Home is where the heart is or not?

Hello everyone!

Today I was thinking a bit about home and decided it would be a good idea to talk to you about it.
I live in Graz now for about a year and a half. Graz, for me, felt like home from the first day I've been here. It always reminded me a bit at Meran, a city i used to live at. With it's Mediterranean atmosphere Graz was perfect. But after a while I started to miss something. something that never was utterly important to me, but gained more and more in importance over the last few years: the mountains. At home, in South Tyrol, there's just a perfect mix between the mountains, the whole alpine lifestyle, our Austrian roots and the Italian dolce vita, the southern atmosphere. That's what I love about home.

It doesn't matter where about in South Tyrol you are, you can always see the mountains. And with mountains I mean real mountains and not just some hills that are mistaken with mountains by some ignoramus people. Real mountains, high mountains, burning in the evening sun, and when you've crest the peak you would be able to breath the freshest, cleanest air of all, and depending on the time you're going there you could gaze at the stars, ore the most beautiful sunset or sunrise you would have ever seen. Because mountains are nothing to just look at or to climb at but more something to feel. You have to feel the nature, the mountains and the mountain spirits. To show you what I mean with that I here linked a video for you that I've found a few months ago. It's only short but gives you a good impression of the Dolomiti, one of our mountain chains. It is really worth watching!

Now that I've talked a bit about home and the mountains there's another thing I would like to tell you.  I don't know about you, but even though in the text above I stated South Tyrol as my home, actually it's never really clear to me where home is. People say home is where the heart is, but if that is the truth my heart definitely seems to be shattered. I think there are different kinds of home. To me South Tyrol is home, because it's where I've been born, where I grew up, where my roots are. On the other hand also Innsbruck means home for me. I mean, technically seen, I never really lived there. I never had a flat nor a room, not to mention that I never paid rent, but I still lived there kind of. I was there more than a year, always at my best friends place. Everyone said his living room seems more like my room, his couch was my bed. So yes, it definitely somehow felt like home. It's the same with England. I lived there, yes properly lived there, not Innsbruck-Style. It was one of the best times of my life and obviously Bournemouth is home - just as Graz is. Although I call all those places home, you can't compare one home to another. I mean ok, they are different places, but I think the difference isn't only defined by the different lives that I am clearly living, but more because something else that I can't explain. it just feels different, not a lot though, only slightly different.

Quite complicated, isn't it? Well I guess these are just casual Sunday thoughts and I'll rather get studying.

Enjoy your weekend :)