à la Suisse

… make new friends!

In the midst of classes, essays and presentations, when you know it’s the last month and deadlines start to creep up on you…

Well at least for me it sometimes feels like a whirlwind of thoughts going through my head. Today especially, maybe because I also realized I have a presentation and essay due at a date which before seemed liked months away but now somehow is next week… !! Erm what?

But hey, as the semester is coming to a close, it also means end of semester celebrations! Next week there is a music festival held at the sister university of UNIL, EPFL, that I’m really looking forward to going to. And last week was an event called Unilive with some local bands! Which I really liked since coming here I noticed a way way smaller number of concerts, and music gigs held in the city. Coming from Vancouver where local music is in the air and can be found around the city most nights of the week, this was very exciting!

But I guess initially the story I was trying to say, and finally am now getting to the point of, is about something that happened today. Since during the Unilive event that was held last week we found an ID that we guessed someone had lost amidst the crowd, I decided to send a message to return the ID.

After some coordination we finally found the time and today I returned the ID to its owner, Iolanda. Handing it back to her, I was mid-thinking about the homework deadlines, trying to figure out how to organize my schedule, and mid-thinking about other to-do list type things for my last month here, when I spotted Iolanda where we had arranged to meet in the afternoon. After receiving her ID she was very thankful; she thanked me some five times and offered to grab a coffee together. After introducing ourselves she explained what she was studying here and how it turns out that half of her family (all from her father’s side) is totally Ukrainian!! Which is super cool. You know, it’s like this instant bond forms when you find out someone is from Ukraine, or has family in Ukraine. And then we talked about her family and mine, and how my family is mostly russian speaking in Ukraine, and about being able to learn Ukrainian when you are growing up outside of Ukraine. And about some beautiful parts of Switzerland, there were some places she had suggested I visit in my last month here.

Speeding over to my next class I couldn’t help to think back on this experience as one of those moments where someone just comes in and completely unexpectedly turns your day around with their openness and kindness. When I think back on my exchange to Lausanne this is one of those experiences that I will remember.

À bientôt les amis,
Yuliya:-)