LATVIA - RIGA

I never lived in a city before. I spent my whole life in the country - we have a big house with a beautiful garden, the forest around us and no neighbors in sight. Still, I didn't lack anything - I had my school here, my hobby, my friends that I could visit by bike, my family that was always there and a lot of nature that I loved to spend time in. The place where we live is so simple and honest. This is also exactly what I like so much about my home, which was familiar to me down to the smallest detail.

Until I came to Riga: Riga is a city, where there is always something going on, there is a lot to see and to discover. It has a lot of people, no matter where you go. Here I lived in a large, shared apartment with seven other roommates. No garden. No forest around me. In the beginning I perceived all of this as a very big change, and partly I was a bit overwhelmed. Simply because I didn't know it like that. I was also not often alone on the road, although I actually liked to have some time for myself. But I have never been so radically and definitely alone. The city and life in the city were unknown to me. It was foreign to me.

But it didn't take long for me to find my place in this city. Driven by my own interest and with great pleasure, I set out - often alone - and walked through the then still snow-covered streets and alleys of Riga. I was aware that these streets would now probably become my home for the next five months. I was looking forward to it and therefore I repeated these walks over and over again. Each time I looked forward to it anew and each time I discovered something I had never seen before among all the houses and places I had passed so many times before. I also enjoyed so much the time I spent alone – I had time to think about my own thoughts, to see the good in things without someone telling me something different. It filled me up and that very feeling gave me that good feeling of familiarity at some point. I trusted the city that I thought I now knew it so well, but I also trusted it to still have something new for me. I trusted myself that I was already doing the right thing for me, no matter in what shape I was or what feelings I had. I understood that I was by my side all the time and forever. The most trust I gained for, is, maybe, to have me in new situations. And that`s, I guess, exactly the thing that gave me this strong feeling of trust and familiarity.

Before the beginning of my stay, I was very naive about something "unknown". I was looking forward to everything new, to all new impressions and experiences - I still do that now, maybe even a bit more. But I didn't think much at all about what my long-term contact with the unknown would mean for me and what all these new feelings would do to me. Now, after all my countless walks and excursions, after all the many situations that I didn't know before and in which I had someone with me in most cases, my attitude has changed a bit: Now I know that every place, every situation, every encounter and every conversation leaves something in me. And in the same way I see that it is worthwhile to consciously go into the unknown – as far as I am with me. After a certain time it becomes so familiar that I would almost think I had never seen anything else, but maybe it`s just because I had never been anything else.