Why did I, of all places, move to Nevada? Why would anyone call this arid desolate place
home? What could Nevada possibly have to offer other than tumbleweeds, rocks, and ghost towns?
Is there even any water and greenery out here? And isn't it just full of casinos and cowboys?
If that's what goes through your mind when thinking about Nevada, I couldn't blame you.
I mean, let's be honest, that's what I thought too. So, why did I move to such a place? Why
give it a chance at all? We could make it real simple and just say, Girl meets boy,
boy lives in Reno. Girl follows boy to Reno and they live happily ever after."
But real life isn't Disney. And I could never live in a city that I didn't love. So, how did I
go from thinking Reno was a poor man's Vegas, yes, those were my actual words in a text to a friend,
to deciding that it was actually awesome? Well, first of all, nice to meet you. I'm
Kristin. Once upon a time I worked in finance in California where I was born and raised.
After four years in a cubicle, I decided it wasn't for me and I quit my job with a one way
ticket to Bangkok and nothing but a carry-on backpack, and lived as a nomad for years.
But then I started to feel like I wanted a home. And that's when I discovered Berlin.
Yeah, not Nevada, but Berlin. Where I would live on and off for the next four years.
When I lived in Berlin, I felt like I was living in the coolest city in the world. Berlin is artsy,
gritty, and it's the city that truly never sleeps. For a girl in her 20s, it was perfect.
But then, after many sleepless nights, dancing to techno beats and drinking far too much hefeweizen,
slowly but surely, I started to wonder if living in a big city was really living.
It was the natural places, the small off-the-beaten-path places that nobody
knew about that I loved the most. I loved it when I could get out into
the middle of nowhere easily with nobody and nothing around me, just me and solitude.
Around the time, I decided to leave Berlin in hopes of a more natural place to live.
I met a handsome guy, G, who you've probably seen on other videos on this channel.
And it turned out that he was based in Reno. I wasn't thrilled about this. But when I went to
visit him there for the first time, my opinion started to change. There was actually snow on
the ground. His yard was full of pine trees. Could it be possible that this is Nevada too?
It blew my mind that this was so accessible. And I started to wonder if maybe I had been
wrong about Reno, that maybe Nevada had a lot more than I originally thought.
But there was so much wilderness and wide open spaces, and it wasn't all dry and desolate.
But even those parts had their lore. I mean, look at this night sky.
It's been almost two years now that I've lived here. And although the cooties have
made it pretty hard to meet people and make friends, I guess I have that to thank for
encouraging me to get outside more. It's the nature in Reno that I've fallen in love with.
Before, I always viewed Nevada as something that you just had to get to in order to visit Vegas
or Utah, but it proved me wrong. Honestly, is this what you imagined Nevada looked like?
And to me, there was an adventure waiting for me every day. I don't
have to worry about traffic to get there. It doesn't take me hours to reach it. And
everything I need is right here. And two years on, I still haven't been to any of those casinos.
I know it sounds cheesy. But in so many ways it truly is the biggest little city in the world.
But I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. There's this magical place nearby,
maybe you've heard of it. It's called Lake Tahoe, and it's one of the largest Alpine
lakes in the world. But it's the clarity, that Caribbean blue that makes it so special. And
I truly believe that it has sacred properties. There's a million reasons I could tell you why.
But I think this moment tells it the best. The lake was so calm and glassy that day. It was a
perfect mirror for the brilliant sunrise unfolding above. Just sitting there bobbing up and down
in the water. I felt like I was in the middle of this beautiful moment. It almost looked as
though the sky was observing itself in the water below. And I was there to watch it all unfold.
And these moments that were lost to me in the big city life had really come back to me, and to me
that's exactly what it is to come home. So, while I'm still getting to know it,
and I don't know if I could ever truly call myself a local just yet,
it was a boy who brought me here, but it's moments like this that are why I call Nevada my home.