The Places we Don't Know

At some point in our lives, we tend to say that the place that we're living in doesn't hold anything new for us anymore and that we've seen everything that is of interest in our city. We couldn't deceive ourselves more than this because in reality, we have barely scratched the surface.

The problem is that we quickly tend to get into a rut. We know where to go for shopping, for entertainment, for nice strolls in the park, and so we develop a number fixed spots that we visit regularly. Our movements, on close inspection, clearly show how the structure of “our” city is made up. A while ago I made a list into which I wrote every trip that I made within the city over the course of a month. Unfortunately I never really analyzed it or turned it into a neat graphic like I originally wanted to, but looking at the list I can easily make out the fixed points of “my” Hamburg. The most frequented ones are of course my home and the place where I work, but there are other places that I tend to visit regularly. And guess what: there are huge gaps inbetween.

Now you might say “sure, but I know how the places inbetween look, because I've been there at some point”. Really? Think again: wouldn't you rather say “I know how MOST of the places inbetween look”? What about the rest? And what about the places that are completely outside of your “comfort zone”? We may be familiar with the center of the city, maybe with some outskirts as well if we have a fixed point there. But there are always places that we don't ever have to go to, because we don't have a connection to them. Prime examples of this are industrial areas. Why on earth would you want to go to an industrial area? Or the woods and fields on the outskirts of the city?

In the past two weeks, I made two tips outside my “comfort zone” that really opened up my eyes on this. I've seen some completely new places that I've never been to before. And I've also seen some places that are right inside the city, even right along the paths that I normally travel, but that I never went to anyway, to see what it's like. One of them is a normal living quarter, the other is a very multifaceted and definitely underestimated part of town that has everything from industry to agriculture, from 15 storey projects to small farmhouses (this place deserves an article on it's own, so watch out). The reason why I saw them now is because I went by bike. And because I made a conscous decision to go there. And in doing so, I discovered places and sights that I never would have thought existed in Hamburg.

Of course you could say “hey, there's just streets and buildings there like in any other part of the town”. But we all know that in reality, each place has its own distinctive feel, and in fact, some places do not have the regular streets and buildings. But each place has tons of details to discover. Going to one of these places can feel like being on a short holiday trip. It may be right around the corner, but suddenly it seems like you've gone a long way to another place. Everything looks fresh and new. It's the same feeling that you usually go to other countries for. When I came home from these aforementioned trips, I was all excited about the things that I had seen. And you didn't have to go far at all to get this feeling. It's right there, waiting to be discovered.

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