I don’t want to believe it, but in a few months, it’ll be five years since we live in Switzerland. Sometimes it seems to me that we have been here forever, sometimes that it is only a short period of our lives.
Anyway, before moving to Switzerland I would never believe …
1. that I would like a village-life
To this day I can remember a strange reaction of a friend in Prague when she found out where we were going to live: “What on earth are you going to do in a village when you’re used to living in Prague?”
Well, in fact, I didn’t know what to say to her at the time. After today’s experience, I would tell her that living in a village suits me fully. Because almost every Swiss village is better equipped than a Czech town. We have a shopping center, a school, a kindergarten, a post office, a pizzeria, a Chinese restaurant, a children’s second-hand shop, haberdashery and a cloth shop, watchmaking, florist, gardening, and I could still go on. In addition, trains and buses run every now and then. And thanks to this “equipment” everything is closer here, at hand. Yeah, and the e-shops work here too, so if I can’t find something here, I’ll just order it online 😉
2. that I will be “forced” to cook Czech dumplings
I take cooking as a necessity. I don’t enjoy it because I know I have to cook almost every day. Sometimes I am looking for new recipes so that I do not feel that I am still cooking the same meals (though the kids would love having the same meals: risotto, spaghetti bolognese, schnitzel, and fries). And I like to cook those 30 minutes´ meals because I don’t want to spend the whole day cooking.
But sometimes the nostalgia for traditional Czech cuisine is so great that I have a compulsive need to plunge into more time-consuming projects, such as home-made dumplings. You don´t know what Czech cuisine is all about? See this video 🙂
3. that it will be mentally challenging to meet new people
I am not naturally a completely extroverted companion who would have fun talking to everyone. But on the other hand, I am a curious woman who likes to talk to people she knows and likes to learn something interesting. But sometimes too much is too much.
That is why I am glad that I already more or less know parents from our sons’ hockey club. That I do not have to repeat them again that we are from the Czech Republic, how long we have been here, why we are here, etc. and we can talk about something else (like ice hockey, right 🙂 ).
But I am afraid that our youngest will choose something other than ice hockey and I will have to repeat the same thing over and over again and it will take me another two years to remember who is who and which child belongs to which parent, which parents belong together, etc.
4. that I will like German
Yes, getting to know new people constantly is challenging. But even more challenging when you have to master it in a foreign language that you don’t speak 100%. But I must say that my initial resistance to German has disappeared and I like to learn German and that I even like it as a language!
Moreover, if we did not live in Switzerland, and I did not have to learn German “on the go”, I would never learn the terms that are not taught in school, but in real life, you need them more (like power-play formation or icing 😀 ).
5. that I get rid of the fear of driving a car
Driving, my recently a nightmare. I’ll tell you that I was terribly afraid to drive a car in Prague. Not so much for fear of my inexperience (and lack of parking skills haha 🙂 ), but for the fact that in Prague and Czech motorways, drivers often drive totally crazy and I was very afraid that someone in the unguarded moment hit us.
Here in Switzerland, sometimes it happens that you run into the idiot behind the wheel, but it is not so often. That made my nervousness behind the wheel a little lower, and when my son recently asked me on the way to training, “Mom, do you enjoy driving?” I could answer: “I finally do” 🙂
6. that I will be allergic to ending “-ová”
It is a specific of the Czech/Slovak languages for women to have an ending “-ová” in their surnames. Understand, I have nothing against this ending when it belongs to a woman of Czech / Slovak origin. But another specific feature of the language is the matching of these endings to women who do not have it in their surname at all.
That’s why I’m getting crazy when I hear on the Czech TV Broadcasting “Laura Dahlmeierová“, “Lindsey Vonnová” or “Theresa Mayová“. Especially when I watch a sports broadcast/news in German and/or English and then switch to Czech TV … and then it goes … meh.
7. that I will not be able to imagine my life without blogging
If we stayed in Prague, my blog would probably remain just a virtual diary of my own thoughts and memories. Because why would I write about trips and interesting places in Prague and its surroundings when there are lots of great bloggers doing great work in this niche?
But moving to Switzerland has opened a new door for me, and I have set out on a journey that sometimes seems to me to be endless but it is incredibly fun and fulfilling.
8. that I write my an eBook
If it wasn’t for the previous point, and that I have met a lot of great people on my blogging journey, I’d never come up with the idea of writing my own eBook. I used my knowledge and passed it on in my Guide to moving to Switzerland (in Czech only 😉 ). And I am glad to have a positive response from the readers who bought it.
9. that I will meet so many “lookalikes”
It is said that everyone in the world has a double. And I believe it. During the first few months, I “met” my sister, my classmate, my best friend … yes, the people I met here were incredibly similar to my loved ones. Or was it just my strong projection for these people because I missed them? I don’t really know!
10. that the most common question I will receive will be: And when the Czech team plays against Switzerland, who do you support?
Well, it’s probably the second most common after: “Are you planning to stay in Switzerland forever?”. However, the frequency of this question is increasing now, for example, in the current World Ice Hockey Championship. And our answer? We are fans of good ice hockey (football, tennis …substitute any).
And how has living in Switzerland (or anywhere in the world) changed your life?
Do you want to read more articles about life in Switzerland?
- 10 things that surprised me when we moved to Switzerland
- Living in Switzerland: 10 things you won´t find in tourist guides
- Life in Switzerland: the rules are omnipresent…even in doing laudry
- In Switzerland, things aren´t stolen, only moved
- Living in Switzerland: 10 things no one tells you before
- Living abroad: 4 realities to know
- Living abroad: 5 tips for newcomers
If you don´t want to miss any of my recent posts please sign up for my blog in the top right-hand corner of this page. Thank you. Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
And of course, I look forward to reading all your comments.
