Fifteen Days in With So Much to Share!

I have been in Switzerland now for more than two weeks and I'm already dreading going back to the states in January! My initial impression of this country and its people can be summed up in a single word: beautiful.

Like any person who is travelling to a foreign country for an extended period, I began to feel anxious over the summer about certain aspects such as the language barrier (my French is far from perfect) and the typical Swiss stereotype. Any person who says that Swiss people are just like their country; cold, closed-off, and neutral; has obviously never visited this country whose people are anything but the description above. My first Swiss impression arrived at the airport to pick me up. Xuan, a Swiss native with a Vietnamese background ended up having to wait at the airport for over an hour due to my plane being late and then the discovery that my luggage was not on the plane. This did not bother her at all and when we finally greeted she was full of questions and excitement!

I have found that most young Swiss natives as well as the international students that come from all over the world are just like Xuan; curious and open-minded as well as very informative. Most of the people I have met know about issues not only in their own country but in the whole world. Last night for example, a group of students I live with who come from Germany, Egypt, Russia, Spain, as well as other countries, sat in the kitchen for two hours eating dinner and talking about various controversies such as the French burqa ban, Swiss minerat ban, and immigration problems. It is the fact that we all come from different cultural backgrounds that makes this type of "dinner table learning" so effective and more so than anything I've learned in a classroom.

I have so many more observations to write about but I'll leave that for another time. Tomorrow is my orientation with the entire international student population; should be interesting!

Au Revoir!