Last week JP, Catherine and I were having a few beers and talking about places we'd lived. We enthusiastically agreed that Vermont was beautiful, Chicago was awesome and Montreal was cool. And eventually Catherine mentioned that she was about to move to Atlanta. JP said, "Oh."

"What? C'mon, it can't be that bad," one of us protested.

"No no, Atlanta's fine," JP continued. "It's just that it doesn't have any redeeming qualities."

Well, having just spent nearly 48 hours in the city, I now consider myself something of an Atlanta expert — or at least able to politely disagree.

Judging by when Orbitz left a voicemail for me, US Air decided sometime last night that my flight would be delayed by an hour — this wasn't the unforeseen pushing back a schedule, but rather a profound philosophical disagreement between USAir and myself about when the flight ought to take off. In a truly impressive display of meteorological synchronicity, this decision pushed takeoff smack into the middle of a newly-arrived thunderstorm. So I got to spend quite a bit of quality time on the ATL tarmac. That's when I wrote this, and tried (and failed) to publish it from my phone. It seemed like a good time to record my initial impressions of the city — if you can think of nice things to say when about a city you're sitting on one of its runways — wishing that you were merely an hour late and instead comforting yourself by shooting beams of pure hatred at the weather, control tower and anyone else passing by — well, then the nice things must be true.

I should get this out of the way first: Atlanta is kind of a freeway-choked hellscape. There's no getting around that. You have to drive to get anywhere. To some extent, I think the mark of genuine city-hood is how unnecessary cars are. By that score, Atlanta is a miserable failure, a gigantic suburb rather than an honest-to-god city. It's sort of like LA, only with an appropriate sense of embarrassed modesty.

But that's my only real complaint. You may have to drive to get anyplace, but once you get to that place, it tends to be pretty nice. Patronizing conceptions of the south notwithstanding, the area is considerably less choked with national franchises than you'd think. There are original stores, and bars, and restaurants -- more than you'd find in DC, at any rate. It's great.

It's an attractive city, too. I liked the skyline. I know my architecturally-inclined friends are recoiling in horror right now. "What is he thinking?" Kriston is yelling at his laptop. "Doesn't he realize the buildings don't look like the headquarters of a bank run by Darth Vader? And that they don't all look exactly the same?!"

Well, to be honest, I do realize those things. But the extent of my architectural phillistinism really can't be overstated: staring at the Coca-Cola building and noticing that it seemed a little drab, I joked to myself, "Why don't they just make it look like a giant bottle of Coke? Hahaha." Then, a moment later, I thought, "Hmmm.... That might not be that bad." See what I mean?

Finally, to slip back into the aforementioned patronizing conception of the south, the residents' sense of hospitality has to be factored into any judgment. Everyone was extremely sweet and helpful -- first and foremost among them Catherine's new landlord, Jeannie, who patiently drew lots of excellent and much-needed maps for us, and even went so far as to make dinner reservations on our behalf. Hell, even random neighbors at the bars were friendly, pleasantly introducing themselves and unselfishly sharing tales of martial animal cuteness (which I'm sure Catherine will regale you with later). And Catherine reports that, while I was fetching the car, the gentlemen at the bar proved to be quite friendly, too. It's because they're so hospitable, you see.

Anyway, that's the verdict: it's too hot and has way too many cars, but otherwise Atlanta seems perfectly nice. Although I have to say that the charms of its runways did begin to wear a little thin after an hour or so. And sweet tea remains completely unfit for human consumption.