This trip, I had to travel two hours from my home city, Kamloops, in the interior to Kelowna where I would fly outwards to Toronto where I would then have a 15 hour layover followed by a delayed flight. My province was raging with wildfires, and I was scared I would not make it on time to Switzerland as the airport I was supposed to leave from was closed, but the International Office was so kind and understanding. This amount of time was so awkward I couldn’t do anything, so I just stayed in the international departures, awake the whole time. By this point I was awake for almost 30 hours. Eventually I made it to Switzerland, and I met up with my buddy who is the sweetest ever!
My first impressions of Switzerland were wow, what a landscape. For someone coming from British Columbia, known for its wide range of natural beauty, and coming to a country that is just as pretty, it can be hard to tell which is prettier! I never thought I would surround myself around the Swiss Alps, which are just so incredibly breathtaking. Swiss air is also so clean, something I wish I had back in British Columbia, because every year we always get wildfires and smoke, so it is nice to breathe fresh air, and constantly too.
The way FH Graubünden had set up classes was so much different from my own process back at my home university, Thompson Rivers University (TRU). At TRU, I would select courses on my own, and sometimes there are multiple classes of the same course so I can choose times as well. However with FH Graubünden, they do that all for you. I was not used to having one course every few weeks. Back in TRU, if I had Digital Storytelling class on Friday at 15:00–17:00, it would always be on Friday at 15:00–17:00. This means I have to constantly be checking my time-table!
During my free-time, I never had actually properly taken a look around Chur. So I did! Bahnhofplatz is conveniently a 10–15 minute walk from Konvikt, where I am staying. Buses are always on time, something that is not common where I am from. Even all the stops have a display time when they arrive which was so convenient, and I did not have to wait long at all. Even the trains are on time. Chur is extremely clean as well. I had never seen a place so litter-free, including the transportation. I even saw one guy cleaning the train tracks.
However, transportation is also very costly. To find a train ticket costs nearly 50 CHF from Zurich Flughafen to Chur was a lot, which is without the half-fare. At the time of writing this blog, the current exchange rate from one Canadian Dollar to Swiss Franc was 1 CAD to 0.66, which meant I was paying more for Swiss Francs. However, for the fact the trains are always on time (sometimes 1 or 2 minutes late at the most!!), and how clean and fast they are, I think it is alright!
Coming from Kamloops, a city of about 100,000 people, Chur is like the perfect size for me to move to. It is not too big, and even if it has a population of 34000–36000 people, I didn’t feel overwhelmed or suffocated by the city. It is the perfect size, and had absolutely no reason to be so cute! People here are so friendly, but making friends in Switzerland is hard. Everyone will smile, and always greet you. I love Switzerland so much! I am so glad to have come here.