September 2010
Blogger blind date
When you’re an expat looking for friends in Switzerland, it’s not unusual to try and form relationships with people you meet unexpectedly. Recently, Chantal tried to forge a real-life friendship with someone she met in the blogosphere.
Let’s see how it turned out… More...
August 2010
At home in Switzerland
Settling into a new home is never easy. When that new home is in another country, it can present a whole range of new challenges, as Chantal Panozzo found out when she tried to add some finishing touches to her Swiss apartment … More...
July 2010
Hello, heritage
Sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone to discover what’s important in life … or even, who you are. For Chantal, it took moving to the land of stilettos and thousand-franc clothing ensembles to discover who she really was: an American. More...
June 2010
The search for small talk
Homesickness has many guises, but for Chantal, it’s the supermarket employees and hairdressers of her homeland she misses the most: or more specifically their conversation. Because while Americans believe nothing is something to talk about, the Swiss seem to prefer to get right down to business. More...
May 2010
Switzerland: a perfectly scary place to call home
You wouldn’t think it to look at it, but Switzerland is a pretty scary place. The strasses sparkle hours after Street Parade, the trains are so punctual you miss them, and the people speak four different languages and still somehow understand one another. Is this paradise? Is this perfection? Or is this … just plain scary? More...
March 2010
War of words
Many Europeans are known for being fluent in English. They’re good for two reasons: (1) they insist on practising and (2) we let them. That’s why most of us native English speakers will never speak anything but English … unless we put up a fight. More...
