It’s been three weeks since I left Europe,
and two since I finally arrived home in Westford and began American life again.
I’ve been trying to write this since I got on the plane home, but I just
couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wasn’t ready to write that conclusive ending,
to close the book and start anew.
But now I’ve reached a point where it no
longer matters if I’m “ready” for it; life goes on and I have to go with it. So
This will be my last post about Zürich and Europe and everything that’s been
happening since I left from Logan Airport in January.
I had an incredible experience. It feels somehow cliché to say it, though.
As if I’m not doing the whole semester justice. But what else could I say? How
else could I describe those short five months in which I feel like I aged five
years?
I’ll start with school.
This was possibly the most challenging
semester I’ve ever had, not because the work or the classes were hard, but
because I had no idea what to expect. I’ve barely taken any German Literature
courses in my life, much less these full courses in the German language. Add in
that some of them were graduate courses, and almost all of my classmates spoke
Swiss German, and it becomes a melting pot of challenges I might never have
otherwise been prepared to face. But I did the best I could; I talked to my
professors outside class, I made a few friends in my classes who were kind
enough to speak Hochdeutsch with me, I
practiced the new words I had learned at home and in my daily life. And
suddenly, without even noticing, I went from looking up every other word my
professor said to raising my hand in class and using some of the very same
words in my essays. Finally, as I reviewed for my finals, I noticed that the
lists of new vocabulary I had been collecting at the top of the page each day
dwindled; it went from filling the entire margin to sitting in the top corner
of the page, as there were only one or two words in each lesson that I didn’t
understand.
Even more striking was my own integration
into Swiss culture. Of course, five months isn’t enough to “become Swiss” but I
certainly picked up quite a few habits. For example, I feel uncomfortable if
I’m even a few minutes late; I stare unabashedly at strangers in public
transportation (probably not the best habit to have, though…), and whether or
not I can speak Swiss German, I can understand it almost as well as Hochdeutsch. I wouldn’t go so far as to
label myself Swiss any more than I would label myself German or Canadian; but I
do credit these past few months with giving me a heightened understanding of a
part of Europe I had never even visited before.
And then, of course, there were the
cultures I was exposed to in my non-academic life. Living in an international
student dorm with 170 other non-Swiss exchange students certainly made life
interesting, especially since we shared a single kitchen and surprisingly small
living space. I never felt overwhelmed with the amount of people in the house,
but sometimes I would step back and realize that I was having a bilingual
conversation (English and German) while Spanish, French, Afrikaans, Mandarin,
and Bosnian floated around my head. There were so many cultures thrown together
that I’m sure we all influenced each other in more ways than we even know. I’ve
already noticed changes in my vocabulary, mannerisms, and even interests that
certainly weren’t present before. And even more than that, I feel a personal
connection to tens of countries I had previously never even been particularly
conscious of, let alone cheered for in football games.
Finally, there was the travel.
During my Easter break I visited twelve
cities/towns and was exposed to Italian and Croatian culture for the first
time. (See the video here!) Then, in June, Lucy came from Canada to meet me, and together we traveled to ten different
countries in just a few weeks (Another video...See it here!). I saw things I could never have even imagined –
did you know the old city of Dubrovnik is paved with marble? – and had so many
new experiences that even now, a month later, I’m still processing all of them.
Along the way I made a few a lot of
mistakes. And because of that, I learned quite a few lessons (like, “Check
which train station/airport your train/plane leaves from BEFORE heading there”)
and feel like I’ve gained a better understanding of myself. Which I think is
the best piece I can take away from this whole experience.
Last, but not least, I think I gained a
greater sense of adventure.
Just a year ago, it would never have been
an option for me to decide on a whim to go on a road trip or to travel to
another country without any real plans. And yet, this entire semester, that’s
what I’ve been doing. My philosophy went from “I would like to do this” to
“Let’s do it” in just a matter of weeks. Of course this is much easier in
Europe, where international trains leave every hour, but I’ve already noticed
this kind of attitude in my daily life at home.
And it’s about more than just traveling.
It’s about every single decision I make in my daily life, whether it’s cooking,
sports, school, or work. In the dorm in Zürich, we often couldn’t buy certain
types of foods we wanted, like the one time we all wanted salmon burgers but
couldn’t find them in the stores. Instead of complaining about it, on the ride
home one day we looked up a recipe and before we knew it, had made our own
versions of the burgers that were even better than store-bought versions. As
far as I can tell, it’s a very North American thing to be constrained to what
we make based on which prepared foods are readily available in the supermarket;
but if we all just spent a little extra time working at it, we could all create
incredible foods any time we wanted.
I spent years saying that someday I would
run a marathon, but never really seriously figuring out what it would take and
how to get there. But the moment I returned home, as soon as I realized I
wanted to run a half-marathon, I put down my phone and began a training plan,
complete with an end date and a location of the half-marathon I’m going to run
(I’ll let you all know how that works out after October 11th, when I
run it!).
These all seem like small things, but
they’re huge improvements on where I was before I left for Zürich. And I’m
going to try my hardest to make this newfound sense of adventure and action an
intrinsic part of my being.
***
I arrived in Zürich on February 1st, not
expecting to have any real friends. My first experience with dorm living was
pretty shabby, to say the least, and I’m not usually the kind of person who can
befriend just anyone. My list of phone contacts is long; my “recent messages”
list is short. But in just the first few weeks of living in Switzerland, I had
already found a niche, a group of friends whom I felt completely comfortable
around, before whom I didn’t care if I was a sweaty mess from running or still
in my pyjamas in the morning. They accepted me for what I was, and for that I am
tremendously grateful. It may be a long time before we meet again, but I’ll
always treasure each and every moment with the people I met so far away from
home.
So with that, I’ll conclude my thoughts on
Zürich. To everyone who has followed this blog since I began it – thank you. I’m
sorry that I couldn’t keep up with everything I was doing and stopped writing
after awhile… Once school and traveling kicked in, there was barely enough time
in my life for anything else. And I found that it was much better to be out
exploring than to be inside writing. Maybe someday when I’ve had my fill of
adventuring, I’ll put it all into a book; but for now, I’ll be happy working on
seeing as much of the world as I possibly can.
And if you’ve taken anything away from
vicariously following my experiences, I hope it’s this – that the next big
adventure is always waiting just around the corner; all you have to do is reach
out and grab it.
In the words of Russell from UP, “Adventure is out there!”
