this is what it feels like to be home again

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...not really caring about public embarrassment-- being too loud or too crazy or too strange-- ever again. because you speak the language and you understand the culture, and so nothing you do here can ever be more embarrassing than all the stupid things you did THERE. you are now immune to actual public humiliation.

mostly.

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...you probably cry a lot more than is normal. you can't watch movies whenever anyone says goodbye to anyone else. this is both somewhat comforting (everyone thinks you're just crying over the animated character) and embarrassing (because, well, everyone thinks you're just crying over an animated character).

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...being frustratingly unable to communicate your thoughts in a logical fashion. i'm trying, really i am, but i just can't english right now.

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...looking at old pictures and wondering sometimes if the whole entire year was a very elaborate and interesting dream. it feels so far away and separate from your life here.

...putting on a pair of boots and realizing that they've walked streets in paris and rome and venice.

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...sometimes, you don't know who you are. because you were so different on exchange, and you FEEL different now, but people want you to be the person they remember.
and sometimes you are, and sometimes you aren't.

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...recognizing that while some people 

didn't really notice you were gone,

there are some other people who care about you. a lot.

and you don't really know why, 

or how, or exactly when that happened,

only that they do.

...and it makes life easier.

this is what it feels like to be home again...

...leaving one life and then creating a new one.

...having little pieces of that life somehow everywhere, in a lovely and scary way.

...learning to appreciate every moment that you have.

my first 100 days-- again

"and... i had two contrasting feelings. 

one was complete happiness, as if i was back in a comfortable place 

with people i knew and who knew me. 

the other feeling was complete and overwhelming homesickness. 

it was as if the two feelings were taking turns, 

and i was waiting to see which one would win." 

-- bloomability, sharon creech

my three-month theory about exchange -- the idea that after three months, you are exchanging "for real" and you are more than just a tourist-- isn't exactly a secret. that is, it's not anything particularly special or brilliant or life-changing. it's just a theory, a theory that happens to hold true for a lot of things; after 100 days (a little longer than three months), you have to change. 

and so i shouldn't have been surprised when, yesterday, i hit my one hundred days.

but i still was.

people laugh, sometimes, when i say that i'm homesick. they think i'm being funny on purpose. but the thing is-- i AM homesick. i'm homesick for places i've explored and languages i've heard and people that i've loved, because to me switzerland is home. 

i'm sorry if that sounds ridiculously stupid.

(actually, i'm not sorry.)

(go on exchange yourself and then come back and tell me it sounds stupid to call your host country home. I DARE YOU.)

anyway.

at the same time, i love oregon. i never realized how much i HAD missed my life here until i came back... because here, as well, are places i've explored and languages i've heard and people that i love. even though i hated the US when I first got back, coming home forced me to recognize that portland, oregon, is home as well.

and i've missed it.

more than eleven months ago, i was sitting on my bed exulting in the fact that i was finally more than a tourist. more than a visitor in a foreign land. more than some random weird crazy girl who didn't belong.

and now here i sit, and i'm posting this because i'm finally, finally, FINALLY more than a tourist. more than a visitor in my own land.

because finally i am someone who feels, 

in her own random weird crazy way, 

that she belongs.

stars

i'm walking home from choir, the same thing i do every thursday. there is music singing in my head, notes shining like silver on the tip of my tongue. the village is quiet. 

i'm not sure why... maybe it's the lack of light pollution or something... but there are always more stars than i've ever seen in my village. they literally reach past the horizon, which makes the sky somehow seem a lot bigger than it does in the daytime.  

it's dizzying at first, a little frightening to realize that there are so many different giant burning things in the sky. That our sun is so very small, and our earth is so very small, and we ourselves are practically nonexistent in the universe. and really, why do i even matter?
i remember one of my friends saying she didn't like to think about it. it made her feel too tiny.
but at the same time, it is somehow nice to feel tiny. to look up and feel dwarfed by the stars and to know that no matter how awfully you messed up your language today, they will all go on shining. and that what you do doesn't really affect the universe, not at all. 

