A Farewell to Lausanne

As many of you already knew, I have waved goodbye to the city I lived in for one year. Emptied apartment, gave away stuff, returned keys, filed paperwork with the government, and ate out with friends (probably as many times as last whole year in total. Switzerland has converted me into an always-cook-for-myself person).

It’s the first time I experience this. After I made my mind, there are surprisingly many rituals and mental efforts before I set out my course leaving a place I called home. In the beginning, I thought it somehow resembled the process of uninstalling a piece of software. Before you arrive at the end, there are plenty of boxes popping up, confirmation, reason, alternatives, over and over again – are you really sure you wanna leave? What’s exciting is, if you unintentionally choose the wrong option, you probably need to start over again from square one. Yet, I’m so used to this process. Most of the time, halfway reading what the software has to say, I’d be able to just click those buttons numbly, blindly. I’m good at making my way out. It sounds kind of funny, but it seems that I’m well-trained to mindlessly leave things behind, lol.

But when it comes to everything for leaving Lausanne, it turned way more difficult than I thought it would be. But I have to click those buttons, and there is no way back. In the end, my packing and moving out were made a totally a last-minute mess. I sent away my last moving box 1 hour before the departure of train and there was no time for apartment cleaning as well. But that is it.

I have been telling my friends: I’m coming back to this country in half a year anyway, so it’s more like a long vacation rather than a farewell. And that’s why I was avoiding the word “farewell” – it just sounds sad.

Hope that I will come back soon… My room will no longer there waiting for me, though.

But I think I know I was downplaying it on purpose, and I am glad I managed to spare some time saying goodbye to my friends and the city. Here are some photos commemorating my one-year stay in Lausanne, Switzerland.