Weimar

Today is exactly one year since I first set foot in Weimar. One year ago, when the train dropped me off at the small town station, I was scared and insecure and uncertain about the step I was about to take. Next day I would have the interview that would determine where and how I would spend the next year of my life. And this entailed either looking for a job as an architect in a country where construction has halted or – even worse – leaving my home, family and friends to live and study in another country, move into a town smaller than the smallest town I’ve ever visited, changing professional orientation to something I had no idea if I can accomplish. As bad as the first choice was, it was something familiar, something I knew and done before. But the second choice… the actual success of the interview, that was something else. And the feeling I had walking down the street from the train station to the city center was everything but delight. Leaving Hauptbahnhof Weimar behind me while bitterly thinking “as if this damp town has another train station but the main one”, I was edgy and glum and discarded with irony all the encouraging remarks my dear friend Kat was making. I was determined to dislike this small town to the very last bit! The fear of change – any change in my life – has always been my enemy and nemesis. Because whatever we do, change always comes, nothing remains the same. Whether we embrace it or not, whether we expect it, bring it about or not, it will come… and it will be good.

Now, one year later, I know that I would have not found a job of my preference in Greece. I learned that living in another country feels like being given a clean sheet. It is a precious experience, a fresh start, offering the chance to create new routines, to meet new people, to find new ways. I learned that changing “career” might be refreshing and not knowing if you can succeed is a challenging learning process. Not having any friends offers the chance to choose some new and, if lucky, to be chosen by them. I also learned that living in a small town oversimplifies your life and can be fun!!

Today, I can be nothing but thankful for everything I experienced the past year. Within only 10 months I’ve lived as much as to tell stories for two lives. Weimar brought me valuable and dear friends, expanded my horizon, shifted my point of view, freed me from past bonds, granted me both happiness and pain and all I need to deal with both. Weimar helped me mature, embrace change, believe in myself.

But Weimar is no magic place, its people make it one, all the people I met here… some will stay, some will go, some are already gone. Eventually I will go too… but I’ll keep in heart the life lessons I learned here. As a dear friend says, there is something for everyone in Weimar. I am still scared and insecure and uncertain about the next step, but I don’t hesitate anymore to take it.

PS Weimar has indeed another smaller train station, named Berkaer Bahnhof. :P