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I hope you are enjoying your limbo week between Christmas and New Years. I’ve taken this week off of writing before but am not doing that this year because I am a beast. I just spent the week in Pittsburgh, very late Sunday to very early Sunday. My trip was defined by three things:

Sometimes I did all three at once! Last year, I used that week to go to the gym five times. This time, I did four and think of myself as a failure. Last year, I went to the gym five days a week for three months and rewarded myself by going to Spain. I’ve told myself I will compensate last week’s shortcomings by fitting a sixth workout in. I wanted to do it today, but I snoozed all my early alarms. I have a whole week to figure it out because I look at my weeks as starting Mondays and ending Sundays, which one of the European things about me.

Another Euro quality I possess is preferring my water without ice. We spent what felt like weeks of middle school German learning how to order at a restaurant. It was drilled into my head that if you ordered Wasser, it would be carbonated. To order still water, we were heavily, heavily dissuaded from ordering Leitungswasser, which is tap water that a business might charge us for. Instead, we are to order water without carbonation — wasser ohne Kohlensäure, which is so fun to say. Here’s how to pronounce it: VAH-ssehr OH-nuh KOH-lehn-ZOY-ruh. It’s fun to repeat to a beat. German is fun when you take out the Germanness.

We took advantage of Gen X’s streaming platform (Apple TV) by starting and finishing Pluribus, which I adored. I learned it has the most annoying Reddit haters of any show. I think if you hate this show, you hate women). This binge reminded me how much I love and have been lacking prestige TV (because The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and Canada’s Drag Race somehow do not count).

Like most women and gays, I finished Heated Rivalry, as if I needed more appreciation for Canada and big, muscular men. I initially reserved Heated Rivalry as a show I can only watch while doing cardio (to motivate me to actually do cardio), providing a socially acceptable way to publicly watch gay porn. I abandoned this cardio-only restriction once the Scott Hunter episode got going, and I realized the show actually has emotional depth. Next cardio show might be Mad Men. I think it’s time to bring excellence to the elliptical because I know my legs aren’t doing that already.

After much frustration with the timing and quality of my flights from New York (or, unfortunately, Newark for the Spirit flight) to Pittsburgh, I’ve spent most recent hometown trips avoiding air travel — catching a ride, disappointing my Nonna by taking the bus, and submitting to the expensive, 10-hour Amtrak. I flew home last week to a redesigned airport.

Non-Pittsburghers love to underestimate Pittsburgh, dismissing it as a tacky, rust-belt town (hey, only I’m allowed to say that!) that is nothing more than a former steel town (our universities, hospitals, and technical innovation say otherwise!) with deep segregation (okay, you got me there). Pittsburgh may have its flaws, but it really pulls far beyond its weight. This is a phenomenon all of us expitts (Pittsburgh expats — I’m coining this term right now!) contend with daily. We left because we were bored and wanted to see something else, to defy the generational patterns of our ancestors that were born and died here.

As we sat in Sheetz parking lots as 16-year-olds or spent another disappointing night out at Tequila Cowboy in our twenties, we made a promise to ourselves a different way of life than what we were born into. Through school, career, or sheer desire, many of us have found ourselves elsewhere in the world. Some of these cities are bigger versions of Pittsburgh (Philly, Boston, one of Ohio’s urban hubs), while some of us do things miraculous even for non-Pittsburghers (a friend in the grade below me seems to be living in a different National Park every other month). Wherever we end up, even for a short stint, we prove to ourselves that we are more than where we came from.

But we came from somewhere pretty cozy. We return home for the holidays or otherwise and — as we try winning against the whims of our adolescent selves — remember how cool Pittsburgh is. Maybe it comes when the skyline hits us out of the tunnels or while eating a great meal in one of the neighborhoods near the colleges. Maybe the coolness lasts a moment and makes us excited to leave again, but it’s there.

When we leave Pittsburgh for greener pastures and meet people that crap on it, we defend the city as if it is our birthright (because it is!). Even if there is so much about it that frustrates us or that we find better elsewhere, only we are allowed to make fun of it properly. Many of my friends from college and beyond grew up in beloved cities that people dream of living in, and they do not possess the spectrum of knowledge that those of us from places Pittsburgh-sized (it is the Paris of Appalachia, after all) or smaller have.

A Pittsburghism that other weird cities might also have is believing that our stuff is the most unique or best or most efficient or something, even when it’s delusional. Maybe this comes from our sports dynasties. For example, I was a longtime believer that the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium was up there as one of the best zoos in the world. For a city of our size (a little over 300K in the actual city, over 2 million in the greater metro area), we do a lot better than our peers.

Some people I’ve met have been surprised that Pittsburgh’s airport goes to other countries, another way to underestimate the power of Pittsburgh. The airport first opened in the 50s but went under a billion-dollar expansion in the early 90s to serve as a hub for US Airways. Never heard of it? Yeah. Before the airline went under, the Pittsburgh airport was modeled as a one-terminal behemoth to serve it.

Since it was built for a now-defunct airline, the airport always felt like a time capsule of a bygone era, bringing its own oddities as well as the natural strangeness that Pittsburgh things have. Clickity-clackity tiles unify the airport, a sound you hear once you reach check-in until you arrive at the carpet of your gate.

