On nostalgia - for places, and the versions of ourselves that existed there

I’ve been meaning to write at length about my time in Europe in a way that does not reduce some of the most revolting months of my adult life into a mere escape from heartbreak. What I discovered about myself is that I tend to fixate on one thing and overestimate its impact on my life. This is certainly the case for most of my previous retelling of last year. But I have since learned that my year of 2025 was characterized by more than just the ending of a relationship; it was the most transformative year of growth. Last year I met myself at my best and worst, strongest and weakest, most guarded and most vulnerable, and came to terms with all of them. The period of life I initially associated mainly with endings turned out to have given me the most important new beginnings. It birthed the present version of myself who is creating a life of depth and intention, of mad love and admiration, but before all of that faced the grueling yet indispensable undertaking of being on her own. She rebuilt her life brick by brick. I owe her to Euro 2025.

I learned it not too long ago - the most important journeys are always inward. Creating dimensions within life in the form of passions and interests; searching for meaning through exploration, studying and gathering experiences; nurturing profound friendships and, when you least expect it, a romantic relationship that encourages growth and empathy like I’ve never seen before.

April marked one year since I left for my summer in Europe. Over the last couple of months, my phone went off with “a year ago” reminders left and right. Expectedly, pictures of cobblestone streets illuminated by the signature European orange light, and perfectly buttered pastries triggered an intense wave of nostalgia. It doesn’t help that I’m a miserably nostalgic person by nature. With those pictures came back a recurring question, one I tinker with a few times a year- when will I finally leave to study abroad without backing out? I know I want to make it happen in this lifetime. As I open this pandora box of me leaving my home country for more than a few months, I feel the need to start with the most important question. How do I really feel about living abroad?

Before Vilnius or (the idea of) Spain, New Zealand was the subject of my longing. I first came to visit in 2017, then a very different person with totally different interests. Practically a kid, I found myself confused and having a hard time adjusting and integrating myself into the life of my elder sister whom I was visiting. It was also my first experience of a brutal winter, which translated into cold wet socks from shoes not made for hiking in the snow, flaky and severely dry face, and excuses after excuses to get out of outdoor activities. I spent most of winter asking to be driven to libraries and museums where they turn on the heat, or staying home to read. The coming years prove these are interests that find me in every season, but I came back for mirror lakes, snowcapped mountains and paved hiking paths in 2022, 2023, and again in 2024. Needless to say, I loved the country as even with all the places I visited last year, it remains in my top three. But I also know that during every trip, I always felt ready to leave before the date of my return flight.

In my newfound (or returned) freedom (from heartbreak, regret - you get the picture), I look back to the April to July of 2025 as some of the best months of my life yet. I was single, financially independent and interesting, with a job that brought me to the other side of the world. I travelled to places where fantasy tv was filmed, navigated the Austrian train and bus systems without speaking the language, struck up conversations with strangers in new cities almost every weekend, wore long dresses while getting lost in the narrow streets of Venice (Google Maps didn’t stand a chance amidst the canals), sipped Aperol spritz at the top of Colle San Pietro in Verona - I could go on and on. On top of it all, I took the most impressive pictures - the perfect middle ground of posed and candid, color graded to mimic the exact mood of the landscape - which served as imposing proof of the insanely beautiful life I was living. There was no reason to think I could have been miserable in these times.

However, it is also true that as soon as I was dropped off at my new apartment, I wanted to get on the next flight home. I was lonely, deeply afraid - never having truly been alone before - and couldn’t find the courage to believe I would survive three months all alone in a foreign country. The first few weeks I couldn’t even sleep. Vilnius was cold and damp and grey. I learned to love it eventually; so much that the climate became one of things in that city that I now long for. But in those first few weeks, that translated into me avoiding the outdoors at all costs, against the advice of everyone around me. I failed to see so many historical places that were practically at arms’ length because I found the motivation to explore the city far too late.

On top of that other thing I already wrote too much about, there was a point when pressure from work boiled over, and I spent an hour crying while sipping rosé, looking out to the northern alps in Mürren, hiding from the sun while everyone else seemed to bask in it. I wasted almost an entire afternoon in Salzburg, in Verona, too, practically every city I visited during the latter half of the three months when summer in Europe was in full swing. I couldn’t stand the heat and so I chose air-conditioned hostel lobbies and gelato shops over the new and exciting sceneries claimed to be so taken with. This perplexed my European colleagues - how I come from a tropical country but complain about 28 degree weather. Not to mention I felt so alone and isolated, even at work where I was constantly surrounded by people.

Traveling alone was the worst part. I was an observant person, a chatterbox with no one to talk to about the impressive but equally overwhelming scenes I was witnessing and the wave of emotions that closely followed. I wrote about how solo travel felt like it was mostly going to places only for the sake of checking boxes. At some point I regretted booking so many flights, lost interest in making itineraries, and just walked around aimlessly or circled back to the same streets I walked the day before. Old towns and bridges stopped being impressive, the bland taste of food became apparent, and the excitement of meeting new people in hostels turned into frustration over the constant noise and high energies. Returning to the safety of my cold and quiet flat became what I looked forward to the most.