the sky is deep and black and filled with stars.
and the constellations look different. they are different. they are not the same as they are at home.
the first time i saw the Big Dipper, i almost fell over because it was in a different place. switzerland is almost the same latitude as portland, so i suppose that doesn't make too much sense. but for some reason all the constellations look bigger, or brighter, or lower somehow. they're almost in the right places, but not quite.  

even the constellations, then, are a constant reminder that i am not at home.
that i am not where i know, where i understand.
that i am not in the place where i belong. 

and yet...
some things don't change. the sky is different, and the constellations look different. but the stars are the stars that i have always seen, will always see.
 the biggest visible things in my life, the biggest things in our universe, continue to do what they have always done. the moons orbit around each other, the planets whirl on their axes, the stars burn bright. no matter what, they stay constant. they don't change.

and so i'm walking home from choir, the same thing i do every thursday. there is music singing in my head, notes shining like silver on the tip of my tongue. the village is quiet.
the sky is deep and black and filled with stars.
and the constellations look different. 

but the stars? 

the stars are always the same.

days < 60 -- accepting

piece of advice for future exchange students #12:

try, as soon as possible, to adjust to the life here and accept it as different.

just because it's different doesn't mean that it is bad,

just because it's different doesn't mean that it is good,

the only thing that it means is that it is...

different.

This past week has been pretty up and down for me. I've discovered a lot of things (places, people, and stories) and some of them have honestly been great.

Others... not so much. It's hard to deal with the fact that life here is not what I've been used to, and while the transition so far has been fairly easy, I'm beginning to miss things from home.

Don't get me wrong, Switzerland is still amazing. And I love it here, and I'm not coming back before the end of my exchange year. It's just that this past month has been a bit of a rollercoaster, what with loving Portland and Switzerland simultaneously and trying to figure out how that works. So... yes...

anyway.

things I've done in the past 10 or so days:

• more traveling! Hooray for the GA!*
• I've now been to all of ten cantons: Basel-Stadt, Basel-Land, Aargau, Solothurn, Zurich, Bern, Luzern, Appenzell IR, Appenzell AR, and Sankt Gallen. 16 to go :)
• Today I am packing for our trip to Vienna tomorrow. Normally packing is a struggle for me, but seeing as I don't have very much clothing here, it's very fast and extremely easy. "Hmmm, so I need to bring two sweaters. Oh look, I only HAVE two sweaters..."
• Oh yes. Did I mention that we're going to VIENNA tomorrow?
• VIENNA!!!!!!!!!!!
• AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I'm, you know, just a little bit excited. ;)
• I have discovered that the buses only run every hour on Saturday to my village after 6:56. Which means that if the train comes at 6:57, I am not getting home until 8:30.
• I have also discovered that cheese and bread are the cheapest things you can buy in Switzerland. Since I love Swiss cheese and Swiss bread almost as much as I love chocolate, this makes me very happy.
• Especially considering my next discovery: a hamburger at McDonalds can easily set you back 13 to 15 francs. And that's one of the cheapest places you can eat, according to one of my Swiss friends.
• My friend Anni invited me to Solothurn with her host family. I wasn't exactly sure what we were doing (she said "bring hiking boots and a jacket") but I was happy to be doing something so I went. It was awesome... a midair challenge course through the forest climbing up to scary heights and swinging through branches at scary heights and sliding down from scary heights. Something a bit like Tree to Tree in Eugene, OR, except more exciting and probably more dangerous. Oh well.
• As of last night, my family is speaking Swiss German to me. (I asked them to do it... I really, really, really want to learn Swiss German.) I understand a good bit, but I'm horrible at speaking. Hopefully this will change.

tschuess for now,

Hannah

*If you aren't a Swiss Rotary Exchange student and you don't know what the GA is... it's basically a train, tram, bus, and boat pass that allows you to use all of the public transportation in Switzerland--for free. 

It is more precious than gold.