I finished my program exactly two weeks ago today and I suppose I should apologize for the fact that my final thoughts are coming so late. For a week after my program I did some backpacking on my own to Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Bavaria. Needless to say, the backpacking trip was excellent.
It has been a week since I have returned home and I am moving back to Columbus very soon. To wrap up my trip to Switzerland, and to keep my thoughts as accurate as possible, I am going to rewrite here an entry that I wrote in a journal that I had been keeping in Switzerland. I wrote this entry on my train ride back to Lausanne from my week long backpacking trip, the night before I flew back to the US. The entry captures my thoughts and feelings at the conclusion of my trip, probably much more so than anything I would write now. And so here it is:
September 11, 2008
It's a curious feeling, returning to Switzerland after a week long trip to Vienna, Prague, and Germany. I feel like I am coming back home. Already my comfort level has risen as I sit waiting in a train in Zurich, about to depart for Lausanne. The train station feels more familiar, the people seem more friendly, and even the train feels more familiar. It's odd, how quickly one adapts to a new environment. In less than 3 months, I have begun to consider Switzerland another of my homes.
It does not escape me that 3 months is not a long time and a great part of why I feel at home here is simply because I am more familiar with the country. I don't speak French, German, Italian, or Romansch. Hell, I can't even handle most of the strong Swiss cheeses. Even still, in the past 2 1/2 months I have taken a great liking to Switzerland.
A large reason for this is the people I have met throughout the summer. Other summer interns, lab colleagues, roommmates, apartment-mates, and friends of friends. I have had the good fortune to meet individuals from all over the world, all harboring different perspectives and convictions. Despite the varying views, everyone I have met has shared fundamental traits - an opennes to learn about others and a friendliness that allows for strong relationships to be built.
My last weeks and days in Lausanne, as the program was winding down for me, I had the opportunity to engage more with students in the program who previously I hadn't gotten to know very well. Through organizing a barbecue with the program, travelling with people I hadn't travelled with yet, shopping for souvenirs, cooking dinner with and for everyone in the program, and going out to eat, I was able to further develop my friendship with everyone.
A desire to spend more time with these people and a hesitancy to leave Lausanne combined to create a sort of dread as I began my week long trip alone across Central Europe. To complete my thoughts on the people aspect of my summer, I would just like to say that I hope to stay in touch with the friends I have made here and sincerely hope to see everyone again.
Having spent so much time with all the people I met this summer, I still have to admit the loneliness I felt at some points and the desire to see and spend time with people who I am close to back in the States. Friends, family, and a certain girl that I haven't seen for too long were all sorely missed. As I answered questions regarding how I felt leaving Switzeralnd, directed to me from friends, I found myself saying that I wish everyone from the States could just come here to Switzerland.
It's odd, in many ways, the conflicting feelings I hold as I am one day from returning home. Coming to Switzerland, I did not know what to expect. Leaving Switzerland, I feel as if though everything was perfect and I have no regrets. I have accomplished everything I had hoped to plus more. Sitting in the train taking me to Lausanne, ending an enjoyable backpacking trip, and nearing the end to my trip as a whole, I - like many others who travel abroad for an extended period of time - hold a very bitter-sweet feeling. As I've said before, Lausanne has become a home for me. I still feel as if I will just start work again tomorrow, as if I am simply returning from a week-long vacation. I still feel as if next weekend I will venture somewhere in Switzerland with friends, like the ghost feeling of an amputated limb. It's upsetting to think that that is not what will happen. I am already feeling nostalgic. While I do not want this summer to end, and while I wish for the experiences I have had to continue, I am also overly ecstatic to be returning home. Genuinely upset to be ending such a great summer, I am at the same time deeply excited to return to the States, to my parents, to everything and everyone I know at OSU.
With newly developed skills, thoughts, ideas, and tastes, I am returning to Ohio in hopes of expressing these new traits through an enhanced personal confidence and independence, a consequence of living in a foreign environment. While in Switzerland, I have learned a great deal about who I am and what I stand for. Still, though, that is not to say that I will return a completely transformed person. Indeed, in many ways I am still very much the same. However, as all study abroad and work abroad trips engender, I have no doubt developed a certain degree of worldliness and personal confidence.
As such, with these new traits, I am quite eager to start a new year at OSU. The summer has provided me with numerous ideas as to what I want to do, and I am excited to carry these ideas out. The change in environment has been extremely helpful and has allowed me to collect my thoughts. I truly cannot wait to take what I have learned this summer and incorporate it into my life in the States, providing for new and exciting experiences.
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And so ends my journal entry, a summary of my experiences in Switzerland and a conclusion to my trip. I have much more to write, though, on some thoughts that I have had and I would like to talk about my week long trip after the program ended. These topics will come in later posts. In addition, I have decided to keep this blog permanently, as I find it is an excellent medium to relay my thoughts and ideas. So along with more posts about my summer, I will also begin to write about other thoughts I have.
Until then, take care!
