Finally, I decide to pen down this one. Have been thinking of writing it for many months. But today morning, my thoughts started to flow in like a flurry of rain. What I intend to share through this series is my experience of living this journey with my friends, our usual banters, fun moments, what made this journey so special. In the later parts, I will share the places we visited, some travel tips for you all to plan your itinerary, our travel pictures.
Switzerland - A dream tourist destination for some, honeymoon destination for some; thanks to the glamorization by our legendary filmmaker, Yash Chopra. But what should I call it?? I think for me it is and will always be my second home. A place which has given me so much; that I can keep thanking my Universe forever. Happy moments, sorrows, scary moments, dark and tough days; I saw it all. But beyond all, it helped me come out of my comfort zone and try something new. It gave me friendships, I am ever grateful for. It gave me my family, away from family. Right from my friends, my colleagues, to the restaurant chef, to the pizza shop owner, our dear Indian store uncle, they all had a share in making it beautiful. :) :) I have travelled a lot, but not all places feel the same. I always say this to all, any place is as good as the people in it and the journey becomes beautiful because of the people who walk along with you. If they had not pushed me, I would have never tried my hands at skiing, paragliding, cycling, badminton etc. I would have never discovered this side of my personality. This place was and will always be special but probably it won't be the same now without my mad bunch of friends. I will introduce each one of them through this post. Hopefully you will laugh along with me :)
This is how it all started -
Destination - Baden; a very pretty town with a beautiful river front. Population was just about 25,000. If I add up the population of the 6 lanes around my house, that is what it would be.
Day 1 - It was quite a rushed trip with no time to make elaborate plans. Me and my colleague landed at 6 AM with our bags at Zurich airport and then headed to our tiny town called Baden; approx. 20 mins away from Zurich. All lost and confused. We knew nothing around and no one around. It was pouring out there. The taxi dropped us outside our resident address, stating that this is it. Now started the fun part. We got off the taxi but struggled for 10 mins to locate our building; the luggage and the rain certainly didn't make it easy. To our surprise, there was no one from the apartment agency waiting with the keys or so. The keys were left in the letter box and we had to find our house and open it. Apparently a very common practice there. Silently, the entire day, we both kept hoping that we have unlocked our apartment only.
Freshened up and headed straight for work within 2 hours of landing. Took a bus from the nearby stop for office. Since no one spoke English, we didn't get any answer from the bus driver on our destination stop. After 5 mins of googling and talking amongst ourselves, lady sitting next to us, overheard us and helped us with the details. Thankfully she was aware of the client office we were visiting. The office building we visited had no security downstairs to help with floor, section details etc. I think an engineer's R&D brain comes handy in such situations. And then there was our client project manager, waiting right outside the meeting room. The first instant reaction on both sides was "finallyyyyyy". We were dragged straight into the meeting room where we had a bunch of people already waiting for us. Amongst them was one of my best friends today (Chaitanya). I was introduced as the project manager for the entire engagement. And Chaitanya (CK), had a very weird smile on his face. Like, "Ohhh!! so you are the project manager. Very soon, you will know what shit you have to handle". And I was like, I see that smile. Wait till you know me. :D. I still tease him on that.
How the day passed by - I had started feeling dizzy as the evening dawned upon us. Ended our office work at 5 pm and headed straight for grocery shopping. With some basic things, we came home and the first sip of our Indian chai, felt heaven. My colleague (Sandeep),a very good and enthusiast cook like me, managed some quick ready to eat and we were finally ready to crash. You can't expect us to cook after 14 hours of travelling and working non-stop without sleep. :D
Slide the pictures to see how Baden looked and my apartment complex and the nearby locality.
My first impression
Honest confession on how it felt upon landing - I think both of us and I can speak more confidently for myself; felt extremely homesick. Pin drop silence all around, not a single human seen on the street, no one to talk, no familiar faces; it was just too hard. All I wondered was, how the hell will I manage my next 6 months here.
But moving in to my own apartment was the best feeling. I had a dream home which I created for myself :).
And slowly the 6 months turned to 1 year. :) :)
How my days passed
A weak later, we were joined by another colleague (Vishwas... we also call him, the bored panda. The only one in our group who couldn't cook but lovessss to eat.:D . His favourite was the fried spicy bhindi (Okra) as a "chakna". The only one to popularize Bhindi as "chakna" and I had to make this no matter what. His typical comment would be, "make it very spicy. And I would be like, yes definitely, next day it will ooze out from everywhere" :D.
The one great dish he ever made was grilled chicken. We all named it the "random chicken", because he practically used every single spice available in our kitchen and with no proportion. Just in random quantities :D. But it turned out to be one hell of an awesome dish.)
Days passed and soon the feeling of being homesick was gone. My client colleagues had also become friends now. My immediate reporting manager (FL) was our guiding light for all the paperwork. Helping us understand taxes, to translating the German letters for us. He did it all. Our project kept us on our toes. Sometimes saucers flying around with the insane amount of pressure. But the coffee time gossip, fun banters with people around was enough to bring in the cheer. Being the only female on the entire floor and surrounded by all men, can sometimes give you lot of insights :D. For the first time, I realized, men gossip as much as females do. So girls, you can be guilt free now. :D :D And I gathered, many meaningful insights on how men think on their wives nagging. So again, ladies, no matter what you do, men will continue to think that you nag. For me, it was all comedy and laughter :D :D. After a point, they all forgot, that I was a female and not a male. I felt safest because I was the most protected person around. :D
My daily routine looked like, cook-work-grocery-cook-wash utensils-laundry-throw garbage-sleep; from Monday to Friday. And soon, 3 days a week of badminton got added to our routine; as a stress buster. Since language was a big issue, the first few weeks of grocery/shopping tested the ability of my hands to innovate and convey what I wanted using sign language.
But our weekends were all party, roaming around, doing some adventure activity, cooking together, watching movies etc. My friends made me watch such stupid movies with some weird creepy creatures in Egyptian pyramids. At the end of 2 hours, you would wonder, what was the movie all about :D
But the best part was that each one of us was open minded to accept and adapt with one another. Maybe that's why we all enjoyed so much.
Sitting at the banks of Limmat river was my most favourite spot, whenever I felt stressed, alone, homesick.
As 3 months passed, I made two more friends in town. Rupa, who actually lived in the same building and has been living there for almost 12 yrs now with her husband and kids.
Anne, swiss local - One of my very close friends today.
It was a weekend afternoon and we were waiting at the bus stop for our bus, when she happened to ask me about the bus timing. And we just started talking. A complete stranger with no connection and today we are very good friends. I don't think either one of us ever imagined we would become friends like that. We both took trip to Milan, then she visited me in Copenhagen, we saw places in Swiss...And she always tells everyone, "Seema has seen more of Swiss than I have." :D which is true :D
But it was not all fun and play as it seems here. There were many many tough days, scary moments. But thanks to my support system around, I could wither away those storms. When I look back, I can only think of these good times.
It's been almost 5 years, I haven't seen these mad bunch of people except Anne but our friendships are still as strong.
With that note, ending this post for now. More on the places we visited, some travel tips for all, in the coming post.
Hope you enjoyed this little summary of my life, my people as much as I enjoyed writing about it.
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