Hope you will be able to embrace the "glass half-full" mentality when you get there.
Thanks for being such a lightning rod on EF!
Sounds like a good decision for you.
He/She/It... doesn't matter anymore.
"Very little English spoken"
Is that a joke. You came to this country I’m sure fully aware of the simple fact that English is not the mother tongue.
I find it quite irritating that people expect every person and business to speak English. It’s plain rude if nothing else.
I think it’s amazing you can go see a film in English, English speaking doctors/builders/childcare etc.
We expect so much from the Swiss, we move to their country and expect them to adopt our rules?
You only get back what you put in.
As for the weather... wait a week.
On a serious note, I hope you find your happiness back in Australia. I would love to move their myself some day.
Agree with you on most things AussiSwiss and most replies to your thread are so typically Swiss (they don't take criticism very well). I wish you well and who knows maybe one day I'll get to enjoy the hospitality of your country.
Most replies are from expats who, logically, aren't Swiss.
Well, I would have said that he is a wuss, but clearly the aim is to provide general popcorn-threads - with great success methinks!
So thanks AussieSwiss! Do enjoy Oz and travel around a little, maybe you will even remember a good thing or two about Switzerland (yeah right.. )
OK Let me bring a different opinion on your experience-You obviously cared to share it, so let's take time to listen...
Ok: so my own conclusion is most of the time you have failed to research or adapt to the local things... You're often unfair or stereotyping in your post, which does not attract much sympathy from me.
For example the myth about "toilet flushing", do your research!!!
Anyway, as said you had a big cultural shock. It's not a big deal but not a positive experience here for you. Anyway, at the end you'll be sure you prefer Australia, so have a good trip and enjoy your perfect land "down under" *!
*until it lasts because usually laws, rules, etc... are always changing and often not for the best
Aahhhh ....... but he can still write, and let us know how things have suddenly changed for the worse, back in Oz, and how this and that aren't right.
Pleeeeeasssse ........
I believe you have cause and effect the wrong way round. Swiss business needs us here, we come, they try and make us feel welcome.
Clearly Switzerland wasn't the place for you so leaving is a sensible choice.
Good luck in your endeavours back in Oz.
PS. Is your partner going back with you? It's gonna be one hell of a long distance relationship if she isn't.
I'm my time as expat I've noticed that some people were just not made to live abroad, they don't seem to be able to cope with changes, the kind of people that can happily live their whole life in the same small town.
Some unsatisfied migrants get the Ulysses syndrome, some have unrealistic expectations, some can only see the cons and fail to see the pros.
Good luck in perfect Australia!
And just how many have a Swiss Passport I wonder? But then again that doesn't make you Swiss I suppose - me included.
A good topic for a new thread.
Reasons why I am staying here in Switzerland (having come from the same place as you)...
- It's clean and ordered
- public transport is brilliant and reliable
- it's soooooo clean
- amazingly beautiful environment where the farmland and forests are preserved.
- my husband and I are earning more than double what we were earning when we left Australia.
- there is 2 years of 80% salary protection in case of job loss.
- our kids have an amazingly safe and protected lifestyle with plenty of outdoors.
- we don't live our whole lives in a car
- I feel safe here
I don't get wolf-whistled by yobbos driving past in their cars, walking down the street (which happened when I walked out of my home to the local shops in Sydney the last time I visited, in my home suburb, and I was just in my jeans and t-shirt...
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and adaptation is hard work!
Best of luck with your return to Oz.
We will be over for Christmas, and we'll be taking stock of what we miss (Tim Tams, Family, Friends, Sunshine, Freedom of lifestyle, BBQ sauce that isn't 'smoky', pavlova magic, Aeroplane jelly crystals without preservatives, cottees cordial) vs. the safety, order, and opportunities that we have found over here in Switzerland.
Oh, and we can afford to go to Australia every 2-3 years from Switzerland, but there's no way we could take European holidays every 2-3years and live in Sydney.
Forgot to add - be kind to yourself... re-entry shock can be worse than culture shock - you have changed but no one else has...
If she is, I hope you've warned her that most locals don't speak German
Anyhoo, good luck with your life back in Australia, I really do hope you can be happy there.
Here comments
I agree 100% with that post. I don't think there is one single item on this list that has not been covered on EF - before you got here. EF is in English so even someone not able to speak or understand German/French/Italian should have been able to find it. Of course some research would have been needed...
Some of the points mentioned are indeed annoying. I agree and I was born and have lived all my life in Switzerland. But I know that no country, no place (and nobody for that matter as well) is perfect. There will always be some flaws and setbacks.
You prepare, read up beforehand and if you make the decision to give it a go you REALLY give it a go. As in: try out new things, try to learn new things, accept that things are done differently to what you're used to from back home or another place and to embrace the new culture. Also to smile and shrug it off if it really is that weird. But you decide to live with it. If you tried - genuinely - and it did not work out you have to be brave enough to take a decision and leave.
There is a German saying "Besser ein Ende mit Schrecken, als ein Schrecken ohne Ende" (meaning it's better to stop something that might be painful than to drag on with it forever). This is what you have done - finally one ought to say after reading all your complaints. I agree that no country is for everyone so I hope you will find a place that will suit you and where you will be happy. Obviously this place wasn't Switzerland...
What an absolutely fantastic country, lets charter a plane and all go to the land of milk and honey