My Last Days...in Switzerland

Hello one and all!
I am so sorry that I left so many of you hanging from my last blog! I actually thought about posting this today and saw that I had a friend comment that I needed to update, and it is well needed! Let me pick off from where I left off and catch you up to now.
Well, after what seemed to be a long night I woke up in the morning and decided to stay living with the family until my time was done. I think this felt like one of the hardest things I ever had to do, and time didn't seem to go by fast enough. Another 2 weeks and I was done, and already a week before my body seemed so anxious to leave! Overall the family was nice to me, although you could tell that there was distance and a slight awkwardness to the situation. I couldn't leave the house fast enough when the dad was home, as I really wanted to just get out and away from the situation in general. I was lucky though as there were quite a bit of activities I could do such as family home evening, institute, hang with the missionaries once and some other friends and then play piano at the church. It is funny because when I look back at it now, I prayed that the time would go by fast, and it certainly did, only the times I stopped to think of things and then it was slow.

My train ride here was such an amazing one. The missionaries helped me with my bags to the station and onto the train (because they were really heavy!!) I had 3 in all. One giant rolling one, a giant duffle bag and my computer bag. I left a last bag in Switzerland with a friend who will be traveling up to Germany soon so I can grab it from him. Anyway, the train was seriously like a walk through time and into a new chapter in my life. I say that because each place that it traveled through had a very significant memory of my time in Switzerland. It went through an old station that I used to wait ALL the time at in the winter when I was with the first host family, then through Basel where I met all the aupair girls at, then through the station I first arrived into Switzerland for my Nanny experience and through the station I took my first journey into Switzerland on from Germany. After I passed this last station, the stress started to pour off of me. I was so grateful at that moment for so many different things.

First I was grateful I was gone...finally out of a place where I felt lonely. Second, I realized how much I had grown up in this time (10 months) in Switzerland. I had been through some very hard times there, and had to stand up for myself as an adult many times and it made me so strong!! I was convinced and really did a great job at simply leaving all the hard times, rough emotions behind in Switzerland and really start a fresh start here in Germany.