Being in college for a year in an entirely new city has led me to become a major tourist. Even though Lincoln is less than an hour away from my hometown, I had never really been there just to visit.
Having now gone to school there, I often found myself with a new place to go every time I went through the busy town. Learning a new city this way was enjoyable. I was able to familiarize myself with the street names downtown and brag to my parents about it whenever they were in town. I was also becoming more aware of Northeast Lincoln, specifically, because of where I worked. So basically, I became a pro at navigation (in only these two areas).
Now that I'm back in Omaha, I've realized that I don't really get out of my comfort zone as much as I did in Lincoln. Up until a year ago, the farthest I would go from my house on a regular day is about three miles, or maybe even less, and that was only to go to school. With being back home for the summer and still having that "tourist" notion in mind, I've been wanting to explore more of where I grew up. Omaha is a relatively big city and there are a lot of things to do.
When I was younger, I had no clue that I would be as adventurous as I'd consider myself now. I would stick to my usual daily routines and be perfectly fine with it. It was only until the summer after my senior year of high school that I really started to become more familiar with areas other than just West Omaha. Previously, the only time I would be even remotely close to the Nebraska / Iowa border was when I would go to the Henry Doorly Zoo. I had also never been able to say that I've been in two states at once while on the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge because I hadn't been there until less than a year ago. And when it comes to the Old Market downtown, I had been there momentarily, but not long enough to fully understand what all the buzz was about there.
Being in college has helped me appreciate the areas that I'm in. I learned a lot more about city life when living pretty close to downtown Lincoln, and I've also become more attentive to where I am in Omaha. Something that has helped me get out of that comfort zone was when I would hang out with friends. For example, I went geocaching for the first time last summer and that was an easy way to hang out with friends while also just driving around town.
My recent discoveries don't stop here, although a lot of the "traveling" I do is right here in Omaha. I'm very familiar with the order of the major streets, where to go when I want to get to Elkhorn and how to get to the famous slides at Gene Leahy Mall if I wanted to. A few years ago I couldn't even give directions to my own house because I didn't care enough to pay attention to nearby streets.
Perhaps being a tourist could mean just going somewhere I hadn't gone before. To this day I'm still finding new places to go to and am having fun experiencing these new places. For instance, right before I started writing this article I went to R Taco for the first time with a friend for lunch (good restaurant, would recommend).
To those that say the city they're living in is boring, I guess it just depends on your opinion of fun with what you're given in the city. However, I used to think Omaha was also a pretty uninteresting city, until I actually got around to more than what I was familiar with in my small proximity. Become a tourist in your own hometown, and you're bound to find at least one new thing to do that you wouldn't have thought to do before.
This summer I hope to grow more out of my comfort zone and continue finding new places to go to. I'd like to try new things, see new areas and be able to have some good memories with these places before I have to leave for college again in the fall.
