Since I have not written in long time, I thought I start from the beginning. You probably already know that I am originally from Germany. I grew up in a very small town (when I was born it just had shy of 2300 inhabitants) called Wietzen in Lower Saxony.
It has:
- a church that goes back to the 12th century
- a preschool (I think by now it has two) where I went to for one year from ~9am till lunchtime
- an elementary school I went to
- a small museum that looks at life how it used to be run by volunteers (my dad being one of them)
- a cemetery that I visit each time I am there to say hi to my mom and my grandparents
- a swimming pool where I used to spend my summers
- a gym that is part of the school where also different clubs run programs (when I was little there was gymnastics, soccer, handball, judo, table tennis and jui-jutsu if I remember correctly)
- a soccer field and tennis courts (the tennis courts came later though)
- a fire station that is also run by volunteers
- a grocery store
- it used to have a bakery separate from the grocery store where we could get rolls fresh from the oven before getting on the bus to the upper schools, but that is closed now
When I finished school, I moved to Hanover for my education but still came back almost every weekend to spend time with my family and friends. I even moved to the next small town over for a brief time but just could not stomach the commute (taking the train to Hanover at 6am in the morning was something I never got used to). The visits became less frequent but every holiday and birthday I would be back. Since we moved to California I still visit every year because I love my family and dearly miss them and because I want my kids to know their relatives. It’s always going to be part of me no matter what. Would I move back? Likely not. Most of my friends moved to other parts of the country including my siblings so when we go back we spend some time in Wietzen but also elsewhere. It really bugs me that you need a car living there (well, I do need a car where we live now for certain things but if I tried hard, I could manage without). I like the idea of country life more then the reality of it. Also, I would always need to go to work in the next bigger city what would be Hanover or Bremen there and it would involve at least an hour of commute each way – too long for my taste and I tried that before. I work in research and I love that kind of work. That also means either biotech companies or a University. Not that we have currently any plans to move back.
It does have a couple of other things, too, but it’s a pretty small town and mostly everyone knows everyone. I spend a lot of time with the youth program from the church growing up (I am not part of any church anymore now, but that is a different story) and I had a lot of fun during that time. My grandparents from my dad’s side lived with us and we had a big garden with apple and plum trees. I still remember harvesting potatoes, strawberries, currants, beans, peas and all kinds of other veggies and fruits and watching (and sometimes helping) my grandma and mom making jams and canning. There are two huge oak trees in front of the house. The leaves in the fall are still driving my dad crazy but we loved collecting the acorns and doing craft projects with them. When I was little there were two houses in our street and the street was still paved with bricks instead of smooth. It made for a painful experience learning how to bike and roller skate, but we did it anyway with pleasure. We spend our early years roaming the town and the garden with the neighborhood kids. Sounds idyllic, right? And looking back it really was. I still sometimes get asked by friends of my dad’s, when we are moving back. We likely never will.
Fun fact: the distance from my hometown in a straight line is 5530.14 miles or 8899.90 kilometers.
What about you? Do you live close to where you grew up or would you move back given the chance?
Home here and there 
Hello! Love the beautiful photo! I grew up in a small town as well, although ours had about 7,000 residents so quite a bit larger than yours. Now, I live 1,691 miles away from where I grew up. I don’t think I would move back. Although I loved growing up there, we have so many more amenities in the place I live now.
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Since I’m a new reader, I did NOT know you were originally from Germany. Your hometown sounds amazing- but I can see why you might now want to move back there as an adult.
I live in Florida now but grew up in a suburb of Chicago. in retrospect, it was also really special- we played outside all day, rode our bikes, explored the nearby ravine, walked to and from school in all sorts of weather… but I think part of that is that I was lucky to grow up in the 70s when kids had a lot more freedom. I would never move back because of the weather- winters in the midwest are AWFUL.
