A bit of a pre-history, for those that don’t already know: I spent my senior year of high school in Switzerland, as an AFS student. I lived with the Schornoz ( pronounced Shore-No) family: Francis and Lily, the parents, Florence, who is my age, Christophe, who is 2 years younger than I, and Isabelle, who is 7 years younger.
We were right on time and customs in Switzerland was almost disturbingly simple. We showed our passports, and that was it. No baggage check, no nothing. We were definitely not in the US any more. The Schornoz came at 8:30, thinking we would need time to get our bags. Florence Collaud (my Swiss sister)….we call her Flo, Francis Schornoz (my Swiss father), Florence Schornoz (Christophe Schornoz (my Swiss brother)’s wife), Cécile, 18, (Christophe’s daughter) , and Marjorie, 14, (Flo’s youngest daughter)came to meet us.
It was a bit of an awkward moment for me- I was exhausted, and I hadn’t spoken French in a long time. I was really happy to see them, but I didn’t know quite what to say, and I had to introduce them to my family, who were even more exhausted than I. I very quickly felt somehow caught in between two very different worlds, both of which felt very natural to me, but which didn’t fit together in any way.
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