Browsing through my curated Instagram feed from the time I was living in Europe, my perspective is now altered. I know that bringing social media into the mix undermines the depth of my succeeding propositions, but if you have read my other writing, you would know that I try to be intentional about my use of it. Instagram for me is a tool for memory keeping. There is considerable authenticity in it. I try my best. Circling back to my initial point, I wanted to subscribe to the idea that impermanence makes us appreciate things better. Because it ended, it is more meaningful, more moving, more beautiful. After all, I also do believe that you learn more in endings than in beginnings. This is something I read and wrote down many moons ago. Perhaps that summer ending underscored all the good I gained from it, which were subdued between the immediacy of the paragraphs while I was still writing (or more accurately, living) it. They say everything is more beautiful in hindsight.

I will say it again: I am a miserably nostalgic person. The place that I dream the most about has always been elsewhere.

I read this article (https://thecityedit.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-elsewhere) that inspired me to sit down and at long last start actually writing from the (incomplete) outline on this topic which I made many months ago. I just couldn’t find the right words and form a direction for it then, but this phrase did it for me today: "and sometimes I think about how strange it is that desire never actually settles, it just relocates”.

And for others, it may be due to the idea that the life of their dreams is always happening outside the frame, exactly where they are not. But for me, what resonated more was this comment: “Some of us are homesick for places we have left. Some are homesick for versions of ourselves that existed there. Your piece made me wonder whether longing is less about geography and more about identity. About who we were beside that sea. Who we imagined becoming in the city. Who we still think might be waiting elsewhere.”

And while I can’t pack up on a whim to find that other version of myself waiting for me in another far-flung city, I decided I can write about those I have gotten to meet, particularly last year.

I landed in Iceland happier and giddier than I thought I was capable of feeling during that time. Even with almost no sleep and while slightly dazed from the sudden shift in physical environment, I was still on the edge of my seat on the bus during the first day of my pre-booked tours. For the first time in over a month, I didn’t mind that I was alone. How could I, when I was finally setting foot in a place I’ve only ever dreamed about before? This I’m only remembering now— Iceland reinvigorated me even before I sat foot in it. It was the first country I felt excited about visiting while preparing for my departure, at some point during which I even convinced myself that I only needed to visit two other countries while in Europe - Iceland and Switzerland. Ultimately, it was this trip that changed my mind about traveling and the amount of strength I could muster for it, wildly underestimated. The land of fire and ice made me experience more than just walking on tectonic plates and watching the ground blow steam then erupt before my eyes. More than anything, it showed me how good life can still get in spite and despite.

I’ve seen many beautiful places but nothing will come close to the incredible high of getting off my South Iceland tourbus for the first time, steps bouncing, not minding the mud, on the trail headed to Stjórnarfoss. What linguistic would describe as a breath of fresh air felt like the first breath of my new life. A short while later, I walked on the black sand of Diamond Beach with more vigor and willpower than I had for anything in the last month. “I will not allow my feet to sink in the sand,” I kept thinking. With everything I had just lost control over, this is the one thing I refused to surrender. While cruising through Breiðamerkurjökull, looking out for penguins and passing glacial fragments around the group, my mouth curled up into what must’ve been my first genuine smile in weeks. Shortly after, we were to be stranded at the glacier lagoon due to electrical issues with our bus; and after nearly three hours of waiting, instructed to start driving at 20kph. “A rescue bus is heading for us,” they assured, “but it will take four and half hours from Reykjavik. So if anyone is in contact with the spirits, please start asking for help.” My suspicion tells me it was the spirits in my favor that caused the bus to breakdown in the first place; they knew that an extended trip was exactly what I needed. A few minutes past ten in the evening, whereas the tour was supposed to end at nine, we arrived at Seljalandsfoss just as the sun started to set. Pink rain coat pulled over my head, I climbed the slippery steps leading to a narrow path that wound directly behind the cascading sixty-meter waterfall. In the distance, orange, red, and deep purple hues painted the sky. This scene I will remember all my life. It was the moment I regained hunger and thirst to see more of the world. To continue living for this sole reason.

The next day, I would eat a cone of incredibly thick ice cream, listen to the tour guide sing and play her guitar in between sites, smile at horses in their stables on the other side of the glass, sit on cold benches while the ground explodes around me, drive by an volcanic eruption site with fresh lava, and finally swim at the Blue Lagoon. From this trip on, I would start the journey back to myself. The most important one yet.

The flight from Reykjavik back to Vilnius connects at Copenhagen. I had about six hours to spend in the city, and it still being the early parts of my summer, I took the tram to Nyhavn with a packed itinerary. It didn’t take more than a few minutes off the tram for said itinerary to be discarded. The train lines were intimidating - it was too big a risk to miss my connecting. So I settled for eating a hotdog sandwich by the canal, watching lone tourists like myself struggle to take pictures with the famous row of boats floating on the water stretch, set against a backdrop of yellow, blue, and red buildings. Shortly after, I started walking around the square lined with shops selling everything from Western brands to charming locally made trinkets. Needing to sit down, I took a table and ordered a glass of rosé at a restaurant situated right in the middle of the plaza. It was election day in my country. Late afternoon in Europe meant early evening in Manila, and the polling had just begun. I followed the senatorial race with unusual interest and enthusiasm, both wildly unexpected for anything related to Philippine politics. At checkout, admittedly a little drunk, I giggled uncontrollably while apologizing for forgetting what I had ordered. “It is election day in my country”, I explained. The lady smiled a knowing smile. “You should have one more glass, then.” Later on, I would remember this experience as my first taste of true independence in every sense of the word. Freedom to go day drinking coupled with the burden of getting myself to the next destination, afterwards. Truly the full package.

This has been the first installment. Thank you for reading.