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Thanks so much for sharing more about where you are from. I knew (of course) that you’re also from Germany, but I didn’t know you were from Lower Saxony, close to Bremen (where I have a few friends!).
Your situation sounds quite similar to mine. I always try to visit every year and I miss my family and friends a lot. We’re quite close and sometimes I wonder how I manage to live so far away from them… but then, I also love my California life!
Moving back is always a thought in the back of my mind, but I likely won’t (at least not before I retire and that’ll be a while)… I always thought I’d move to Germany with my husband (and he wanted to/has never been opposed, but it just didn’t work out that way and I have my career here now and it would be hard to find something in Germany in my field).
My home town is exactly 5492 miles away. Quite the distance, ey?
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I was following quite a few blogs over the years that were written by expats and so often I thought “Yes, to all of this.” There were stretches where I had a really hard time living so far away but I think I finally made peace with it. At some point I did not even feel like an expat anymore (might have something to do with time?). Sounds like we have similar reasons why we are not heading back right now, but for me it’s my husband who would have a hard time finding a job as fulfilling as the one he has now. Maybe one day in the distant future…
We made it quite far, haven’t we?
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This was so fun to read more about your history (and to see the overlap in experiences with San).
I have lived within a 5-hour radius of the same location my whole life. I currently live about 1 hour from where I spent the majority of my childhood.
I love where we live – a small town in Eastern Canada. We’re exactly an hour from an international airport – which is important because my husband travels a lot for work – but we live in a community where I can walk to: the kids school, to my favourite cafe, to grocery stores, to my dentist, to my doctor, to my public library, to a sporting complex. All of this is within a 15-minute walk from my house, and within 10 minutes I can be at a “big box” store. It feels, most of the time, like the best of both worlds!
That said, I love to travel and I can see us ending up overseas at some point for a short stint.
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Your town sounds lovely. I would like to live in a place where everything was a little more walk-able. Luckily we have good public transportation so I don’t need to take the car all the time. An international airport close by would definitely be on my list of things that are needed, too. With family in Germany I like to be able to go if anything comes up.
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Very interesting. It sounds like an idyllic place to grow up, but i guess I can understand why you might now want to go back.
I live a couple of states over and 350 miles from where I grew up. My mom moved away from there and I don’t think I’ll ever go back, even for a visit. It’s a super small town with a gas station, pizza place, and five churches, and that’s about it. Since I don’t really know anyone there now, there’s no real draw for it.
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I was a little surprised how idyllic it sounded when I wrote it down. I think I can now appreciate the memory more compared to my teen years when everything felt a little too small. I am not sure that I would go back if my dad would not live there anymore. My brother still has friends in the area but mine all moved away. So I can totally understand that you are not back.
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Oh I love how you describe your home town and where you grew up. I have a similar feeling and experience just a different part of Germany. I even blogged about it last NaBloPoMo. I love how you describe the little institutions in town. Isn’t it interesting that so many things get run by volunteers. It makes for a great community and still its a bit sad. Thank you for sharing a bit of your back story. Looking forward to reading more.
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Gosh, I can’t imagine growing up in such a small town, though it sounds so peaceful! I can see why you wouldn’t want to move back. I live in the same area where I grew up (Tampa Bay area of Florida), which is NOT very common for this area. Most people move here from other areas, but I love it here and don’t see myself moving for any reason. (Maybe for better weather!)
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I hope you were not hit too hard by the hurricane. I even don’t know how I would live with that possibility but then again, we have the looming possibility of a major earthquake. Tampa Bay looks like a a beautiful area when the weather cooperates.
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I grew up in Chicago and live about 10 miles from the house I lived in for about 10 years. I’ve driven past it a few times but would like to go inside the apartment. I wonder if the current tenants would let me go inside?
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Maybe they would let you see it? We recently walked by our first place we moved into when moving to the US to show the kids where we lived. We had a nice chat with the current tenant who caught us lurking but did not go inside even though he offered.
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