Welcome to the fourth interview in my Adjusting to Expat Life series.  I’ll be running two interviews a week over the course of six weeks, writing about my own experiences adjusting to expat life in Peru, and rounding up the best expat resources on the web.

Denise Pulis, born and bred in Malta, left her tiny Mediterranean island for the chilly meadows of Switzerland 10 months ago.  Why?  For love!  Here she talks about what it’s like living somewhere where you don’t speak the local language, don’t intend to learn, and where you’re just waiting for the next adventure.

Denise runs the blog, Travel with Den Den, which celebrates slow travel, and is Expat Arrival’s resident Zurich expert.

Where do you live?

Oberhasli, 20 minutes away by train from Zurich, Switzerland.

How long have you lived there?

Since September 2009.

What made you choose to move there?

I had been planning to live and work abroad for a long time already, with a specific preference for Asia, but it was taking me a while to get the necessary funds to take the leap. As I was busy sending CVs to Shanghainese and Japanese English language schools, I met the love of my life. Knowing that he’d be going back to his country in a couple of months, he asked me to move in with him in Switzerland, and since I am a romantic at heart and genuinely felt he was the real deal, I accepted, on the condition that we’d only stay for a couple of years and then take the next step together. I never regretted my decision.

Back in my country I was an EFL/ESL teacher. Unfortunately when I arrived I Zurich, I discovered that there was such a surplus of English teachers (salaries are very high) that it was very difficult to get a job at a school. Whenever I came across one of those rare vacancies, there seemed to be many other teachers with more qualifications and more work experience than I did, which meant I was not chosen. Finally, I got lucky when I contacted a small language school for mainly German tuition which also offers courses in other languages, but after 9 months of working for this school I still get only about 8 hours of teaching per week. I wouldn’t be able to be here if my partner didn’t support me at least in part financially.

Have you lived abroad in other countries before?

No, this was my first long-term move.

Are you part of a close-knit expat community, or are you closer to locals?

Ever since I was little I always had an intense dislike for German, which means that I always tried and was successful at doing my best to avoid studying it. While German is the language used in writing and education here in the Zurich, a local dialect called Swiss-German is what is commonly used in conversation, and this, I am afraid, I find even more unbearable than German itself. When people speak it it sounds to me like their constantly about to spit because of a particularly harsh glottal ‘h’.

My stubborn refusal to learn either of these languages persists even after 10 months of living here and it has made it very difficult for me to make local friends. I know that from this point of view I am fully responsible for this. There have been instances when I was invited by my partner’s friends and I always refused because, even if all of them can speak English to some degree or other, I knew that I’d be mostly listening to Swiss-German conversations which I’d not be able to understand and participate in.

Having said that almost all expats comment on how Swiss are notoriously difficult to befriend unless you already know someone on the inside and that’s what I’ve found too. Since I work in a school which mainly caters for German lessons and teachers are mostly Swiss, I don’t work in a context where I can easily meet other expats. Again, considering that I’m quite a loner in general and I already know my move is not going to be permanent, I chose to keep in touch with my old friends through skype and facebook and not to worry a lot about the fact that I can’t seem to make deep friendships here.

How much longer do you plan to stay?

About a year.

Do you think about your adopted country as home, or as somewhere you happen to live, at the moment?

The near-impossibility of making local friends has made me unable to think of Switzerland as my home. In fact, by coming here I’ve further confirmed that I could never live here permanently, and my partner and I are looking into moving somewhere else next year. I come from a warm Mediterranean country where with a few smiles and a bit of good will you make friends fairly easily whatever the context, (whatever the language, even) even if like me, you’re a shy and somewhat reserved person. The coldness of the system and the people in Switzerland is almost unbearable to me.

What were the greatest differences you noticed when you first arrived?

That everything is so expensive and it’s impossible to travel around and do or see things unless you have buckets full of money. A cross-country train ticket costs almost as much as a flight to London, food from eateries and restaurants is really pricey and any form of entertainment is costly, even a simple trip to the cinema. And you have to pay for seemingly everything! Health insurance is compulsory and not government sponsored, if you own a car you need to pay for public parking in front of your residence and if you own a dog you need to pay dog taxes and for dog training sessions. Back in my country, I had always an expensive way and a free or cheap way. Here, the free/cheap way is often non-existent.

