I meant to write this post yesterday, on my actual two-year anniversary of moving to Switzerland, but work and stuff got in the way and I didn’t get round to it. I’m here now though to say that, after two years, I still love living in this amazing place!
Since last year’s post I have:
Swum in the Rhine three more times (getting braver!).
Attended Fasnacht again, this time including the fire parade in Liestal.
Visited even more Swiss places, including the Rhine Falls, Kaiseraugst, Chur and, just this past weekend, Bern and Fribourg again.
Made two friends. Or at the very least acquaintances. We go to the pub quiz together anyway. (Two friends from Karlsruhe have also moved to Basel, so I now have a whole four friends/acquaintances here!).
Had a lot of visitors, including my mam twice and even my sister! Now I just need my dad to get a passport and come over (then I will assume that the world as we know it is ending).
To sum up, life is brilliant and I cannot imagine being anywhere else right now. We are hoping to stay here for a long time, so fingers crossed nothing gets in the way of that (Brexit…). Happy two years in Basel to me!
Now, maybe by the time I write next year’s post I will have a whole group of friends to tell you about…
Congratulations on your two year anniversary in Switzerland! I used to read your blog a few years ago when I was living in Korea. I recently started blogging again (didn’t really keep up with it much the first time) and followed the whole list of people I was following before. It’s fun to see what everyone has been up to! Mostly, babies. A lot of babies.
Switzerland looks beautiful, of course. I can understand the friend situation completely. I recently moved to Denver, Colorado in the US with my boyfriend and I have only two close-ish friends here after a year. One of them was already a friend in Korea. We curated art shows together & luckily she also moved to Denver with her boyfriend. But all in all, making friends is hard. I miss the many close friends I had in Korea & want to build up that friendship group again.
Thank you for your comment 🙂
Yes, most of the people I’ve been following for years have had babies now – or at least got married. I’m the odd one out. LOL.
Making friends is hard! The only reason I had friends before is because when I first moved to Germany I lived in a student residence so I was kind of forced to interact with people, plus with hundreds of people around there are bound to be a few you click with! Purposely going out to make friends is much more difficult though. I hope you find your people soon 🙂
Ah congrats on two years in Switzerland and heres to many more! And well done for swimming in a river. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that brave!
Thank you. I only go when Jan absolutely insists! LOL
Congratulations! Those two years have sped by for sure. I’m glad to hear you’re so happy there and also hope the Brexit doesn’t mess anything up for your situation. I’m sure you’ll make more friends. We didn’t even meet our direct neighbors (with whom we are now friends) for three years. I had very few friends here until I started working with refugees and the Freundeskreis-Asyl. Now I almost always bump into someone I know when I’m in town.
Always enjoy your posts!
Aww, thank you. I’m glad you enjoy my posts.
I am hoping making friends will become easier once we eventually have kids.
Hey Happy Swissiversary!
Thanks.. slightly belatedly 😉
Congrats on two years! And so good to hear that you feel like you’re settling in better and looking forward to a good long stay among ze Swiss. 🙂 Also good to hear that the friend situation is looking sunnier these days… hope that only continues to improve!
Thank you 🙂 Next step is to make more friends through said friends/acquaintances, I guess…
Baby steps 🙂
Mmmm, I would love to swim in a Swiss river. In fact, I am wondering if I did when I was in Switzerland. No doubt I WANTED to!
Well done for two years! I am pleased about your new friends. It is SO hard, isn’t it! My husband often bemoans his lack of friends!x
Come back and swim in the Rhine with meeeeee!
I sincerely hope brexit doesn’t get in the way. I can’t believe it has been two years since you moved to Switzerland!
I know – it’s been the fastest 2 years ever!
Ah that’s fab that you’re enjoying life in Switzerland! From that photo it looks like a stunning place! Yay for friends and pub quizzes!
It is 100% stunning 🙂
Yes, happy two years in Basel to you! If I ever make it back to Switzerland, will you swim the Rhine with me? I’d love to do that!
Thank you 🙂
Sure… come in the summer and I will go in with you.
Two years already? It seems like only yesterday you were jumping through all sorts of red tape hoops in order to be able to live there!
I know… it has flown by!
I hope Brexit doesn’t bring more red tape with it.
😦 Oh I hope so too.
Congrats on 2 years! That’s a huge milestone. And two friends is good going! Making friends as a grownup is hard. I’m facing empty weekends ahead now and beginning to panic slightly! You’re brave to river swim, but I bet it was beautiful.
Thank you… it is so hard!
Swimming in the river is officially allowed and loads of people do it, but I still took a LOT of persuasion to go in the first time 😉
That’s great you’ve been enjoying it so much there! And cool that some of your Karlsruhe friends also moved over. Is the pub quiz you go to at the local Irish pub? Isn’t the Swiss German really hard to understand? Do you just get used to it after awhile?
Totally forgot to answer this! We go to a local Irish pub, but not the big party one that everyone knows.
Swiss German is really hard, but you do get used to it after a while. I have heard Basel-Deutsch is the easy one though, and it gets harder the further from Germany you go!