Lausanne at Nineteen
Seven days, one suitcase, and the particular loneliness of a town that is beautiful and not yours.
The first paragraph is an arrival, not a landing. It covers the twenty minutes between the train and the room, which is the stretch that nobody photographs and everybody remembers.
Rent is stated in the second paragraph, in francs, because a piece about moving somewhere that omits what it cost has removed the only part that transfers to the reader.Source: PaidCHF 780/month, a shared room in Renens
Day three
Sections in this department are days, because the week has its own structure and imposing an essay’s structure on it would be a lie about how it felt. Day three is where the piece admits what it had been avoiding.
The paragraph here is about language — not learning it, which takes years, but the first week of not having it, which is a different and more specific experience.Source: Told to me bya second-year, in the queue for student accommodation
Nobody tells you that the hard part is the supermarket.
Day seven
The closing section is quieter and shorter than the ones before it. One thing has changed; it is small; the piece resists inflating it.
The last line does not say the writer belonged there by the end of the week, because he did not, and a piece that claims otherwise would be the version of this story that everyone already writes.
If this changed something for you, tell me. I read every one, and I answer.