Thursday, May 7, 2020

What we will miss/What I am grateful for.

Now that it is official that we are moving, I have started to think about all the things I am going to miss about living here.  As glad as we are about moving back to our previous home and town, I am equally as sad to leave our current one.

We have loved living in Basel.  Further more, we have loved living in Europe.  Mat and I take nightly walks together and last night we both said we were so glad we did this.  For 100s of reasons that I could never recount here.  We made the leap 3 years ago thinking it would be a great experience for our kids, and we were right.

For me, I am going to miss a lot of things about our life here.  At the top of the list are the friends we have made.  I was lucky to find a very good friend in the first month we moved here.  Marta was part of our newcommers group at Roche and we hit it off right away.  We only live a few blocks from one another, and have gotten together at least once a week for the last three years.  While I have been here there has been Heather, Sarah, Kristin, Su, Donna, Lorraine, Suzanne, Michelle, Tiffany.....all people I would not have had a chance to meet if we hadn't move here.  Hours of laughter with them in cafes.  Or shopping together.  Or German class.  Countless hours spent with these wonderful women that I am grateful for.  We have all been in this experience together as expats and it made all the difference getting comfortable being here.

We will miss the travel.  Very much.  Being able to float around Europe in a car or on Easy Jet has been a dream.  We have gotten to see so many countries in these last three years and I am grateful for that.  The experiences we have had were amazing.  I was able to go into Germany once a week for shopping.  We went to Alcace in France more times than I can count.  England, United Emirates, Spain, Ireland, Scotand, Cyprus, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Belgium, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg.....   Without our move here - it would not have been possible.  It is going to be hard to give up the amount of travel we have been doing on a yearly basis.

The independence that the kids have gotten out of this experience is also something I have been grateful for.  I know they will miss that as much as I will.  The ease of the tram/bus system here in Basel and the incredible safety aspect of where we live made it easy to let go of the leash a bit.  Especially where Finley is concerned.  We were pushed to bring her here to get this experience and gain independence that she desparately needed - and it worked.  All three kids get themselves to and from school and all of their activities on their own.  They visit their friends without my help.  They have been on week long ski trips with their schools.  Arlington has traveled to a few counties with hers.  I have let them go and figure it out and it has been wonderful for all of us.  They are so different than the kids who left Massachusetts at ages 11 and 14.  I am proud of the people they have become.

There is just so much:  Christmas markets, Art Basel, Movies on the Plaza, Swimming in the Rhine, Fall Festival, Fashnacht, delicious cheese and chocolate, cafes, cows with huge bells around their neck wondering the mountains, 1000 year old churches - just to name a few.  All the things that we will think about and wish we were getting a chance to be a part of once we are gone.  It is going to be hard at first.

This is the cleanest, safest, more punctual place we have ever lived.  The people are calm.  The atmosphere is peaceful.  It is so different than I ever expected it to be.  Before we moved here, I knew nothing about Basel.  I knew very little about Switzerland.  We have learned so much and have fallen in love with so much about it.

It is going to be hard to say goodbye.  To all of it - friends, community, experiences.  I know that time will lessen the sadness.  We will be left with the memories of one of the best experiences of our entire lives.





2 comments:

  1. Hi!

    I'm a silent, long time follower of your Blog. Thanks to you, even as a Swiss, I learned much about my own Country. So thank you for that. Before you leave, maybe you find the chance to visit the city of Rapperswil on the Lake Zurich if you haven't done this before. It's about 30 Minutes away by train from Zurich. Usually, you can also go there by ship and maybe visit the small Island called "Ufenau", just about 10-20 Minutes away from Rapperswil with the Ship. Have a good trip home!

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    1. Thank you so much for the comment! I am grateful for it. We have truly loved Switzerland. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people. The suggestion sounds marvelous and one we are going to really look into doing before we go.

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