Since I was a kid I heard about Switzerland through soap operas, newscasts and boxes of chocolates. The conversation is always the same: a beautiful country, where it snows and everything works. With so much beauty and perfection propagated, Switzerland became a kind of myth, a distant and unreachable place.
For all this, not even in my wildest dreams I imagined that one day I would leave the country and head to Switzerland. Yet life is really full of surprises. After doing some traveling and realize that the world has no boundaries, and an episode occurred, which led my trip to the country of the world’s best chocolate.
The moment I knew I was visiting this so well-known place I was filled with excitement. As soon as I was told I was going, I started to plan all things, see the cities, check for cultural aspects and the history of the places and I found out that this trip wouldn´t be a simply family trip – it would be my chance to see whether all the things they’ve talked about this country are true or not – the organization, the friendly people and the amazing food.
The day of the trip finally got, and I soon got my bags and headed to the airport. The voyage was long – almost a day long, but despite the discomfort and the tiredness, I arrived to Zurich’s airport excited to meet a new culture and new people. I asked my father:
- Is there going to be time for us to visit everything we planned to? – As we would only stay 5 days and we’ve planned to visit half of the country, that, even if it is small, it has a wide range of things to do.
He responded me affirmatively and we headed south to Interlaken – the region famous for its high peaks and alp-like edifications. We stayed two days in a nearby city called Lauterbrunnen. I have never seen such a beautiful place in my life – it was June and we could still see the snow high in the peaks shining like the way to paradise. Snow, something very rare in my hometown, is like a life achievement, and people always to see it in abundance.
It was in the middle of June – summer in the northern part of the world. I was enchanted to see a little snow in the peaks, some thousand meters away from me, but I never imagined to be filled by it. When we were heading south to the Italian part of Switzerland, an unimagined thing happened to us – we were stuck in the middle of a midsummer snow storm. This fact was, in my opinion, a surprise. We were stuck in the road for hours. All that snow, that I always wanted to be surrounded by, was transformed into chaos.
I was dressed for the hot summer days in Italy, and I never thought that this would happen to me. I was feeling cold, and we were the only ones in the road. Apparently, as we didn´t understand German, they’ve announced it in the radios, but we simply ignored and at that very unique moment we had nowhere to go.
We’ve spend only four hours – enough for a car to pass by and help us to get off the trap we were in. At that very first moment, I noticed the difficulties of living in a country where weather surprises us and I saw how blessed I was to live in a country that, despite the heat, we can´t find ourselves in such situation.