It’s been half a year since they announced the lockdown in Switzerland. Last Monday, exactly half a year after my return home, I started university.
Half a year. Time flies.
So much has happened. So much didn’t take place. It’s incredible how one’s life can change in the course of only half a year. If I look back on the past few years of my life, pretty much every half a year I was in a different place, doing different things.
Half a year ago, I’d only just arrived back in Switzerland after having spent fourteen months on another continent. I never would’ve imagined that it was the last time in a long while that I’d be able to travel freely and relatively carefree.
A year ago, I was in Cusco, getting used to the idea of leaving the town. After having lived there for over half a year, having adjusted to life in Peru and enjoying it. It seems so far away. And still, I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Now, back in Switzerland, I am taking up salsa again – it’s a promise I made to myself. Just listening to those rhythms transports me back, makes me smile and want to dance :). I will also be posting some articles related to my time in Cusco and South America in general. They have been waiting for a while to be published; awaiting the right moment. Maybe by writing/reading these texts, despite being obliged to stay in one spot, we can let our imagination wander and travel to foreign places.
A friend recently sent me a phrase that made a lot of sense to me and that I’d like to share with you: «I thought 2020 would be the year in which I’d achieve everything I wanted. Now I know that 2020 is the year in which I will have learnt to appreciate everything I have.»
So cheers to the fond memories we’ve made and to the lessons the next months may bring! Who knows what the world will look like in half a year’s time…