My Flight back to Zurich this 25th of March 2020, because of the actual situation Coronavirus, was very emotional, because I did reserve my seat less than 24 hours before. I have followed the embassy’s advice and my friends and families‘ suggestion to leave the country and to go home with the last direct flight through Oman Air to Switzerland. I could not say Goodbye to my friends in Oman as I wished but I could, apart from packing, being at the police station and driving a friends Corvette until 6 am, spend some hours at the beach for a last splash in the sea.
I had tears in my eyes. I did not know when I can come back and I knew all will be different again. Usually, when I came back to Oman, everything changed. Since 2016 every time I came back to Oman, I had a new place to stay, new jobs and colleagues, new situations of leaving friends and loved ones, and new contacts, and in addition an uncertain financial situation as a female freelance guide in a Muslim country.
And now even this Virus is making the world more or less crazy, it seems like a big chaos worldwide, which will be changing our entire travel and social life. I know that change can be painful and that new times will come.
Now I am back in Switzerland and trying to avoid to go outside. Being outside is my life purpose, to live in nature, enjoy the mountains, Omani wadis, the beach and the desert. It was my daily job. And now I am a kind of stuck somewhere in a still cold and rainy country. And I am not allowed to go and see my friends in groups, which I haven’t met last 8 months. I know that change can be painful and new times will come.
I was reading the slogan: Instead of going outside, go inside.
But as I already experienced before. Change can be painful and new times will come. And I am looking forward to the Chances my life will show me this Summer Break in Switzerland in 2020.
Go inside.
expect the unexpected 