When you think of a small town, what would you think of? Nature, colorful trees or of the smell of fresh air? Maybe of lakes and their plants around them and wild animals hiding in the woods?

The city in which I was born in had a population of about 101,019 in 2005. Witten was a smaller city and my parents knew nearly everybody because my mother used to manage the town’s art gallery. The paintings in the gallery, were nice to look at and I still remember the smell of fresh pastel in the air as in the gallery hall. My shoes echoed in the long hallway, when I walked past the paintings. I also went to kindergarten there and joined my first swim team, learned how to play the violin and loved my small, soft cuddly pet “Bunny”, in conclusion I can say that I was a happy child.

The large garden behind our family house was our favorite place, we used to invite all the children of the whole neighborhood, grilled meat and had all kinds of ice cream we liked. The raspberries in the back of the garden were the sweetest and the roses blossomed wonderful and colorful, every single year. The small green and red playground in the middle of the garden, seemed to be huge for me. The red swings were my favorite. I loved to swing on the swings for hours while looking at the huge orange sun going down and the first north star on the sky.

My older brother used to play soccer the whole day at the dead end of our street with all of his friends. I loved to watch them playing, laughing, and chasing the leather ball.

When I close my eyes and think back to this place, I think of the old and unique house my grandpa has built, when he was alive, the large windows and cute little drapes. I also think of the smell of my grandma’s flowers and her homemade chocolate chip cookies. I think of the feeling of having family and good company around. The feeling that someone is taking care of you.

Our neighbors used to be one of our closest friends. All the neighborhood children came to our house to play with my older brother, my little sister and I. All of the four neighbor children of the house on the right side, absolved an exchange year in Australia or in the US, all of them were smart and funny people.

Whenever we needed stuff from the grocery store, we drove to the center of Witten. The center of the town was never crowded, but when we met somebody we usually stopped by and my parents talked to them, it felt like hours for me. The small stores and the main street made the center of Witten. My favorite was the small toy store with the small, pretty dolls in the large store window.

Later in the summer 2006, we moved to the large city called Essen. I especially remember that my brother used to hate it. He had to leave all of his friends from school. I also left my friends from kindergarten, but I was too young to understand.

The new house was much smaller and it was in the industry part of the city. Playing soccer on the streets wasn’t allowed anymore, there were no swings, no raspberries, or a garden in the back of our house. No grandma taking care of me. No beautiful sunsets and woods anymore. It was the worst for me. My favorite place was gone. Something that I didn’t use was the public transport system. The first time I drove alone by bus and train to school was in 5th grade. It very irritating for me, surrounded by strangers, not knowing where to go and the smell of old socks what I remember of this very first adventure, but I had to get used to it.

Everything was much more crowed and everybody was too busy to notice smaller things, like a smile or a “thank you”. People used to be cold and uninterested. It felt like nobody really cared.

My first school day in the big city, was also weird. I was holding my parents’ hands. Standing there, kind of lost in a big school, where it seemed like everybody knew each other, except me. I was alone now, with my huge pink backpack, with butterfly prints, on my back. I wore a yellow dress with sunflowers on it. My longhair was braided into two cute braids. I remember how scared I was because I didn’t know anybody. On this day I met two of my current best friends, the first girl I talked to was Viktoria.

Viktoria and Antonija made my first years in the large city much easier. I finally got used to the large city, when I was a little bit older. I was allowed to ride by bus alone and with friends and we rode the bus and the train to the huge center of Essen. Nearly everybody had an App which tells you how many minutes you have left to take the bus, or which buses and trains you have to take to arrive at your target place. Things got much more high technic form time, to time.

As I heard that I got placed for my exchange year, I got really excited. Usually students want to get placed at a really fancy place, like New York City where it looks like in the movies, but that wasn’t me.

I love the small town life. I was very happy to go to Amery, Wisconsin and I don’t think that I would ever switch to another city. On the one hand there are good aspects of a large city, you have stores, colleges, universities and doctors near to your house. Not to forget, there is the public transport system, but I personally think that it’s completely worth it not to have it all right next to your house. Instead you have beautiful lakes, the most beautiful sunsets, people who know you, care about you and help you. A smaller school with teachers who know you and can help you with your work as well.

This is much more worth it, than I would’ve expected before.