Alicia Catalano: Hopeless Wanderer

Living on my own in a foreign country has surpassed all of my expectations. I’ve only been here a month and a half and its crazy how much I’ve already learnt about myself. I’ve had to exercise patience and understanding, especially living in a house full of people from different cultures who have different communication styles. I am thankful for this experience because patience is something that I really need to work on. I find it so interesting how we automatically click with people from similar cultures, who have similar communication styles. I’ve grown really close with the other North Americans here already and I see other close relationships forming between the other exchange students who come from the same culture. I get along really well with the other exchange students as well but moving forward I want to make much more of an effort to really get to know them on a personal level. I think doing this will make my experience even more life changing than it already has been.

 

Geneva

During my first month and a half here I’ve really tried to take advantage of getting to see Switzerland. It’s a beautiful country and it never ceases to amaze me how close all the cities are to each other. Not at all like Canada. I just have to hop on a train for half an hour to an hour and I can be in most of the major cities. So convenient! The weather here hasn’t been what I expected though. I thought it would be a lot like Vancouver but it’s been freezing! However, I’ve been told by the Swiss that this is unusual. Hopefully it starts to warm up so I can see the rest of the Swiss cities on my list without my hands freezing every time I go to take a picture!

 

Luzern

Now that I’m almost satisfied with the amount I’ve seen within Switzerland, I look forward to traveling throughout Europe. I went to Munich a few weeks ago and it was amazing. There’s so much history to take in and sites to see in the Bavarian city, I could have spent weeks there but was limited to only four days. It’s a place I definitely plan to return to and I plan to see much more of Germany while I’m over here. Now that I have a taste of travelling outside of Switzerland I can’t wait to do more. I’m excited to see as many countries and take in as many cultures as I can while over here!

 
Like I said before, this has already been such an amazing learning experience and I’ve only been here a month and a half. I can already feel my priorities in life starting to change. It’s scary but also exciting at the same time! Living and going to school here is so different than anything I’ve ever known and I can feel the way I look at things starting to change. Traveling has a degree of uncertainty to it that I love. There’s always something unexpected that happens and I’ve had to learn to adapt to and make the best of these situations. Coming over here I’ve been forced into total independence and I’m loving every minute of it. I can’t wait for what’s to come!