Learn to leave - learn to stay

 I really, really hate to say goodbye. I had to learn how to do that. It was never easy to leave. Because you never know if you are going to come back - and you never know if you will ever see the other one again. No matter whether you intend to leave for 5 minutes or for good. 

It was a challenge, but after such a long time of traveling we became pros in leaving. It became easier and we started to appreciate every single encounter more and more. What we didn't know when we planned to come home to Switzerland was, that for us it is even harder to stay than to leave. That hit us when we arrived here. 

We arrived and knew that we would want to stay. To stay for a very long time. Why? I can tell you that. We found thousands of reasons. And I will conserve them here as a reminder for us - as sometimes we start to forget about some of the points and that is sad.

We originally left to seek the most beautiful place in the world where we would want to spend the rest of our lives. We went for adventures, to discover our fantastic planet. We saw beaches and temples, volcanos, jungles, rivers, deserts, you name it, we saw it. You don't believe it? Well, we're looking forward for your comments :-) 

What we actually realized seeing all that was, that no matter how close to the beach we stayed, we never loved it as much as we loved our mountains. No matter how high we climbed, we missed our snow. And we missed the clear water from the tab that is drinkable in Switzerland - even from public fountains. We missed that we understood the local language in all its varieties and deep secrets. We missed privacy. We missed to fit in because we belonged. We missed to know exactly how much one ought to pay for something. To walk alone as a women in the dark. To use public transportation. To vote. To know how to solve problems. To have reliable insurance. To have a good income. To be politically active. And not only infrastructure, culture, food and our beloved friends and familiy. We even missed Swiss weather. Okay, I could go on forever. And the best part? If we settle in Switzerland, we could still travel the world. All of our friends who lived abroad had to visit their families on their holiday. We didn’t want that.

Missing all these things we made lists of pro and con, we had discussions all night long. And we realized, that Switzerland probably is the place where we would find peace. Not only because it provided us with everything we missed soooo much. But also because we slowly figured out what we actually really wanted and what made us happy on the long term. So we decided to come back and fight for what made us make this decision.

Fabian and I decided to become politically active again. Not only as a hobby like before we left. We joined the socialists party because that seemed to fit our ideals the most. We decided that we would invest a part of our money and time to support the social security that we highly appreciate ins Switzerland. To fight for affordable homes for everybody. For affordable health care. For a sustainable planet. For good infrastructure and so many other things that we didn't find anywhere else on our journey. 

Thank you Switzerland for being so amazing. Thank you world for letting us realize that in your own outstanding beauty. And thanks to all the fantastic  people we met on our journey and still call friends. Because the journey didn't come to an end at all. As soon as we found a new home base we had lots of hosts from our tour who became our guests. And we will continue traveling but in a different way with our kids. It was such an honour to host our hosts and be able to give back to the community.