A large, black suitcase filled with clothes, toiletries, shoes, and another sitting next to it, jam packed with leotards, tights, and pointe shoes. This is what Nadia Pauly took on her semester abroad to Switzerland.
Usually when people travel to Europe, they go for a week or two. But Nadia Pauly (9) spent almost the entire fall semester of her freshman year over 4000 miles away in Basel, Switzerland.
After spending a couple weeks at ELHS in the beginning of the school year, Pauly flew eight hours to Amsterdam and then two hours to Basel, which is located at the northern tip of the country. Her parents were both working at the University of Basel. To maintain her credits, Pauly took courses through Michigan Virtual instead of attending a school in Switzerland, which allowed her more time to explore the country, and also travel to Germany and France.
However, Pauly did take dance classes in Switzerland. In East Lansing, Pauly dances for the Children’s Ballet Theatre in Holt, and the ELHS Dance Team. In Basel, she took ballet and contemporary classes at the Braswell Art Center.
“I think people are definitely more disciplined there,” Pauly said. “Everyone was really involved with the studio.”
Apart from this, Pauly found that the dance classes in Basel weren’t very different from the ones she was used to back home.
“Some of the classes were in German, so that was a little hard to understand,” Pauly said. “But, it was pretty similar.”
Despite the language barrier, Pauly was able to understand the German classes thanks to the German language classes she’d taken at ELHS and MMS.
“They have a really strong Swiss accent when they speak German,” Pauly said. “But I adjusted, and it was really nice.”
In addition to adjusting to a different language, there were cultural differences in Switzerland that Pauly had to adapt to.
“The Swiss are really clean, and they’re very strict about time. So we had to be on time to every single place,” Pauly said.
One of Pauly’s favorite memories of Switzerland was going to the Christmas Markets, where there was lots of food. Another exciting part of her trip was making new friends in her dance classes, who she now keeps in touch with via Whatsapp.
“I was actually surprised,” Pauly said. “There’s a lot of Americans there and a lot of people from Germany or Poland.”
However, Pauly also missed her friends back home, separated by a six hour time difference.
“I called them a bunch, so that was really nice,” Pauly said.
On top of missing her friends, this was also Pauly’s first semester without her sister, Amelia Pauly (‘24), who is in her freshman year at Tufts University.
“We didn’t see her for four months,” Nadia said. “We were across the whole ocean, so that was weird.”
Even though being away from home was difficult, Nadia had an enjoyable semester abroad.
“I was really excited to come back to see all my friends,” Nadia said. “But it was a really good experience.”
