Introduction
We already talked about the first year of Nicole in Switzerland, but the First week was again a completely different story. Over a year ago, Nicole stepped off the plane at Zurich airport. Her first week in Switzerland wasn’t the romantic movie montage you see on Instagram. It was Swiss German she couldn’t understand, a pharmacy trip that tested her survival skills, and accidentally ringing the neighbor’s doorbell at 10 PM.
This is what actually happened during those first seven days. The overwhelming emotions, the culture shocks, the moments where you question everything, and yes, the small wins that make you think maybe, just maybe, this could work.
If you’re about to make a similar move, planning to join your partner, or currently white-knuckling your way through your first weeks abroad, this is for you.
The Arrival: More Emotions Than Suitcases
Nicole arrived more than two suitcases and a storm of feelings she wasn’t ready for.
She was missing everyone. Her family, her best friend, all of it hit at once.
The decision to move wasn’t easy. She cried on the plane. A lot. Anyone who tells you international moves for love are purely exciting is lying to you or selling something.
“I was super sad and well, of course, you saw me crying a lot in the airplane as well,” Nicole remembers.
But then she met my family at the airport. That moment mattered. Seeing my family helped her realize that even though she didn’t have her own family nearby, she now had a family here too who tried to made her feel supported.
When you leave everything behind, seeing friendly faces, even new ones, can feel like oxygen.
Swiss German: The Language Nobody Warned Her About
Then came the Swiss German.
Nicole was completely lost. Swiss German is something entirely different. She’d never heard it before in her life.
You can study high German. You can practice. You can get confident. Then you land in Switzerland and realize none of that prepared you for the accent, the dialect, the way Swiss people actually talk in real life.
“So when I arrived there, the first thing that I was like super nervous is like, oh, I don’t understand a word here, you know?” Nicole remembers. “Like what they are talking to me, like it was so crazy. Their accent and everything. It was just the first time that I heard this Swiss German style.”
For someone coming from Costa Rica’s warm, talkative culture, the combination of not understanding anything plus Swiss people’s more reserved communication style felt isolating.
That’s what nobody tells you about moving countries. The language shock isn’t just about vocabulary. It’s about suddenly being functionally illiterate in your own life.
First Impressions: This Is Home Now?
Driving from the airport to the apartment, reality started sinking in for Nicole.
Seeing Switzerland as her home felt incredible but also scary. She was thinking: this is where I’ll be walking every day. This is my life now. Until when? Nobody knows.
The architecture looked nothing like Costa Rica. The serious faces around her felt miles away from the “pura vida” energy she grew up with.
Then there was the apartment. We’d been long distance before she moved, so she’d only seen our place through video calls and once for vacation, but seeing it in person was different.
“I think my first impression was like, holy, this is going to be my home now” Nicole says. “So it feels like challenging. Like, oh my God. And also the people were very serious. So it’s not that this vibe of pura vida, you know? So for me it was a little bit difficult, to think about, oh my God, how I’m going to adapt here.”
That question haunted her: how am I going to adapt here?
The Pharmacy Disaster: Baptism by Fire
Then I got sick. First week in Switzerland, and Nicole had to handle her first real Swiss challenge alone: the pharmacy.
I got sick and she had to go buy medicine. First week, barely spoke any German, definitely no Swiss German, and now she needed to explain symptoms and get the right medicine.
She was trying to communicate, doing linguistic gymnastics to be understood. Swiss people can speak English, but they often don’t feel comfortable to.
“So, I think like my first challenge was going to the pharmacy to get your medicine because you were sick,” Nicole explains. “So for me it was super difficult. How am I going to speak with the person?”
The reality: Your first week will throw you situations you’re completely unprepared for. You’ll embarrass yourself. You’ll get things wrong.
The Doorbell Incident at 10 PM
Then there was the hallway button situation.
The walls outside our apartment have buttons. Two of them. One for the doorbell, one to turn on the light. They look almost identical.
It was around 10 PM. I had bags and asked Nicole to turn on the hallway light so I could see.
“So, then I remember, you asked me, I need help because I have the bags. Can you make some light? So, I was like, yeah, yeah” Nicole laughs now. “And then I remember, instead of turning on the lights, I just pressed the doorbell of the neighbor. And I just ran and left you alone.”
She rang the neighbor’s doorbell at 10 PM. Then ran.
Literally abandoned me standing there with bags luckily for us it seemed the neighbor was not at home.
You might ring a neighbor’s doorbell at night and run away like a teenager. It happens.
The Unemployment Anxiety: Who Am I Without Work?
Beyond the practical challenges, Nicole was dealing with something deeper: identity.
What am I going to do here? She felt useless without work.
In Costa Rica, Nicole had worked for nine years in marketing. She was busy, productive, independent, professional. She knew who she was.
She felt lost. Strange. Unoccupied when she’d always been such a busy woman.
“Also, I didn’t have nothing to do here, you know? It was my first week, so I felt a little bit like in chaos because I’m a very busy person,” Nicole says. “So I was struggling, like, what should I do? I don’t have nothing to do, you know?”
We did take the first week off together. I wanted us to have time to adjust, to be home, to start this new chapter together without the pressure of work schedules. But for Nicole, even that felt strange.
When you move for love, you lose more than your physical location. You lose your routine, your professional identity, your ability to contribute financially. That hits different than you expect.
Surprising Moments: Trains and Supermarkets
Not everything was overwhelming in a negative way. Some things surprised Nicole in ways that felt almost childlike.
The trains, for example.
For people from Mexico or those who’ve traveled to the US, train systems might be familiar. But Nicole came from Costa Rica, where train service is practically nonexistent.
“I think my first surprise was the trains, you know. And it sounds stupid because a lot of people in Mexico, for example, they have so good like train services. But for me, coming from Costa Rica, I was not used to it,” Nicole explains. “So for me, I was, oh my God, now I’m going to have to take the train, you know. How? What if I get lost?”
It was fascinating and terrifying at once.
Then there were the supermarkets.
I remember watching Nicole in Migros during our first grocery shop. She was like a kid in a toy store, touching everything, asking what things were, wanting to try everything.
Everything was new. Everything was exciting. She wanted to try all the snacks.
“Yeah, I was super emotional with the snacks. That’s true, that’s true. I forgot that. I wanted to try everything, but everything has cheese,” she remembers.
As someone trying to eat more plant-based, that was a discovery. Swiss people put cheese in everything.
“Yeah, I think now there’s a lot of vegan products here, so it’s good,” Nicole says.
Those moments of curiosity and excitement, mixed with the hard stuff, made the first week feel more real. Not all negative, not Instagram-perfect, just real.
Conclusion
Nicole’s first week in Switzerland was messy. Emotional whiplash between excitement and homesickness. Language barriers at every turn. Identity crisis over unemployment. Pharmacy disasters and doorbell mishaps at 10 PM.
But it was also her first week. The beginning of adaptation, not the end result.
Looking back now, Nicole can laugh about ringing the neighbor’s doorbell and running away. The pharmacy trip that felt impossible then is just Tuesday now. The trains she was scared of getting lost on? She navigates them without thinking.
That first week was hard. But it wasn’t the whole story. Sometimes you will not know what you can expect. Read here about the 15 Things we wished we know before Nicole moved to Switzerland
If you’re in your first week now, or about to start one: you’re going to mess up. You’re going to feel lost. You’re going to question everything at 2 AM. That’s normal. That’s not you failing. That’s you adjusting.
Give yourself grace. Give it time. The first week is just the first week.
What was your hardest moment in your first week living abroad? Or if you’re planning a move, what are you most nervous about?