So the year has ended, and my "escapades" ended months ago, but I couldn't bring myself to try and write this, especially since the entire thing that I had written on the plane flying home got deleted.
But now here it is, because I think that it's only fair for all of you who supported me in getting there and being there, and I think that it's also important for me to get what I've long felt out on the metaphorical paper.
So here goes.
For four months I was pushed to my emotional and mental limits by being emersed in a completely new culture and taking classes in a foreign language, being completely sleep deprived, being thousands of miles from home, being forced into a new social setting with complete strangers that I now needed to live with, and living out of my backpack every weekend. And it was the most rewarding experience of my life. I wouldn't change a thing.
I met some of the most incredible, passionate, and inspiring people that I now call my friends, and I met Charles with whom I'm still in contact today, and who I'm SO thankful to have met.
I learned that adjusting to a new culture is one of the hardest things in the world to do, and I have a new found respect for anyone who comes and tries to do it here in the US. I learned that being stressed beyond words is OK when you've got a good friend and a corner store selling beer across the street from where you're writing a midterm. I learned that Swiss chocolate can fix almost anything and that even if you eat cheese and bread every day for, like, every meal, you still won't get fat (thanks to all the walking). I learned how to build friendships in a strange country with total strangers grounded in our shared experiences. I learned to stand up for myself and my opinions. I learned that in coming back, nobody but those few that I lived and laughed and cried with can truly understand what I'm talking about when I say this was the hardest worst and best experience of my life that, given the chance, I would do 100 times over. I learned that, in coming back, it feels so good to have a common understanding with a select few of people of such an immense and important experience that I'm not even sure that I can grasp it, nevermind articulate it to anyone else. I learned that your heart really can ache tremendously for a beautiful place and beautiful people and that the feeling doesn't fade, and I learned that friends made in Switzerland are kept. And that I'm valued as the opinionated person that I chose to become over there. I learned that in Switzereland, when you say you are going to do something, like hang out or stay in touch, it's not an empty promise like it tends to always be here. I learned that I have never grown so much than I did in those four short months taking classes in french and at the Graduate Institute, and that in doing so, I could participate with confidence when I got back to Smith.
When I was on the plane from Dublin, I could see the entire sky. In front of us the sky was still light and behin us, toward Dublin, was growing dark. This seemed an apt metaphor for what would be my life once we touched down. One chapter was closing and yet anoher was opening. And boy did it. I participated more on my first day of the spring semester than, up until that point, I had in my entire career at Smith. I felt about 100% more comfortable speaking french, now, and our team did better than anyone anticipated in the season. I started a Fulbright application and got accepted into the Thesis honors program. But not a day goes by that I don't miss Geneva, don't miss my program friends, don't miss Charles, Julie, Julian or any of the other people that I met there and may never have the chance to again (though I did promise Charles I'd get back, one which I intend on keeping in that oh-so-Swiss fashion).
Being abroad was the greatest experience of my life, and I don't think I will ever not miss it, nor do I think any experience that I have in the future will be able to rival what I was able to get as a result of Smith and my loving family. Being abroad changed me; being in that beautiful city fending for myself in a foreign language with friends that, at the outset, I really didn't get to choose but realized that I loved nonetheless.
We ate brie, baguettes, chocolate, and boules de glace by the lake, partied in the "shady"part of town, traveled, fell in love with a new country and a new culture and each other (even though we sometimes fought and disagreed) and relished every beautiful, stressful, insane, incredible moment of the whole thing. I will forever miss old town, the lake, the jet, the people, the food, and the experience.
Officially signing out,
xx Edie