The landside terminal is full of long halls like the one pictured below. It’s not particularly relaxing but does make you tired. There is an emptiness to it when you aren’t thinking about the stress and length of the security line. There is a lonely Transformers-esque robot made of steel-looking parts and bridges, representing Pittsburgh’s steel past and tech-forward present. The busiest I’ve seen it was on random (non-holiday) early mornings, sometimes forcing fliers to go through an alternative security checkpoint in a different building you have to go outside for.

Once you’re past security, you would hit something no other airport has. PIT might have been (too lazy to fact check) the only one-terminal airport in the country with its own tram. For all of my life until this winter, a people mover connected the land-side terminal for check-ins, security, and baggage claims with the post-security gates and stores. PIT had people flying connecting flights in mind as opposed to people whose final destination is Pittsburgh, so most fliers theoretically would never see the people mover.

Like most weird things in weird towns, people get very territorial and excited about the people mover. I am one of those people-mover people. It’s a reminder that the hard stuff is theoretically over. You’ve made it past security, and now it’s time to fly. It’s a physical transition to a calmer part of flying, finding your gate and maybe getting a bite to eat. Conversely, it’s a way to welcome you home after your long journey from elsewhere. There are two people movers, and you usually don’t have to wait a while for one to arrive for you. When I was a kid (and still as an adult), I would rush inside to sit on one of the two benches on each side and watch the tunnel from the window. It made flying exciting for me as a kid and comforting for me as an adult. Take a ride with me, and pretend you’re also 8 years old about to fly for the first time (to Disney World).

Both of my parents worked on the 90s airport redesign. My dad worked on the people movers’ air brakes, and my mom designed the map of the air mall (well, AirMall. It’s the shops you hit in the center of the terminal before finding one of the four arms with the gates) and did photoshoots for it. Taking the people mover and with its air mall ads inside was a reminder of my parents. I asked my mom earlier to verify what both of them did, and she sent me a voice memo about her work. After I listened to it, I thought it would be fun to share it.

Once you’re off the people mover, you ascend up a bunch of escalators. On your journey, you’d first see a T-Rex. I think he’s still stuck in this now-obsolete terminal before the Carnegie Museum of Natural History finds a better home for him.

At the next landing, you’d hit something you’d only see in Pittsburgh: a Steeler next to George Washington. Obviously they are on the same level; Franco Harris and the Immaculate Reception are as important to the area as Washington’s role in the French and Indian War.

The terminal opens to a massive Alexander Calder mobile, my mom’s and probably my favorite part of the airport. This is the centerpiece. From it, a myriad of shops and restaurants. You can grab your Sarris chocolates to proselytize the city’s sweetness to companions at your final destination, but most people are waiting in line for hot food, usually Chick-fil-A or McDonald’s if it’s too early or the Lord’s day. Or, you can sit at a bar called Martini, where I once worked on this newsletter and did shots with a random guy confessing his affair.

The 100 gates are all along four different arms with a few other stores and restaurants. These carpeted arms, sometimes playing light music, are too long to be properly kept up. You really feel the outdatedness here, the potential of an airport squandered by outside factors. Walking through here feels like hitting the snooze button. But that’s okay, because soon you’ll be out of the airport and off to wherever Pittsburgh isn’t.

The airport was a physical manifestation of a lot of Pittsburgh, especially women’s hairstyles: stuck in whatever was cool in the 80s. Pittsburgh is a place that a lot of people stay in forever and for good reason. Housing is affordable, and there are industries that you can work in forever. This makes Pittsburgh safe and also makes it sleepy. It’s why it’s a great place to grow up and a fabulous place to leave. Pittsburgh is at least 5 years late to every trend, and I must reiterate that the first Shake Shack here opened last year — and the mayor was there.

But if there’s one thing that keeps Pittsburgh ahead of its rust-belt and midsized brethren, it’s that there is an openness that yields innovation. People say hi to you on the street and have full conversations with you in lines. Finally, Pittsburgh’s airport underwent another redesign, ready to meet the moment in 2025 and hopefully beyond.

r/Pittsburgh has been aflutter with constant posts about the airport and how its redesign is affecting travel. It opened right before the Thanksgiving travel weekend. The landside terminal and the people mover are no more; the gates are seamlessly connected to security through an expansion like every other airport. Internet curmudgeons complain about the parking and longer security lines, but even they can acknowledge the beauty of the new airport.

I’ve been flying home almost every Christmas break since college, and I was excited to greet the new airport even though I was arriving hours later than originally scheduled. It was gorgeous, its wood-paneled ceiling reminding me of Scandinavian airports I’ve marveled at. I was shocked and proud that a city that can be so tasteless proved again that it always bounces back.

When I flew back at the end of the week, Ben graciously volunteered to drive me up early to avoid the assumably long security lines. Long, they were not, and I got to feel the sophistication firsthand.

A pink-lit hallway isn’t the same as a people mover, but it still made me feel warm. It’s nice to feel that, wherever I might fly off to, my hometown is going in the right direction.

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