Imagine a line on a map that showed all the roads you’ve travelled in your life, from business trips to holidays and all the everyday journeys in between. This trail would spread across the globe, expanding at a slower rate the older you got, because as we age we develop routines and repeat the same physical loops­­.

If you’re like me, you might occasionally fantasize about changing it all. Could you pack everything into boxes and start again in some place new? More to the point, do you really want to?

A friend once told me that change needn’t involve uprooting your life and starting over. Why not try a series of incremental modifications such as taking a different route to work? With that in mind, last Sunday I decided to walk a few roads in České Budějovice that I had never been to before.

I started off in the direction of Matice Školské, where last autumn I saw two Americans, arm in arm, turning into a street I had never previously noticed. They kicked through the yellow leaves like characters from a romantic movie, the tranquil street providing the perfect suburban backdrop.

Walking along the river towards that road, I felt an odd sense of excitement. I was about to visit an area I had never seen before, ever in my life. I often go down streets for the first time, but I am never usually so aware of it.

The ‘American’ road was called Pabláskova, a wide street lined with detached pastel houses and trees pink in bloom. As I walked the sun-drenched pavement, I noticed a garden decorated with what I thought were seven dwarves, until I counted ten. You don’t often see gnomes in the Czech Republic, but in the British town I grew up in there were gnomes everywhere. In the evenings we’d swap them between gardens, hoping the owners would question their sanity. That’s what ‘teenage kicks’ look like in a small seaside town.

When I reached the end of Pabláskova, I realized it’s quite difficult to get deliberately lost. This is ironic, because when I’m not trying it happens constantly. I couldn’t turn left because I’d be on the main road again, so I backtracked onto Jánská, another street I had never been to, before emerging once more onto the familiar territory of Němcové.

After this, I decided to head across town to behind the train station, an area of České Budějovice I don’t know and rarely visit. The sun disappeared behind grey clouds and a cold wind replaced it. I found myself rushing and irritated. ‘I’ve seen all this before, this isn’t part of it, it’s a waste of time’. I guess the goal colours all the roads that lead us there, we can turn anything into a means to an end, even when that goal is to get lost.

I stopped off at the Mercury centre for something to eat. My senses heightened with the determination to observe the new, I remembered the first time I visited this shopping mall. Back then I went downstairs instead of upstairs, finishing up in the car park and scratching my head at where I had gone wrong. Now I had been here so many times it seemed absurd that I could have made that mistake.

Walking along the main road away from the station, I contemplated how diverse cities are, even small ones. I felt as though I had passed through several different towns today, from pristine avenues to dirty rundown streets. Then it began to snow and the bright skies of Pabláskova seemed even further away.

I stopped at the top of the big grey bridge over the train tracks to shelter from the blizzard. The wagons below were full of trees and the air smelt of sulphur. The old railway and the bitter cold reminded of the time I backpacked through Russia, surprising considering I was only thirty minutes from home.

At the other side of the bridge, I discovered an area with an incongruous number of bazaars. Their windows boasted all kinds of junk, from fake watches to painted eggs. Dogs barked from behind garden gates, an angry chorus shunting me through. The buildings seemed like country houses, some half-finished, all of them prioritising garden space.

Returning under a brick tunnel, I realized I had once bought a second-hand bike here. To retrieve the bike from the balcony, the seller had climbed up the side of the house like a squirrel scaling a tree. I half-jokingly questioned whether the house or the bike were his. To prove he owned both he invited me inside. Three young children played in a tiny one-bedroom flat. There was barely any furniture, aside from the bed and a rickety table, upon which lay a solitary bag of half-finished sugar. The smiling mother rattled the balcony door to demonstrate it no longer opened. I felt bad taking the bike because it was pretty much the only thing left in the place, but the family wanted the cash. As I cycled away I resolved never to complain again. Ten minutes later I realized both tires were punctured, so my resolution didn’t even last until I got home.

Walking along the tracks where the old trainline used to go, I stopped to inspect the backend of the station, which mainly consisted of cement piled into heaps, dilapidated sheds, and crows. It felt sad that people had once worked hard to build these tracks and buildings, and now it was just wasteland.

The snow continued to beat down and it was freezing cold. I had started off looking for new streets and now all I wanted was the the ones I knew. Even so, I decided I would definitely do this again; partly because it is interesting to discover new places, but mainly because you enter a more observant state, triggering forgotten associations and memories from long ago.

*First published in Milk & Honey Magazine, České Budějovice