Saturday, September 30, 2006

I am not isolated

One of my greater stupidities was thinking once I retired (allegedly I can hear my daughter thinking as she reads this)is that I would be isolated. It is right up there with the stupidity that when I moved to Switzerland I would no longer have good fresh fish totally forgetting the excellent fish from Lake Leman and Lake Neuchâtel.

My social life over the past week has shown me to be anything but isolated and in the middle of such an international community, that to be surrounded by only one nationality would be boring. I have shared lunch and belatedly celebrated the birthday of my Swiss gentleman friend, had tea with a Canadian, gone to two movies, Paris Je T’aime and the Devil wears Prada with an English friend. Today I met a French/American friend in Geneva where we went to a Japanese restaurant than retreated to her French mountain home until it was time to come back to Switzerland for a Swiss church fair in my old commune. We also went to see my favourite Indian teenager dance her Indian dance. Tomorrow if it is good weather (inshallah) I will go to my commune’s pumpkin festival.

The activities alone aren’t what is so enriching, but the sharing of cultures, ideas, and just simple warmth that friendship brings.

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