The first week in a new city is a scavenger hunt you did not agree to.
Cathedral. Rhine. Station. A restaurant somebody recommended. A park you found on a map. You tick things off and still do not feel as if you live here.
That is because landmarks are for visitors. Streets are for residents.
Walk the same way twice
Mainz is compact enough that a single neighbourhood will do most of the work, if you let it. Neustadt, with its quieter residential streets and squares, is a good example: you can learn it without a tour.
Go out for bread. Come back a slightly different way. Notice which façade catches the late light. Notice which doorway always has a bicycle.
The second walk is the one that starts to count.
Recognition is a form of arrival
A city becomes yours when something in it starts to expect you.
Not a friendship, necessarily. A baker who reaches for the same loaf. A tram stop you no longer have to check. A corner shop whose doorbell you already know the sound of.
Johannes Gutenberg University sits close enough to the centre that thousands of people make this crossing every year: campus, Hauptbahnhof, a first flat, a first week that feels like a test. The test is not whether you have seen enough. It is whether you have a loop.
A loop is a small, repeatable piece of the city that does not require a plan.
You can leave the list unfinished
There will be time for the Rhine promenade, the museums, the view from the other bank.
In the first weeks, it is more useful to have one street that feels ordinary.
Ordinary is how a place becomes home.