Or: I Know, I Know, I Know I have Just Not Been Writing…

It is indeed my third month on the mountain. Well, it is not that I was a mountain-virgin before; it is also my tenth year jubilee in a relationship with Switzerland, and my one year anniversary after my planned six-year escape from Estonia. It has been over seven weeks since I last looked back – basically because I have been terribly busy with trying to keep my eyes open to everything around me – so I decided to take five minutes and flash back at this time just a second ago.

Setting the borders
In addition to the smelly kitchen case I have a bread case (long story short – I am indeed a terrible person if you look from aside). To sum up – my Mom would not believe I could be as demanding as she once was in terms of cleanliness oh my, oh my.

Another Culture Shock
After years of departing, arriving, travelling, living out of suitcase and experiencing jet lags in different ways I thought I had been immune to the worst patology of them all – the culture shock. Turns out – not quite. While the first symptoms (sleeping when ever and endlessly, for example) showed already at the early stage right after signing the contract, only the eighth week I realized that I was suffering from a serious professional shock – everything had suddenly become so different of what I had known that I lost track. But just for a moment.

The First Holiday
Because soon enough the first holiday came. I took the most horrid trip back home flying to Riga first, and then driving all the way to Tallinn… The first week was relaxation pure – no mountains, no people who all want something from me, no meetings, no papers, and, once more, no mountains.
An interesting thing was that at the beginning of the second week, for the first time in my life – there was no home… I realized I lived somewhere else now, with anything it includes – my five-year work permit, my rental contract, my master card half of the Estonian high-tech machines would not accept. Has the departure really taken place now, I wondered.

Time of arrival?
Another interesting thing occurred to me: the flight from Tallinn to Zurich only lasts a couple of hours but the arrival itself often takes weeks. Sometimes, the duration of trip is given and sometimes, I wonder…


PS. Everything is fine and I love it here.