I shift from one foot to the other, relishing in how full I am from the pancetta, scallion, and goat cheese omelet I wolfed down at Trattoria Centrale, a cozy Italian breakfast joint, a few hours before.
The faint buzz of the cappuccino is lingering in my brain, which is good, because I’m analyzing the thousands of tiny brushstrokes that coalesce to make Claude Monet’s “Le Matin, temps brumeux, Pourville.”
For a moment, I’m so lost in the hazy blues and greens of the landscape painting, I completely forget where I am.
A hearty chuckle followed by a thick Southern drawl echoes from somewhere in the back of the museum gallery and I’m pulled from my daydream.
That’s right, I smile to myself incredulously. I’m in Birmingham, Alabama.
To outsiders, Birmingham may still hold traces of an expired reputation. A dusty old steel town. Another city in the Deep South marked with the scars of racial division. A place to pass through for a pulled pork sandwich on I-65. But for longtime residents and newcomers exploring the city with fresh eyes (and empty stomachs), Birmingham is a city in full bloom.
In the words of Jim Windsor, a lifelong resident of the city, “Birmingham is finally cool.”
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