How to Know When a Place is Home

As the end of my third week of my last year in uni draws to a close, I contemplate, have I even done anything interesting? Tragically, I concluded that I haven't. Interesting and I have parted in such different directions that domestic-ed Americana thinks it has a shot at me. Perhaps I exaggerate (or do I?) but I acutely feel that life has become a pursuit of the minute and I lose track of the bigger and finer things of life. Why just today, I was enjoying a spin around Hburg on my bike...delighting in the sunshine...and whinging internally that I never got out on my bike because I have so much homework...and then I realized...I had actually taken a two hour ride the day before.

When you realize time is passing quickly, you realize you're beginning to feel at home. When faces you'd know vaguely before smile at you, you realize you're beginning to feel at home. When you know where to find the freshest fruit, when certain roads are busy, and especially once you've mastered the dress code...you realize that you're beginning to make a foreign environment your home. It's a universal truth that you don't have to love any one place as soon as you move there or for the following months. You don't have to be eternal committed to a place to make it "home." You just have to create a few routines, make a few friends and solemnly promise yourself you're going to try and not make an idiot of yourself learning local customs.

This is my country. This is where I'm supposed to belong. Even though my classmates look like me and speak with a similar accent, I'm still a global nomad who's picked Hburg as my foreign assignment. Like adapting to any new country, I've got though the hardest months and the humiliation of looking like a clueless idiot over and over again (and had to shudder past the hippy-eque dress code, just wasn't feeling it). This is the part where I start to enjoy my new posting. It might never be home, but like any foreign culture, it can feel almost like home...