt

Catskills! Mindy- are you a NY'er like me?

I'm from NE PA (but closer to Binghamton NY).  I worked for three summers in the Catskills.  It's my favorite place on earth.  And it's where James and I met.   

I guess I tend to get a little bit weirded out when I go home.  Some things change and some things stay eerily the same.  The Dairy Bar is still there, there's still always a softball game at the ball park.  Teenagers still go to carnivals for entertainment in the summer.  But there's now a McDonald's, the Acme market is gone, and the town is all filled with dollar stores and weird places.  There's a great Chinese place now and the movie theater only has one performance on Friday and Saturday night now instead of two-although the owner does stand outside to make sure he doesn't start it till everybody gets there just like when I was a kid.