JustJess
Because I spent my holidays in Czechia, there is not much I can say about Christmas customs in Switzerland. So I decided not to. There is a lot of information about it on other blogs and I would rather stay true to my experience. But as I was writing, during those first four months, there was always something I left out. Like a small note, experience or information, which didn’t fit into the article. So I decided to put this chapter together with these small notes and pieces of information.
1. Incredible view
When I first arrived in Switzerland, I was full of impressions. Especially from the view. We do have mountains in Czechia. But not so high and only a few of our lakes have crystal clear water. So the landscape around my town constantly fascinates me. After four months I do not perceive it so deeply anymore, because I am getting used to it. But like 3 times a week, I still stop and I look around in disbelief. I am like: “Wow…”; “What?; What am I doing here?”; “How did I get here?”; “Is this real?” and other exclamations of this sort. There is a note, in my private handwritten diary, from 20. 8. 2020 (three days after my arrival), that describes the feeling the best:
“When I am going home, from the host family house to my own apartment, I have to take off my sunglasses. Not because the road is too dark, but because the view is too beautiful. It would be a shame to hide it behind a sun filter. So I just take my sunglasses off, I slow down, or I stop, and I just take in the view. The landscape here goes beyond the imagination. I can’t believe I live here.”
I think that I had an extremely lucky hand when choosing a host family. Not only are they nice, but they also live in one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever visited. When I’m gone once, I’ll take this view with me. It will be imprinted, deep inside of my heart.
2. Animal encounters
One of the things that really surprised me right from the beginning was the multitude of lizards that are everywhere around the family house. In summer months, they take advantage of the terrasse and every other solid ground they can find to sunbathe. I am not sure what kind of a lizard it is. It has from 8 to 12 cm and a really thin body. They are mostly dark with some pattern on their back. The family cat tends to catch them and bring them to the house from time to time. Awful animal.
Another creature that surprised me at the house grounds was a salamander. Once in the evening, when it rained, there were two of them on the concrete staircase, enjoying the rain. I was really lucky to have a flashlight with me, otherwise, I would have totally stepped on one of them. We have salamanders in the Czech Republic, but I don’t think I have ever seen one up close. I was surprised how large they are. Since then, I have seen them multiple times. Always at the same place, on rainy evenings.
The third really surprising encounter was a fox. It was the beginning of winter and I drove from the family house in the direction of the town. Around 200 metres from the house, I suddenly saw a strange animal in the middle of the street. At first I thought it’s a dog but I quickly realised it was a fox. Quite a large, silver fox with fur that looked sharp as spikes. I stopped the car, the fox stayed unmoving for a while, looking at me. Then it turned around and ran to the garden of one of the houses. Later on, my family told me that it is quite normal to see them during winter months. They come down from the forest to search for food. Since then, I’ve seen them multiple times. But mostly reddish ones. So the first encounter was twice as special, because the fox had a fur colour I’ve never seen before with my own eyes.
3. Lac Léman
If you happen to be my regular reader, you might have noticed that in my first chapters I used to use the term “Lake Geneva” when I spoke about our lake. Later on, I started mixing the term with “Lac Léman” or using both. I never really explained why. And it is not just about the local name and English name of the lake.
If I take it historically, the term “Lac Léman” comes from latin “Lacus Lemanus” and it was used back in the times of Julius Caesar. Later on, when Geneva city gained importance, the lake was called “Lac de Geneve” more and more often. This was adopted in English and the name “Lake Geneva” became predominant. Even though, on the maps and in local terminology you will see dominantly the name “Lac Léman”.
But the real reason I started using the term “Lac Léman” is different and more… local. People here, living by the upper lake actually don’t like when the lake is called “Lake Geneva”. As I was explained, Geneva is just one city and the lake is huge and has many more cities around. So there is no reason to call the whole lake “Lake Geneva”. I am quite sure residents of Geneva wouldn’t agree.
I personally like using the original French/latin term “Lac Léman”. It sounds nice and it makes sense, because really, Geneva is like 90 km from here. And also because I am a proud citizen of the region around the upper lake, the term “Lake Geneva” is starting to give me creeps.
4. The tone of speech in Swiss French
In one of the first chapters I mentioned that some words people here use, sound like birds singing. Like “Coucou”. It was a bit bizarre for me at first, but I got used to it very quickly. Because it’s actually nice. Imagine a bird singing a happy song. That’s how French speaking people in Switzerland are going to greet you. When you come home, when you come to the shop, when you cross someone on the street. And it’s not just famous “Coucou”, it’s also in “Salut” or “Bonjour”. When they greet you, you actually have a feeling that they are happy to see you. Even when it is a formal greeting, it sounds informal, familiar and happy. And it makes you feel good.
For some time I thought that is just the way French is. That it is beautifully soundfull and it makes you feel good just when hearing it. But later on, we were discussing this with my French teacher, who actually is from France. She told me that this is not normal in France. That it is something special in the French speaking part of Switzerland. When someone greets you in Paris, it’s a normal, formally toned greeting. But in Switzerland, people are singing when they greet you. It is really special and it made me feel very happy on many occasions.