What are the greatest differences you notice now?

That locals are always civil but no matter how much time passes, they never seem to accept you or invite you into their inner circles (If you have a local partner then it’s not so difficult). That if you don’t have money here you are a nobody and you can’t do anything. That things which could be much simpler are constantly complicated. That it’s true that the health care facilities are amongst the best in the world, but sometimes it costs so much to take care of a health problem that people simply cannot afford it. I’ve found myself often waiting weeks before visiting a doctor in the hope I’d get better on my own. In my home country, the system might be somewhat disorganised and waiting lists can be long, but health care is available for free and if you need something urgently, you are treated speedily and again, for no cost.

To what level did you speak the language when you arrived?

I could understand and speak zero German and Swiss-German. Today, I understand 0.01%. The few phrases I can say include ‘I have headache’ and ‘I am a racoon’, so you can imagine the level of dedication I have towards learning these two languages. Again, I take full responsibility of the fact that my irrepressible dislike for them is making it impossible for me to learn them.

How did the language difference affect you?

Most of immigration-connected and day to day documents I needed to fill at the beginning were always in German and so I had to rely immensely on my partner to translate for me and help me fill them out. Train announcements are in German too and almost all restaurants do not have an English menu, which means that once again my poor partner has to painstakingly translate every menu item for me.

The fact that I am not fluent in German has also prevented me from applying for any other kind of job besides English teaching, as any form of customer service work requires you to be able to speak this language.

Do you have a local partner? How does or doesn’t that help you integrate?

Yes, I do. Ferenc is the son of Hungarian parents who escaped to Switzerland during the Soviet occupation of their country and he was born and bred in the German part of Switzerland. He has dual nationality and his personality is a curious mix between the friendliness of Hungarians and the reliability of the Swiss. He was essential when it came to applying for my residence permit and takes care of things which would be a nightmare for me to deal with due to language/cultural problems.

Have you taken out or would you consider taking out citizenship?

At the moment I have a residence permit for the next four years. After I leave Switzerland in a year or so, I have no plans of coming back.

As you don’t have citizenship, what are your feelings on living in a country where you have no political voice?

As I do not plan to live permanently in Switzerland, I must admit that I am not really concerned about politics here.
Was there a moment when you suddenly realised the extent to which you had integrated? To which you hadn’t?

Every time I’m in a restaurant and I find myself with a German menu I cannot understand, I feel out of place. Every time a local addresses me in Swiss-German (looks-wise, I don’t stand out as being a foreigner) I have to quickly declare my foreignness and that once again, makes me feel out of place.

As to when I feel I have integrated – I come from a country where transport is cheap but highly unreliable. In Switzerland, everything works perfectly except on very rare occasions when the transport system experiences some technical problems and hence delays occur – when I started complaining, like the locals typically do, of every little flaw on the largely perfect transport system, I realised I had become at least partly like the Swiss.

What advice would you have for ‘newbie’ expats? What do you wish you had known before moving to your new home?

I would advise them to move to a country only a) if they can speak the local language b) if they have an interest in learning the local language. Even if people there can speak English, chances are that in a group they will always opt to speak their own language, even when you’re there, and this will not only upset you but cause you, as it has me, not to accept invitations. Having said that, sometimes people move for different reasons. I chose to move for love and even if I have had many instances when I hated Switzerland and said a few harsh things about it, I have never regretted my decision. So my advice is think about why you want to move carefully so that during those moment when it all looks horrible, you can remember the reason why you decided to go there in the first place. This always helps me regain my balance.

The next interview will be up on Friday, with Heather Wright of On The Fringe. A serial expat, originally from the US, she’s lived in Canada, Spain, Costa Rica and Kuwait.  For the last four and a half years, she’s been living in China with her Spanish husband, and in her upcoming interview she talks about the challenges of integration in such a different society, and not knowing the meaning of “home”.