I'm a New Yorker who visited Atlanta for the first time. Here are 7 things that surprised me.

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted co-designed and built both Central Park in New York City and Piedmont Park in Atlanta in the late 1800s, according to Piedmont Park's official website.

Spanning over 180 acres, Piedmont Park's winding paths, open fields, and views of towering skyscrapers felt just like Central Park to me. It's no wonder that the park has been used as a Central Park look-alike in movies such as "Avengers: Infinity War."

Georgia passed a permitless carry law in 2022, allowing people over the age of 21 to carry concealed firearms without a license as long as they have no criminal history and follow posted signage, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

It's not a predominantly Southern policy, but as someone who grew up in Wisconsin and now lives in New York, I've never lived in a state with these gun laws. I hadn't anticipated seeing signs prohibiting guns and knives at the entrances to all of the museums I visited during my stay.

I visited Atlanta in October during its LGBTQ+ pride weekend, which I hadn't expected since June is nationally recognized as LGBTQ+ Pride Month in commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising.

Atlanta's pride celebrations first moved to October in 2008, when an extreme drought led officials to cancel Atlanta Pride festivities due to concerns about irreversible damage to the grass in Piedmont Park, The Georgia Voice reported. The change stuck, and Atlanta Pride was permanently moved to correspond with National Coming Out Day on October 11.

An Atlanta local who has been involved in planning the city's pride celebrations told me that people welcomed the change because the weather for outdoor parades and festivals would be more temperate in October compared to Georgia's famously muggy summers.

MARTA is the eighth-largest transit system in the US, with people taking 488,000 trips every day, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in 2022. Coming from New York City, I assumed Atlanta's public transit system was similar to the subway in that most people take it but some opt to own cars. 

However, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported in January that ridership has declined 60% in the last decade, with concerns around the COVID-19 pandemic driving more vehicle sales. Delayed MARTA expansion projects have also resulted in a system that doesn't service many residential areas.

When I asked my friends who live there, they all told me that most residents drive everywhere and rarely use the MARTA buses and trains. I ended up renting a car for my trip, and I was grateful that I didn't have to walk long distances to transit stations from their apartments.

During my five days in Atlanta, multiple people commented on how bad the city's traffic is known to be. Coming from New York City, where crowded streets can result in hours of gridlock, I didn't think it was that bad. Even while driving to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport at rush hour, traffic only stood still a few times and kept moving, for the most part.

However, I hadn't expected the highways in Atlanta to be so wide, featuring as many as six lanes.

An Atlanta local encouraged me to try grits, a Southern breakfast staple made from ground corn, while we were out at brunch. I'd never had them before, but I imagined that they would taste something like oatmeal.

I was surprised by the rich, creamy flavor of cheesy grits. While I've occasionally seem them on brunch menus in New York City, I found myself wishing they were more readily available outside the South.

Waffle House has a few locations in Pennsylvania, but it is mostly located in Southern states like Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Florida.

I was surprised by how many Waffle House chains I saw as I drove around Atlanta, the New York City equivalent of a Starbucks every few blocks.