5. Trains bizzares
One thing I found especially bizarre at the beginning is that the trains are oriented in different directions than in Czechia. At the platform where us Czechs would expect direction right, the train is actually going left and the other way around. Many times, when I went from Vevey to Lausanne, and I sat on the “inside” side of the train, I got startled by the train passing by on the upper trail. Because for a moment, I had a feeling like it’s going the wrong direction and it’s going to crush us. Even when I totally love trains, this still makes me uncomfortable.
Another crazy thing about trains in Switzerland are prices. I mentioned before that trains are super expensive but up until my return from the Czechia on Christmas, I never realised just how much.
When I first came to Switzerland, I bought a train ticket from Zurich to Lausanne online and it cost me 40 francs for 1st class. It was a special price but back then, I didn’t realise that it was a first minute price, because I bought it a few days prior. So the day I came back to Switzerland, from my Christmas holidays and I needed to buy a train ticket, I almost died on the spot. It cost 80 Francs. The lady behind the counter explained to me that the 40 Francs cost is available only online and when you buy it at least a few hours in advance. I seriously thought about buying it online and waiting for a few hours. Unfortunately, my Czech credit card doesn’t work on the Swiss railways web page so this plan had to be abandoned and I really paid those 80 Francs. Which effectively meant that the money I initially saved on going to Czechia by car with someone, was spent on a 2,5 hours long train ride. That was a really bad morning.
So please, take a lesson from my error and never buy a train ticket in Switzerland the day of the ride. Always buy it in advance online or buy a discount card. Otherwise, Swiss railway system is a budget suicide.
6. My Au-pair friend Jo
After releasing the chapter about the problems of an Au-pair I met here, many people asked me, how she is doing. If she left Switzerland or if her situation got better. So let me answer these questions for all the readers.
You might notice her in my photos from trips so yes, as of December 2020, she is still here. She is with the same family and things got a bit better. In the middle of September, when we were trying to solve her problems, it looked for a moment that she would leave back to Poland. Which would be understandable, because she was in a very bad mental shape and did not have the strength to search for a new family. But for multiple reasons, she wanted to stay here, so she did. In the end she even confronted her host family about what was wrong. As a result she got her own room, the family started paying half of her health insurance and there were some moments when she was surprised how nice they were to her. However people do not change easily and there were still many more occasions when Jo felt like everything was completely wrong. Those times she wanted to flee and never come back. But she is a really responsible person and when she said she will stay for one year, she would do it. There was no way to change her mind even when I thought staying was not worth the trouble. I hope her host family notices what a diamond they have in their household.
So, her situation is not ideal. If I were her, I would be long gone. But in a way, I understand her. To tell the truth, I am happy she stayed. I found an amazing friend in her and our time together is always the top of the week. Travelling places would be less fun without her. I didn’t know how much I needed a friend as crazy and spontaneous as her, until I got to know her better.
7. My Czech started popping out of nowhere
When I first came to Switzerland, four months ago, I was surprised that I had no problem communicating in English. I thought it was going to take some time for the brain to switch into a foreign language and I will have the tendency to react automatically in Czech language. I was wrong. I communicated in English without a single problem and I slowly started learning French.
The greater wass my surprise when approximately at the beginning of December, I suddenly started blurting out Czech words at the beginning of sentences. Exactly the automatic reaction I expected at the beginning of my stay, happened three months later. I wanna say something, and I automatically start the sentence in Czech. Most of the time, I stop myself before I verbalise the whole world, but it is strange anyway. It is like after almost 3 months of my stay, my brain decided it had enough of English and French and wanted to get back to its natural state. I guess it is not illogical. It is just strange. Why after 3 months?
8. Human brain is a strange machine
My last note of the year 2020 will be a bit more personal. Does anyone remember how my Au-pair story started? Covid-19, losing a job, broken heart, moving out of the flat and then a total change of my life plans? If you don’t and want to read a bit about it, you can come back to the first article of the series. But why do I come back to this? Because the whole change was so fast, that my brain didn’t have enough time to process it.
Let me explain… When I came to Switzerland, it happened to me practically daily, that I woke up, expecting to be in my old flat in the Czech Republic. I woke up and for a moment, I was really surprised to find myself alone, in a new flat, in a totally different country. Sometimes I was even confused. It also occurred to me really often, that I suddenly stopped in the middle of the day and I was suddenly struck by the question: “What am I doing here?” or “How did I get here?”. But this feeling is different from the one when I admire the view, as described higher. Although the questions are the same, these moments are full of confusion and a bit of sadness.
I wonder if it has something to do with the sudden change in my life that wasn’t planned at all. I think that if you spend years wiring your brain towards something and then you do something completely different, it takes time for the brain to rewire. So even when my consciousness is really happy to be here, there is still something, in the back of my mind, mourning what I’ve lost and it struggles to get used to the new reality. The simple fact is that healing takes time. And sometimes, even 1200 Km of distance won’t help to cease the deep wounds. Only time can do that.
After four months, the feeling of confusion is almost gone. I no longer wake up, expecting to be somewhere else. More often I woke up with a smirk saying: “I am really here.” or “I’ve done this.” And then I start a new day, I enjoy the view and I am wire my brain towards new goals. Towards 2021.
