{"id":163,"date":"2019-04-01T20:19:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T20:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/?p=163"},"modified":"2019-04-02T05:22:07","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T05:22:07","slug":"integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/2019\/04\/01\/integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Integration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Moving into another country may sound like an exciting idea. Like an ultimate adventure! And it is, up to the point when harsh reality bites you in the butt. Yes, you heard me. I promise you, if you do choose to move somewhere far away from your origins, the day will come when you feel lonely, forgotten, rejected, amongst tons of other negative feelings. And you think you\u2019ve made a big mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me it\nhas been almost seven years now, living in the faraway land. Only I\u2019ve actually\nmoved back and forth twice. I\u2019ve always loved adventure, so when the first chance\ncame, I was naturally (without much thinking!) running on full throttle. Who\ncares that I had just gotten married, was pregnant and couldn\u2019t really speak a\nword of German. It was an adventure \u2013 and I was loving it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some wise men (or women?) say that the process of integration can be divided into four stages: honeymoon, culture shock, acceptance and adjustment. The length of these stages vary and the person can jump back and forth in between the stages. Yes, people and their reasons and origins vary. Some are forced to move, some others are just seeking adventure. Or are unhappy with their current surroundings. And some come from very different cultures. Mine was not actually that different at all. Anyway, there\u2019s no schedule for integration process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first\nhoneymoon period was rather short. Having a baby might have had something to do\nwith it\u2026 and very, very soon I entered into a stage of cultural shock. Trying\nto navigate as a new mother without necessary language skills, in another\ncountry with another habits\u2026 to raise a child was\u2026 well, let\u2019s just say it was\nchallenging. Not to mention these health care professionals who probably meant\nwell, but\u2026 whatever question I had, I used to get  the dismissive answer starting with \u201din this\ncountry we do it like this\u2026\u201d and I didn\u2019t care rat\u2019s ass how they did it in\nthis country, as a newly baked mommy I just wanted a solution that worked. I\nwas pissed. Getting irritated of numerous things, thinking everyone else was an\nidiot. The classical symptoms of culture shock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, my\nculture shock lasted probably one and a half years until we moved to\ncountryside, far away from the city life in blockhouse\u2026 And I was right back to\nhoneymoon stage again. The little Swiss village, the stunning views, the\nnature, the everything. Country girl such as myself was loving it. And then\u2026 I\nmoved back to Finland. Just to find out that I wanted back to my honeymoon\nadventure. So seven months later off I went again. In the ship between Finland\nand Germany I was feeling weird and started to think I might have a stowaway\nwith me. My feelings proved right: I was pregnant. This time I managed without\nculture shock, I went pretty smoothly from honeymoon to acceptance. And to\nanother baby bubble, which was more soft and pink this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Until the\nbaby bubble was over and I landed right back to culture shock. Bumpy ride, eh\u2026?\n So far I\u2019ve never quite reached the\nstage of adjustment, and who knows, maybe I\u2019ll be jumping somewhere in between\nfor the rest of my life\u2026 but I am working on it. We\u2019ll see if the day once\ncomes\u2026 Anyway, my path has been rich with experiences, full of life and\nwonderful people here and there. This might be a clich\u00e9 but looking back, I\nwouldn\u2019t change a day. So if you feel the urge to go, I would say go. But acknowledge\nthis: there will be days when you feel sorry for yourself. There will be days\nwhen you need to be able to laugh at everything. Sarcastic, but laugh. And\nthere will be days of pure joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moving into another country may sound like an exciting idea. Like an ultimate adventure! And it is, up to the point when harsh reality bites you in the butt. Yes, you heard me. I promise you, if you do choose to move somewhere far away from your origins, the day will come when you feel …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultures","category-everyday-life","category-fears","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buenzliburg.ch\/ontheroadagain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}