Notes in the train back

'Ohni dich isch alles nur halb so schön'

That’s the last sentence I’ve learned there, from my last host. We saw this sentence written on the sidewalk when we walked back from Mc Gee’s bar, where Zurich couchsurfing meeting taken place.

IF you asked me what’s the beginning of my 23-year-old– I’ll say it’s those people who I’ve met there during my first trip to Switzerland. My hosts, friends of my hosts, and friends of friends of my hosts…we met each other, we are connected, and we all played a role in each other’s life story.

From 2008 on I’ve been to different cities and towns, including Asian and European areas. However, most of them cannot be called as “travel”, though, at least for me – I know the definition of “travel” different from person to person. It takes me quite some time to realize what the way of traveling I prefer is. At the very begging I had no idea, so the period of “trial and error” gave me some of the most unpleasant experiences: tight schedule, arguments with traveling mates, the calculating of sharing budget and so on. Instead of feeling relaxed, even more tiredness overwhelmed me after the travel (if you can call them as “travels”.) Anyway, I learned from them, and finally found my own way of traveling. Actually you’ll never know it before you try and find it by yourself, since all of us have different interests and our own interpretation on the term “travel”.

As for me…I prefer to stay in one place for as much time as I feel like. If the place impresses me in some ways, I stay longer. Flexible schedule is also necessary for me, cuz I like to walk randomly and get a little bit of familiar with the streets, lanes and buildings; in other words, I need enough time for a city. Meeting locals and get to know them a little bit will make the travel even better.
So observing these facts I found out that for me the best way to travel is to travel alone and with couch-surfing. That’s exactly what I did in my Swiss trip this time, and that’s wonderful. I cannot say there’re no troubles during this trip. Sometimes they're inevitable. But somehow for this time they didn't make the trip less perfect. They’re solved eventually, so probably they didn't form “real spots”, I guess.

I’ve never felt so enriched in the past travels till this time. In this Swiss trip, most of the time I explored the city alone, and after the evening I hung around with my host, visiting some local bars or cafes where my host knows people there. I got the balance – discovering the streets and buildings of the city in daytime, with complete control of my schedule because I’m alone, and then discovering people of the city after dark. I’ve got 6 hosts within these 9 days, and made some local friends; most of them are Swiss, but some of them come from Germany or States or Italy…; moved to Swiss with different reasons. Study. Work. Travel. I’ve got the chance to talk with them, to know stories between them and the city, and some of their thoughts toward life. I also share mine.

That’s one of the reasons why I travel. “Life is a consequence of different choices, and choices come from your own thoughts.” So you can say that “thought” plays a crucial role in our life. Then it’s quite important to keep thoughts “developing” as time goes by. At least for me it’s like that. Traveling is one of the best ways to keep my thoughts active: meeting so many different people in a rather short time, and my thoughts will be affected by stories they told me. Sometimes quite a huge change, sometimes just a little bit, more or less…and sometimes a combination taking place and I’ve got new thoughts in my brain. The best thing is that most of the people I met are not just passers in my life. With couchsurfing website I can still keep in touch with them and there’s still chance to meet again. I love it, and I’m impressed by how it works.



This is life, and this is travel. Now I’m in the train back to Germany; those traveling notes I made during the time in Swiss will turn into journals after some days. After writing them down, my trip to Switzerland will come to a real end. At least until the next time I visit this land again.