Pre-adventures
It was 117°F when I left Phoenix bound for Zürich, Switzerland. It was so hot that my plane was delayed for 50 minutes as we waited for a machine to blow cool air into the engine in order for the engine to start. In case you wanted to know, that’s 47°C or “sieben und vierzig Grad” in German/auf Deutsch.
I decided to take a mini vacation to Switzerland before the trip to South Africa. The majority of the flights to South Africa flew via a stop-over in Europe and since I would have had to leave on Monday to get to South Africa, I decided that I might as well leave on Saturday since I don’t have to work on the weekends, and visit my Swiss family for three days. Eleven years ago I was an exchange student in Switzerland and ever since I affectionately refer to my host family as my Swiss family and on the flipside, they tell people about their daughter in America. Needless to say, we are super close so I wanted to take advantage of the weekend to visit and practice my German.
The week before leaving, I lost three things of mine by being distracted when packing things up and so I was convinced that the experience was just a reminder to focus on what I am doing and to be more organized. After all those things come in three so I should be ok, but just in case, before leaving I wrote out a major check list and had a plan where all the necessary things would go (wallet, phone, passport) to make sure they were not lost. Normally I am a bit scatterbrained so this amount of organized preparation the night before made my husband question my health as such behavior is quite out of character.
Being so organized kind of made me a bit antsy as I was constantly checking to make sure I had my passport. I wasn’t able to sleep well the night before and arrived to the airport nearly three hours early. I was so nervous I was forgetting something important and was quite on edge waiting to finally get on to the plane. This feeling morphed into a sickening anxiety in the pit of my stomach when I checked my email to find a warning from the state department that there is a heightened possibility for a terrorist attack during the time that I will be in South Africa. The next day, the plane touched down on Swiss soil and all feelings of anxiety washed away. I was home.
After walking through passport control I saw my beaming Swiss parents and a special surprise. My friend Nora, who has been living in New Zealand for about six years now, was there to greet me too. She was home to see a specialist because of some medical problems and preferred the Swiss health care system to that of New Zealand. What a joy to see her after so many years! We journeyed together by train back to my Swiss village and at half pass four we went to Nora’s home for a grilling party in my honor. The night carried on with sounds of clinking wine and champagne glasses as we conversed in German and filled each other in with what was going on in our lives.
The next day my Swiss parents and I travelled by boat to Zurich before I split up with them to visit some friends in Wohlen, an hour from Zurich. There, I reunited with some friends and enjoyed dinner outside in the garden. On the final day Nora, my Swiss parents and I travelled to Kronberg where I went on an alpine coaster and finished the day hiking, convinced that the fresh fitness would allow me to sleep well on my all-nighter to South Africa. We returned home and got ready to go to the airport when I found out my flight was cancelled. I wouldn’t be arriving until the next day, in the evening, and would miss the Apartheid museum.
Now I am on the plane to Johannesburg, finally! Another student, James, was on the same flight so it is not so bad being all alone. I can’t even imagine what this trip is going to be like going forward. I am pretty sure that there will not be any blooming gardens, rolling green hills and plenty of opportunity to speak German. I am anxious about presenting my plan for my water project and hope that we can really help out the situation in South Africa in regards to the drought……let the (next) adventure begin!