Reliving your entire childhood on one walk

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I grew up in Düsseldorf, Germany, but today live in the United States. On a recent trip back, while I was speaking at three events in Europe, I took a 2 1/2 hour walk around town-basically most of my childhood.

It was kind of interesting I walked by my old schools, where I practiced Judo and other places of importance. It was quite an interesting feeling. Every place had some kind of feeling attached to it. Most seemed much smaller than I remembered them.

Here’s where I wrote my bike down hills. I spent hours upon hours there and it was scary at first. Looking at this place today, it also seemed smaller and not nearly as steep as I remembered it.

Today, they even have a sign that says all need to use bicycles that can handle the ramps. Ha. That was debatable if my bike was officially capable of handling those ramps.

I spent many hours and days at this youth center when I was growing up as well. We played pool and other games and a couple times I got beat up. We also skateboarded outside.

My elementary school looks just like it looked 30-some years ago:

The ferry across the river still looks just like the one I remember from my childhood:

And this place is where I would go to get snacks, Cokes and they would give me posters from movies that they were renting out. I would then put them on my wall at home. I thought that was so cool.

My walk took place on a Sunday and as you might imagine many stores are closed in Germany on Sundays. So window shopping in Germany on Sundays has a whole different meaning. People look but you can’t actually buy:

And while some things have changed in the last decades in the part of town where I grew up a lot of things have also stayed the same. Very interesting. On my Sunday walk I did stop by one of the Weihnachtsmarkts and enjoyed some Glühwein with Rum. They didn’t have one in that location years ago so that was a nice addition.

I also noticed that some of the shortcuts from way back when are still around. This is one I took to get to my school from fifth through seventh grade:

It hasn’t changed at all.

So if you don’t live in your home town and have the chance to go back and just go on a walk to enjoy the scenery and remember the past I would highly recommend it. That doesn’t mean all the good all days were so much better but it’s quite all right to remember them for what they were.