Today marks the one year anniversary of my move to Switzerland. I don’t remember exactly what my expectations were prior to my arrival, but as a whole I think that they’ve definitely been exceeded.
From a quality of life perspective, Lausanne definitely lives up to the high marks that I had always heard about generally for Switzerland. There’s a nice balance between work and “life” and though it’s a bit quiet relative to the hustle and bustle of America’s (and many of Europe’s) largest cities, it’s something that’s easy to get used to and now I very much appreciate.
On the travel front, I’ve been able to see a lot more than I expected and I really hope that this continues during my second year. While the recent travel for work has been a factor, the biggest driver of all my travel has definitely been Emilie as I would have never gone on so many great trips tout seul. I also owe a debt of gratitude to her mom and sister as well, as they've allowed me to tag along on some great trips -- namely Barcelona, Copenhagen, Nice / Menton.
My first year was good in terms of visitors as well, with Erin coming for three weeks last July and my friends Garrett and Paige visiting last September. I even got to spend Thanksgiving in Paris with the Ryans, which served as a nice reprise of our annual family trips to Yosemite over Thanksgiving when I was younger. Hopefully the next year will bring some additional guests to Lausanne.
On the language front, I feel like I’m making ongoing progress with my French but I’ve still got a marathon ahead of me before I achieve fluency. Hopefully, I’ll have a breakthrough sooner than later in terms of everything coming together, but we’ll see. The biggest hurdle is the fact that I speak English every day at work. Fortunately, Emilie (and her family for that matter) has definitely helped me considerably and served as a de facto French instructor at times.
And for obvious reasons beyond travel and informal French lessons, my first year would not have been the same without Emilie. Given that we met only two months after my arrival, it's safe to say that my first year would have actually been completely different in her absence. As written before, I'm not one for getting overly personal in a (theoretically) public forum, but I can nonetheless say that I'm very thankful for deciding to tag along with some others on a random Friday night that by pure chance led to our introduction.
From a quality of life perspective, Lausanne definitely lives up to the high marks that I had always heard about generally for Switzerland. There’s a nice balance between work and “life” and though it’s a bit quiet relative to the hustle and bustle of America’s (and many of Europe’s) largest cities, it’s something that’s easy to get used to and now I very much appreciate.
On the travel front, I’ve been able to see a lot more than I expected and I really hope that this continues during my second year. While the recent travel for work has been a factor, the biggest driver of all my travel has definitely been Emilie as I would have never gone on so many great trips tout seul. I also owe a debt of gratitude to her mom and sister as well, as they've allowed me to tag along on some great trips -- namely Barcelona, Copenhagen, Nice / Menton.
My first year was good in terms of visitors as well, with Erin coming for three weeks last July and my friends Garrett and Paige visiting last September. I even got to spend Thanksgiving in Paris with the Ryans, which served as a nice reprise of our annual family trips to Yosemite over Thanksgiving when I was younger. Hopefully the next year will bring some additional guests to Lausanne.
On the language front, I feel like I’m making ongoing progress with my French but I’ve still got a marathon ahead of me before I achieve fluency. Hopefully, I’ll have a breakthrough sooner than later in terms of everything coming together, but we’ll see. The biggest hurdle is the fact that I speak English every day at work. Fortunately, Emilie (and her family for that matter) has definitely helped me considerably and served as a de facto French instructor at times.
And for obvious reasons beyond travel and informal French lessons, my first year would not have been the same without Emilie. Given that we met only two months after my arrival, it's safe to say that my first year would have actually been completely different in her absence. As written before, I'm not one for getting overly personal in a (theoretically) public forum, but I can nonetheless say that I'm very thankful for deciding to tag along with some others on a random Friday night that by pure chance led to our introduction.
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