Today marks 5 days until I leave Switzerland and I couldn’t be less prepared to leave this place. These kids have changed my world more than I ever thought possible. They’ve shown my kindness, gratitude, respect, and a willingness to try and I am so thankful for them. This country has made me a what some might label, and what some here have referred to as un-American. They don’t intend it in a derogatory way, but simply mean that I break the norms of what they expected when they were told they would have an American as their teacher. I have began to view our education system, our government, and the way in which we rear children with a critical lens and this experience has made me want, more than ever, to have some sort of ripple effect on the people around me when I come home. I understand that alone, I don’t have the ability to improve all of those things, but I know that if I change the way I teach and the way I live, the people around me will inevitably see what I have been seeing these past 8 weeks too. I feel as though I belong here, or somewhere within a Scandinavian country, as the way that I look at education doesn’t always fit in with the way many view education at home. I often feel as though my views are critiqued more than they are embraced whereas here, it has been the opposite. I know that coming home is inevitable, but this experience has given me what I’ve begun referring to as “educational wanderlust”. I want to travel and learn about education systems and I want to use that to better myself as a teacher, and therefore better the educational journey of my future room full of pre-teens academics. In short, I am happy here, and I feel as though Switzerland is as much my home now as the US.

That being said I have some helpful information for anyone hoping to call Switzerland their home too in the upcoming semesters:

-whatever you think is a good amount of money to save, double it. As a student traveling in the fall, here are some monetary commitments I made that you may want to consider too.

• transportation. Get an SBB monthly pass. I would recommend the unlimited zones pass for your first month so you can travel freely within the canton of Zurich (175 CHF). After that, you can reevaluate which route you want to go, but Sam and I both went with purchasing passes for the zones it took to get to school each day instead of all zones for our final 2 weeks (90 CHF for Sam, 120 CHF for me). For the first few days in Switzerland before you are able to get your SBB pass (ask your host family to take you to the station, they can help with effectively communicating your needs to the people who issue the cards), be prepared to spend 30-60 CHF on trains/busses getting you from the airport to where you are staying and for whatever early exploring you want to do. Do not try and cheat the system of passes. They don’t often check passes, so I suppose you could get away with not purchasing them all the time, but the one time you get caught will cost you 100+ CHF that you could be spending on raclette or mulled wine.
• travel. This adds up really quickly. you may be coming into this experience thinking you’re going to globe trot while here, but that isn’t realistic. I would recommend picking 2-3 weekends which you would like to take big trips on (neighboring countries are a good choice) and set aside 200-300 CHF for each weekend you intend to spend out of country. With this in mind, there are really cool places in Switzerland where you can go for the day and spend much less money. Sam and I often bought what they call supersaver tickets (train tickets at odd hours) and would only pay about 20 CHF for the whole day of transportation, and we still got some really cool pictures and food. If you do travel out of country, consider taking a FlixBus. They’re relatively cheap, and comfortable for journeys of 4-5 hours.
• Christmas markets. If you’re traveling in the fall, you will inevitably end up spending much of your free time perusing the Christmas markets not only in Switzerland, but in Germany too. They don’t always have many hand crafted things like you would expect, but prepare to spend at least 20 CHF each time on food, because you cannot go to a Christmas market and not get mulled wine and snacks (they have the BEST food at the markets, I promise).
• gifts. just get people chocolate. You cannot go wrong with chocolate. For the special people, go to a place like Laderach, you can get a cute pack of truffles for about 10 CHF or you can also buy chocolate bark for about 8 CHF per 100 grams. There’s also a little place called Gottliber (there’s a cafe in Winterthur across from the train station where you can get a really great cappucino/hot chocolate and a snack) that sells these chocolate sticks rolled in a wafer type thing, that you can get in a fancy Swiss tin box (15 CHF) that I assume people at home would this is cool. They also have a hazelnut spread (10 CHF) that I will be buying at least 3 jars of because it’s to die for.  For your friends who aren’t as special but demand gifts anyway, Callier (sold at Migros) sells really great bars of chocolate for about 3 CHF a piece.
• coffee. If you are addicted to coffee, as I am, prepare for the most expensive caffeine fix of your life. They don’t have coffee like we do, so cappuccinos are your next best bet. These bad boys will run you about 5-6 CHF for a small. I would recommend buying the espresso/ coffee capsules at the grocery store (10 CHF for a pack of 10) if your family has a Nespresso machine, or the like. It’s a million times better than the quality of coffee our Keurigs produce, and it will be much cheaper than buying a coffee everyday (I do splurge on Fridays and get myself a cappuccino at my favorite cafe).
• food. Set aside 10-15 CHF a week for lunch stuff. I mostly bought a bag of bread, a pack of cheese, and a pack of turkey, in addition to some yogurt each week to bring for lunch at school and was totally fine. Sam didn’t need to do this because her kindergarten fed her, but if you’re going to a secondary school, or even primary school, the kids often go home for lunch so you won’t have the opportunity to snag a free snack/lunch. Also, set aside about 30-40 CHF per week to eat out once a week. I know this may sound frivolous but it’s really nice to have that set aside when you want to go out or try a new restaurant somewhere. Eating out also gets expensive quickly so be prepared. As far as alcoholic drinks go, if you intend to order one while eating out, or even at a bar, prepare to spend 15-16 CHF per drink. Beer is the same price as it is at home, so if you enjoy beer, you’re all set. just a side tip: when in doubt get raclette. always get raclette. It’s literally just melted cheese blanketed over food. you cannot go wrong with it. (It smells horrible but I swear it tastes amazing).
•  flights. flights are cheaper than you would think if you plan properly. Sam and I spent about 400-600 $ round trip. I splurged on an extra piece of luggage (200 CHF round trip for the extra luggage). which I don’t regret at all, especially traveling in the fall you’re going to want coats, boots, and sweaters. lots. of. sweaters.
• homestay. set aside 1,100 CHF for your 7 weeks here. Also, set aside 20-50 $ to buy your host family and teacher some little gifts from the US.
• school supplies. don’t bring any other than some pens for yourself. The school systems here are fully funded by the cantons so they often have supply rooms full of literally anything you could possibly need. However, you may want to consider bringing a pack of flair pens for your teacher. They’re insanely expensive here compared to what they cost at home, and the teachers here love them.
• phone. I bought an international phone plan for 60$ a month. check with your carrier but this is a helpful thing to have otherwise you’ll get charged with a ridiculous amount of international fees

