Wow. It’s sort of hard to believe that it’s been three years to the day that we arrived in Switzerland. Also hard to believe that it’s already been two years since I wrote this post. On the other hand, the past five months have felt like two years unto themselves.
Some things have changed, others have not. We still don’t know how much longer we’ll stay here (our right to stay depends upon a local job and a permit that must be renewed annually). We still have not really integrated into society here.
On the other hand, I’ve learned a lot more German (after two years of twice-weekly German classes), we’ve traveled pretty extensively both within Switzerland and around Europe (not so much in 2020), and I’ve hiked quite a few mountains.
I still love it here. It’s not perfect. No place is. As much as we complain about the (belated, confusing, mistake-ridden) coronavirus response here, it’s worlds better than the tragedy/disaster that is the United States’ handling of the pandemic.
What’s next? I’m not sure, but it looks like we’ll get another year here. Hike some more mountains, I guess. Explore Portugal more when it’s safe to do so. Work on our bagel baking.