"Part of me thought that if I really wanted to keep growing, I should move to a bigger city"

Growing up about an hour outside of Innsbruck, the city always felt familiar. It was where my mom and I would go for shopping trips. Later, it became the place for nights out with school friends and the occasional adventure that felt much more exciting at seventeen than it probably was.

Then I moved to Copenhagen. For a year, I lived abroad as an Au Pair, built a life completely on my own, made friends from all over the world, and became more independent than I had ever been before. 
So when it was time to choose where I wanted to do my Bachelor's degree, coming back to Innsbruck honestly felt like a step backwards. I worried that moving back would somehow mean moving backwards too.
Back to my old routines, my old life, and to a smaller city and, somehow, a smaller version of myself.
Part of me thought that if I really wanted to keep growing, I should move to a bigger city. Somewhere like Vienna, Munich, or even back to Copenhagen. Because surely that's where exciting things happen, right? 

I'll be honest. The first few days in Innsbruck felt exactly how I feared they would. I moved back into my older brother's old room. The same room I used to sleep in after nights out with friends years before. I walked the same streets I had walked with my mom during those shopping trips. Everything felt strangely familiar.

But then something changed. I started meeting people who had moved here from all over Austria, Germany, and beyond. People who had never walked those streets before. They looked at Innsbruck with fresh eyes. And through them, I got to rediscover the city too. I got to see what they saw.
The mountains that still make people stop and stare. The fact that you can leave the lecture hall and be on a hiking adventure within ten minutes. The cheap, rentable bikes which make exploring the city so much more fun.
Most of all, I started noticing something that I had completely taken for granted. Community.

At university, I can walk into a lecture hall alone and rarely have to wonder where I'll sit. Somehow, there's almost always someone waving me over. Not because we're best friends, but because in Innsbruck everyone seems connected through someone. Whether it's through a friend, a lecture, a sports club or a random night out months ago.
Friend groups overlap, friendships grow quickly, and after a while Innsbruck starts feeling less like a city and more like one big family.

Of course, there are still days when I walk into a lecture not knowing anyone and there are still many faces I've never seen before. But in the greater sense, I take comfort in knowing that if I walk home late at night, there are probably five people I could call who live nearby and would pick me up.
It's simply fun when you're going bar hopping with three friends and you somehow end the night with fifteen people because everyone met someone else along the way.

Yes, I loved the anonymity I had in Copenhagen and in Vienna. There is something exciting about walking through a city where nobody knows who you are. But there is something equally beautiful about walking through a city where people do. About knowing that you're never really alone. Not because you constantly need company, but because it's there when you need it.

Will I live in a big city one day? Probably.
The idea of spending a few years in London or New York still sounds incredibly exciting.
But for this chapter of my life...
for my Bachelor's degree /for learning how to live alone / for building friendships from scratch / for figuring out who I want to become
...I honestly can't imagine a better place than this small city in the middle of the Alps. Because I've learned something I wish someone had told me sooner:
You don't need to move to a big city to have a big life.
Sometimes the biggest lives are built in the places that feel most like home.