-as far as packing (if you’re traveling in the fall) you’re going to want to bring:

• multiple warm scarves
• lots of sweaters (you’re going to want to layer)
• jeans (if you’re in a public school, most of the time it’s a really casual dress code. I wore jeans every single day)
• a warm hat
• a pair of rain boots. it doesn’t snow much here, but it does rain, so rain boots work for all of the rain and the occasional flurry of snow. just bring multiple pairs of wool type socks
• warm coats. I brought two good quality dressy wool coats instead of my normal LLBean puffer coat and I didn’t regret it. People here are often dressed up so I felt less touristy when wearing these coats.
• a pair of converse/tennis shoes/ dressy type of laced sneaker. These are good for when you’re traveling, but people rarely wear athletic sneakers so I just avoided bringing them and opted for a converse type shoe and was comfortable.

-other random tidbits of information:

• If you’re homesick, go to an Irish pub. There’s almost always at least 1 in each city. Find the ones owned and operated by actual Irish people. These pubs provide a homey feel and a genuine sense of belonging that I felt was really lacking everywhere else I went. Plus it was really nice to be surrounded by other English speakers even if it were just for a few hours. Plus the food is often pretty cheap which doesn’t hurt.
• Be direct. People here want you to either say yes or no to everything, no “it doesn’t matter” or “whatever you want”, etc. They get annoyed with that rather quickly.
• Learn a few swiss german words (please, thank you, I would like, hi, goodbye, etc), it will help you communicate and people will respect you a little more for making the attempt at learning their language.
• if you travel in the fall, you may want to bring 20-40 CHF for advent calendars. your host family may ask you to participate and it’s a nice way to bond with them.
• don’t bring things you intend on throwing away. They have to pay for trash here so the amount which you can throw out is limited.
• bring a reusable shopping bag. Most store will make you pay for a shopping bag, so it’s just easier to have one with you. I carry mine everywhere with me and it always comes in handy.
• bring an external battery for your phone. it’s helpful for trips especially if you go out of country so you don’t need to buy multiple different converters.
• be prepared for long school days. My students are in school from 720 am to 5pm most days, so you should be prepared to stay for that length of time too until you get into the swing of things.
• Wednesdays are always half days
• if you’re in a secondary school, prepare to brush up on your grammar. I had to teach myself a lot of grammar that we often take for granted as native speakers
• buy Spotify premium for 2 months. Pandora doesn’t work here and you will spend a lot of time on trains and busses.
• Zurich is in the German speaking part of the country, meaning they also have personalities similar to the Germans. They are very straightforward to a point where you may feel as though they are being rude or mean. They likely don’t mean it, you just need to understand that it’s a cultural difference.
•  There is a widespread American stereotype here. Most are okay with Americans but you are likely to experience one person who will treat you differently because of your nationality. That was the worst moment of my time here was having someone judge me based on something I could not control. Also, people will openly ask you about guns, schools, Trump, racism, and the like. Be prepared to answer questions. They also know a ton about our politics and you’re likely to get caught off guard at times with how much they know. The teachers at my school and my host family were following our midterm elections and asked me my opinion on the results. I follow politics so it was an easy conversation for me, but I can imagine it might be uncomfortable to be asked these things if you don’t know the answer.
• staring is normal here. People will stare at you constantly, and for a length of time which sometimes gets uncomfortable. It’s normal I promise.
• Guns are everywhere. I had a difficult cultural experience recently because of guns which I’ll explain in a minute. The military and regular community are one in the same. Men have mandatory military service and its normal to see people in uniform walking through the train station carrying large guns in the open. I knew that, but what I didn’t know is that people can carry large military weapons in the open without being in a military uniform. I ended up being late to school one day because I was unaware of this and saw a plain clothed man with a large gun strapped to his back getting on my train, so I refused to get on the train and ended up waiting for a later one. My cooperating teacher was understanding but I had to explain to my students why I couldn’t get myself to get on the same train as that man. So long story short, the guns are normal.

 

below is a photo of a project I did with an art class I took over during my last two weeks: