WHY AM I IN SWITZERLAND?!

hey YouTube welcome back to my channel my name is Leah and this is my story about why I came to Switzerland so if you are one of the many people that have asked me what am I doing here why did I move to Switzerland what made me picks insulin etc etc I'm about to answer that question right now so just before we start if you have not subscribed to my channel please subscribe thumbs up this video and watch my most recent video or hearing me speak so German for the very first time on camera I will post the link right here so why did I move to Switzerland what am I doing here okay so we are going to start at the very very very beginning so at birth I was adopted so my parents happened to be Swiss both of them so my parents were born and raised in Switzerland and then they moved to America settled in for a while had my older brother naturally or biologically and then adopted me and my younger brother so yes not only was I adopted interracially I was adopted internationally but also you know I was adopted from a different culture so that was very interesting and yeah it was difficult definitely difficult yet interesting childhood that I had you know cuz my parents were not only white but they were also Swiss you know they're from a completely different country a different kind culture so it was different for me so if you know anything about adoption then you know that it is it's difficult to grow up being adopted because it's like you're constantly searching for your identity because you know unlike other people in a normal family you can look at your father your mother you can see similarities you know physically or even you know parsec part of your personality you could see because of genetics genetic does pass down you know personality traits so you know that has always been difficult growing up in an adopted family but then on top of that my parents you know we're from this different culture that you know I didn't see in America so it's not like you know I think it would have been easier growing up here in Switzerland because although my parents were different I can walk outside and it wouldn't be a different world so but growing up with my parents it was difficult because you know we would my parents you know immersed us in a lot of Swiss culture still we celebrated Swiss holidays you know my parents spoke sister Minh to us our whole lives even until today so you know at home I was you know in this completely different environment with a completely different culture but then I'd step outside and go to school and I would be emerged in this you know American culture that did not you know reflect what I was experiencing at home so there was always that like disconnect it was foreign almost you know just as an example so my mom for Christmas she wouldn't make typical American Christmas cookies which you know what in America we do a lot of good sugar cookies and snickerdoodles she would actually make you know Swiss holiday cookies so that was also always something that I never you know there was no connection for me with that but here in Switzerland I remember the first time around the holiday season I went in to the grocery store and I saw all of the Christmas cookies all the cookies that I grew up around it was it was such a powerful moment because for once I recognized all these Christmas cookies and it felt like home to me you know like I walked in there and I was like oh my gosh my mom used to make these cookies all the time I know what these are called I know what they taste like it was such a powerful connection and that has happened to me this whole time that I've been in Switzerland you know all the things that my parents talked about and the things that my parents do as far as their personality their behavior it makes so much sense like when I'm here in Switzerland there's that connection because that's what I grew up around so taking it back to the question what am I doing here in Switzerland so because you know I never felt that connection in America I wanted to move here to Switzerland to kind of in a sense help me find my identity because I'm so it's like a confusion for me between like the Swiss and American culture it's always been like this foggy area that I didn't know which one I felt most comfortable in so I decided to move here for that I wanted to also learn more about my parents you know there was not there's no other Swiss people in America so I couldn't like learn more about Swiss culture in America all I knew was from my parents so now that I'm here I'm learning more about their culture how they grew up and you know learning more about why they are the way they are I also moved here because I wanted to get to know my family better so I mean in America all I had was my mom my dad and my two brothers that's it we just had our our family no extended family lives in America they all live here in Switzerland so that was always hard growing up you know only having your immediate family with you is difficult so I wanted to come here to be closer to my extended family because a lot of them I've never met before or I've only met once the first time I came to Switzerland I think I was 2 years old so I mean they've met me but I never remembered them my grandmother both of my grandmother's on my mom's side and my dad's side would come to America when we were younger but you can imagine how expensive that is and it's it was hard to keep up so and the third reason why I moved to Switzerland is because I have always dreamt about moving abroad as an adult once I graduated I knew that goal of mine was once I graduated I got my degree that I would go to a foreign country and teach English that has always been a dream of mine and I didn't pursue it for other reasons I was held back for other reasons I made excuses but now I finally had the opportunity to live out and fulfill this dream Switzerland was not my first choice my first choice I actually really wanted to move to Paris but the whole visa situation in Paris and the language you know it made so it's only made more sense I have the citizenship I know somewhat the language I I under you know some of the culture so it would be more comfortable here for me to come to Switzerland so that's why I'm in Switzerland so that is the reason why I am in Switzerland that's why I moved here that's why I let randomly landed here I was adopted at birth and both my parents happen to be Swiss but yeah I am so so happy that I did this because I did I have you know accomplished my goal number one of moving abroad number two of learning more about my parents and this Swiss culture that was foreign to me growing up it's making more sense now you know like I can give you so many examples that would be such a long video but I mean like recycling my mom was so big on recycling like she literally had like ten different things like one bin for aluminum foil one bin for plastic one bin for cardboard so much and I was like what is she doing like this is crazy why are you trying to recycle this much you know nobody in America I mean the majority of America does not recycle they don't care about that and if they do recycle it's not that extensive here in Switzerland recycling is like so serious so serious everybody everybody has separate bins for every different type of recyclable item there's um stations every like block there's a drop-off station where you could take your recycle recyclables and put them in like a bin for the mass pickup everywhere this is everywhere here in this apartment we have all these bags of things to be recycled here I will show you actually see this is cardboard plastic glass cans so this is really serious and everybody in Switzerland does this so that's just again one of those examples of something that felt foreign to me growing up with my parents in America that now is not so foreign it's and I understand now why my mom was so serious about recycling recycling it's cuz she's list this is what's most people day-to-day recycle like crazy but anyways I hope that I answered your question about why I moved to Switzerland what I'm doing here how I ended up here how did a black woman end up in Switzerland so if you have any questions please comment below and I'll answer them I do actually read the comments and I do respond to you guys I really try to respond to everybody so yeah feel free to post your questions q again of course for all this love and support with this channel yay we reached 3k subscribers thank you so much I couldn't have done this without you never thought like my channel would be anything I thought I would have stopped a long time ago but you guys have motivated me to keep going but anyways I will come back with another video soon I have some exciting videos coming up very very soon thank you guys so much I love you for the bottom of my heart and I'll see you in the next one you

Channel: TraveLeah

Views: 16,534

Rating: 4.8573551 out of 5

Keywords: travel, switzerland, swiss, why i moved to switzerland, america to switzerland, black in switzerland, american in switzerland, leahliscious, switzerland travel, schweiz, schweizer, swiss citizenship, travel vlog, vlog

Id: aL3JPFWNs9g

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 31 2018