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    Dear Columbus: A Love Letter to The City

    Dear Columbus,

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    Although you’re not the place where I grew up, I have found myself homesick for you. You are the one who taught me that there is life outside of New York. You are the one who taught me that the speed of life can slow down a little bit, yet still be active, vivacious, and exciting. You introduced me to people who have become my lifelong friends — though some of them I only knew for I few years before I moved away.

    You are where I spent the majority of my 20s, where I earned my graduate degree, where I embarked on my teaching career, and where I got married to the love of my life. Even though my husband and I are both born and bred east-coasters, having spent most of our Columbus tenure in the Short North, we wouldn’t have felt right saying our vows anywhere but in Goodale Park (or spending our afterparty at Skully’s in our complete wedding attire). When he told me to pack up my Manhattan apartment because he had chosen to attend OSU for graduate school, I shuddered at the thought that I was going to be living in cow-infested dairy land where the only cultural event consisted of scrutinizing the every moves of the football fans at the Horseshoe.

    Oh, how naïve and wrong I was! (Though I will always be eternally grateful for the glorious dairy land known Jeni’s Ice Cream and I smile whenever I see it sold out of state.) I am proud to be a Buckeye as well, and proud to know what a buckeye is!

    When I came back to visit you last week, to spend time with my lifelong friends, I was disheartened at the loss of some of my favorite restaurants, (Here’s to you Betty’s, Blue Nile, and The Burgundy Room!) but thrilled to eat my favorite meal at NorthStar, as I marveled at the expansion in The Short North. As much as I love my new hometown of Washington, DC, when a friend asked how I was enjoying my sojourn in Columbus, I started to cry. I missed you, C-Bus! I missed all that you represent, all that you were to me, and all that you helped to make me become. I now relish at the opportunity to yell, “O-H” at a fellow gym member who is donning his scarlet and grey. I proudly sport my vintage clothes purchased at Flower Child and sigh when my Express packages arrive with a return address zip code starting with 432.

    When I see the signs in the D.C. metro advertising lifeincbus.com, I feel honored to be able to identify the photographs.

    Thank you Columbus for letting me adopt you as my hometown for awhile. O-H!

    – Robin Goldstein, Washington DC

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    Robin Goldstein
    Robin Goldsteinhttps://columbusunderground.com
    Robin Goldstein is a French and journalism teacher who lives in Washington, D.C. She spent seven years in Columbus, where she taught French at area high schools, and completed her M.A. at The Ohio State University. Though a NY-native and D.C. resident, Robin always keeps Columbus, OH close to her heart.
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