Glad You Called 9: Small-Town Glory, Part 1
I’ve always been a city kid, no doubt… First of all, I was born in by-far the biggest city in my home country. Then, my family moved to the second biggest city (let’s call it PLD), still about half-a-million in population, which is rather big. As a child and as a teenager, my means of transportation was always the bus. And the reason was not because I liked being cramped in tight, mostly dirty public-transport vehicles, but because that was the only feasible way to get from school to training to my family’s home in the city.
When I went on high-school exchange to a boarding school abroad for a year, I still longed for the city and I spent significant amount of time there or in close proximity to it (let’s call this one NYC, enough said). Later, in undergrad university, I chose an institution located in a city (you can call it Roffa) — with its tall buildings, shopping streets, crowded areas, large public parks, bars and so on. Hell, even when I went on another exchange across the ocean, to the West Coast, I found myself in a large city again (people call this one LA).
You get it, I’ve always been a city kid. Cities had many different places to go, and one could do twice as many different things, too. As a child, I was never bored in the city — there’s a myriad of playgrounds and each neighborhood I lived in was large enough to explore for years. Later on, as I grew older, the cities started to seem a bit smaller, but they still had various sides to relish — historic places, sport events, music events, other cultural happenings, big schools with people from all over the country. I also discovered that at night, a city becomes a different beast — one that is even more fun, where you can stay awake all night, enjoy the energy, the lights, and then some.
Considering my fascination and life-long (at 23) experience with living in city, it was a shock, about two years ago, that I had decided to move to a smaller town for the final years of my education. Notice I did not say “smaller city” because that would’ve been an exaggeration. Even compared to my previous university location, this new place was at least 5 times smaller. Now imagine it in comparison to LA, that’s about … doesn’t matter, you can do the math. All I knew, is that this town really was simply a town. That’s it.
The fact that I was prepared and was fully aware where I was headed for the upcoming 2 years, still seems a bit crazy to me. Someone should’ve slapped me at the back of my head to check if I was alright, and probably I would’ve changed my mind in a flash. Oh well, nobody did that. They did not help me snap out of my idea. So I eventually embarked on this new “adventure” towards small-town glory (hence, I’m calling this place StG).
The first two months were according to expectations. Not that there was little to do… We did stuff around town — visited the local club and some bars, went to the cheese factory, went to the shopping “streets”, to some of the nice places to eat — cannot complain that much. However, I just couldn’t help but feel restricted in terms of activities. The uphill walk to university, the seemingly cemented fog blanket over the town’s sky and the fog’s best friend — the rain — did not help to paint a better picture. So, at the first opportunity (fall break), I ran away as fast as I could, for as long as I could. I went first to my home city and then to my former university city — boom! Cinemas, cafes, restaurants, friends, crowds, partying, sleepless nights, I was back indeed. It felt nice to catch a break.
Two weeks of city life was not enough of positive thoughts to prepare me for winter in little StG. There was not even snow that winter. It was just pure cold (plus the fog and the rain, but those were Konstanz). I can remember myself counting days till the next trip, get-away, homecoming, whatever, just get me out. Thankfully, Christmas came, so I was able to seek refuge in the home-city environment; and after that, the exam season was upon me followed by another fortunate trip abroad. Hence, for a month and a half, I had little reason to crawl out of the library to walk around town, or I was just not around.
Corona also shortened the overall time I spent in StG. And I have to say, mostly I didn’t even miss it. Sure, I missed the cool people I have met thus far at uni, but there were all from different places around the world, not from StG itself. Corona had also put a multitude of trips and plans on hold, so there were places piling up on my list to visit after travelling was fully allowed (still waiting btw).
Then something strange happened…
After more than a month of the new world order forced upon us, I had to eventually go back to StG because my friends were going back, and I definitely wanted to socialize after virtually no social contact. (Except for my family that is. Nothing against my family, but you’d understand). I don’t know what it was exactly. If it was the wonderful spring air, with everything coming to life… maybe it was the joy of face-to-face interaction after the life-changing experience of living through a global pandemic… or perhaps it was the feeling of having some free time instead of bending backwards over books and/or laptops (pick your poison). Whatever the reason, May in StG was beautiful, hell yeah, it was!
Interestingly enough, though, that was not the end of it…
Yours truly,
Glad You Called
