I also remember thinking it was no problem that the moving guys just left all the boxes unpacked. Little did I realize the problem it would be to get rid of them and all the packing paper afterwards!
I remember I had to go to the airport to get a lung x-ray. That's how long I've been here :-)
We left a 20 degrees sunny Istanbul to arrive on a freezing and snowing Thursday before Easter. I had no proper jacket nor gloves to survive the cold. We found out how early shops were closing on the first day when came the time to get food. Everything was grey and empty.
That summer was just awful, It was raining constantly and it was cold.
Sadly, My impression never changed over the years.
I fell to my knees and kissed the ground.
we came in stages. first my hubby then a few months later me then 2 weeks later my son. after flying in from nyc i met oh in geneva and we headed out to lausanne. a lovely summer day and a few hours later we were at the birthday party of his friend with over 100 people who pretty much spoke only french, though thankfully some spanish here and there. i guess the jet lag worked in my favor as we stayed till 4 am dancing. the next day, hung over and exhausted i took the train to sion to a capoeira class recommended by my ny instructor. it was amazing to practice with people i just met so easily and i worked out all the drinks of the night before. my sweet husband hung around sion for 2 hours waiting for me and afterwards we had drinks in sion, which was an incredibly beautiful city for someone who had just been in the bronx 36 hours before.
an apero in sion center and people just started to make conversation and we had a great time meeting people i still keep in touch with now, though i haven't really been back to sion since having a life here. it made a huge impression on me as i never had any image of switzerland or what it could even be like. the weeks after that were not all parties and fun, unpacking, trying to learn french, almost getting attacked ( ) etc. but that first 2 days gave me a taste of what was possible.
Laughing cynically at the graffiti... all those poor white boy homies tagging it and stickin' it to da man
hahaha. that was a funny impression for me too! especially the graffiti in montreux, the 1820 zip code crew. i like to imagine them in my hometown for 5 hot minutes!
I arrived in Lausanne at 6am after 24h on the train from England. Had to get straight back on a train to go to GENEVA (!) for a chest xray, as it was the nearest international border.
My first weekend was party central, as it was the fete de Lausanne. So I thought 'its nice here I'm staying'. So I did.
And its still nice nearly 30 years later.
jet-lagged, trying to find our way from the airport to the hotel with a GPS speaking in German and having no clue how to navigate Swiss streets. my wife threatened to divorce me more than once due to my language, and we must have circled the city for 2 hours.
any time we have visitors, we insist on picking them up at the airport.
On a more serious note I remember standing in the middle of Zug looking at the city map trying to find the street where the auslanderbehorde is and two people stopped and asked if I was looking for something and could they help me. Gave me a very nice first impression of how nice Swiss people are.
It ́s my first time abroad here in Switzerland. Summer just ended, it ́s cold and raining outside and i ́m not dressed for the weather. , Don ́t know anyone, an old lady from our agency came to greet me, giving me a hug and kiss, i think she ́s used to giving it to anyone because i don ́t feel it to be sincere. Arrived at home, had lunch. The place is so quiet, no soul in sight outside of the house. Then go to bed and fell asleep without dinner, because of jet lag. hmmmm not so memorable
August 18/19th, 2009: We (my husband, 18 year old daughter, and I) caught our flight about 1pm after 2 hours of sleep the night before as we dealt with taking boxes and a car to the shippers and finished emptying the house we had lived in for 15 years. The night before we left I was sure we were not going to get it all done and would miss our flight - the thought of the last week or so still gives me shivers.
I had booked our flights over from San Francisco via Calgary and maybe Toronto on Air Canada and soon learned never to do that again. We missed our connection in Calgary because we had to go through customs and retrieve our baggage. We'd sold two cars right before we left and happened to be carrying about $20,000 in cash. At the last minute, I suggested to my husband that we split the cash between us and after customs, as we were walking to the gate, a security person pulls my husband over and asks him how much cash he is carrying. We never did figure out how they knew. Luckily the amount he stated was slightly below the limit and they let us continue.
We arrived in London to the chaos you can imagine in the middle of summer and spent 2 hours waiting to get our boarding passes for the next flight. No recollection of any of the flights because we all passed out the moment we got in the seats. We arrived in Geneva, squeezed all of our luggage in the car, and headed to short-term rental apartment we had arranged. We got out of the car and the woman who was supposed to meet us wasn't there, but she luckily arrived about 10 or 15 minutes later. It was dinner time by that point and we went out for an incredibly over-priced and not very good pizza dinner, all in a total daze.
I remember spending over 2 hours doing the grocery shopping initially because I couldn't read the packaging and couldn't ask anyone where to find what I might be looking for. I'd take my French-English dictionary along to be sure I got laundry soap rather than some other kind of soap, etc. Every little chore of everyday life was a research project - we came on a local contract with no relocation support other than a list of URLs for looking for permanent housing and didn't speak any French.
Many things that would be easy back in the US are still a big project here, but mostly we are settled and this feels like home in many ways now, though some days are hard. We love living in Switzerland, and we are extremely grateful that my husband's boss sent around an email one day asking if anyone wanted to volunteer to take a job in Geneva.
To prove you didn't habe TB, I suppose?
Arrived by train with a small backpack and my DH bike and immediately blamed by the doorkeeper for downhilling (down) the stairs (the apartment was at floor -2)
bye, massi+
The first time I moved here was November 1987. I was 13 and moved here with my mom and her new husband. (Who I affectionately call "Papi) I'll never forget that first day, walking down the street crying. I wanted to go home. We stayed at a hotel for two weeks and nearly starved because we were too afraid to venture too far from the hotel. We found out a week after we moved into our apartment that there was a McDonalds one block further down from our "comfort zone". I started school, learned German and made friends fast. We were here for almost 4 years. During the end of my time here, I met and fell in love with a Swiss boy. We dated for about a year, then it was time for us to move back to the States. Fast forward 23 years...after losing touch with my Swiss boyfriend for so many years, I got a "friend" request on Facebook from him. We got married in Cedar Rapids , Iowa on December 21,2012. My 17 year old son and I have been back in Basel since January 3rd. Although we're going through all of the normal changes with moving to a foreign country, we couldn't be happier to be here. Looking forward to all of the amazing experiences that I know are waiting for us!
It was on a cold winter night, briefly after midnight. I felt pretty lousy. After nine months in a wonderfully warm and cosy place the change just didn't feel right. I could barely see anything but heard all sorts of frightening noises and felt totally confused. And I couldn't understand a single word.
Granted, someone kindly fed me, and they even gave me warm clothes after a nice bath. But I was so weak I could hardly move, let alone stand or walk.
It was January 19, 1948, my first day on this planet and in this country.
So if I ever move to Switzerland, Natilie Rickli will welcome at the airport?
that is an amazingly beautiful story- congrats and enjoy!
Thank you so much!
Last day of my old job on the Friday, arrived in Switzerland with family on Saturday, moved into an apartment on Sunday, started work on Monday.
Just an average weekend!
As we piled all our suitcases up at the check in desk at Heathrow, I remember the sarcastic question "What? are you moving out there to live, or something?"
I'm happy here.
5am, friend-with-benefits told me to get off the night train and get on the tram 11 and he'd meet me at St Johann. It was cold and I was horribly sleepy from dozing in a seat from Paris.