Starting over

I usually say that if you want the full experience of something new, you have to try it at least three times. Let's start with a simple example: visiting a city. The first time you see a new city, it's overwhelming, everything is new, there's so much to see, you don't have time for everything and you don't know exactly what to pick, so you sort of go with the flow. When you go away and come back for a second time, the experience is different. You find not only new places but also familiar ones. You recognize some of the streets from the first time. You feel more comfortable. You know a bit of what went right and what went wrong in the first time, so now your will is different. You want to see the places you didn't get to see the first time, you will adventure yourself to know more of the city than the usual touristic route. But at the same time, you already know some of the places where you feel safe and comfortable, and are able to resort to them if you need or want to. When you go away and come back for the third time, then you have the expert's view. You know this city. You know exactly where to go and exactly what to do. You don't need to waste time on trial and error. You can start going to places where only native people go. You surely made already a couple of friends and the purpose of your visit changes a bit to make space to hang out with them. You start feeling a bit like a native yourself. After this, the experience doesn't change too much. If you come a forth time, a fifth time and so on, it's pretty much the same as the third time. After the third time, there's nothing really new to experience. This is my three-step experience theory. It works with several other things: having children is another great example. The first kid is a complete mistery, the second kid is different but you already know a bit of what to do, and the third kid is a walk in the park.

My personal example is moving to a different city. I'm on step two of my moving abroad experience. When I moved abroad to Frankfurt, changing my home for the first time, everything was new. I remember standing on the terrace of the Galeria shopping mall, where you have a nice view to the city, on my very first day in Frankfurt, and feeling a mix of excitement and sorrow. There I was, all alone with a whole new world to discover. The sense of loneliness brought a tear to the corner of my eye, but I felt this was a fantastic city and that I would be OK. But I didn't feel that when I moved to Cambridge last week. The loneliness is now easy to cope with, because I already know what happens next, I already know how it turns out: you start with your colleagues, then you wander around meeting lots of people, and you end up with a group of close friends that make you feel really good about living where you are and you won't ever lose for the rest of your life, no matter where you end up. If anything, I feel nostalgic about leaving a place and leaving nothing behind for the first time: no house, no furniture, not even a plate or a fork, nothing you can call yours. This leaving nothing behind experience is a step one tryout so everything about it is very new to me. The rest already looks familiar: wandering in the city alone in the first days, meeting the first people, learning where the stuff is in the supermarket.

Things look easier when you experience them for the second time, and that's why the experience is so different. I'm even starting to get used to cars driving on the left side, which surprised me because it's been just one week since I arrived. Today I found out I don't need Google Maps to know my way in the city center anymore. And meeting new people is a bit easier now that you know how it works. Yes, it's a fresh start in a new city, but I've done fresh starts before.