Zurich - Old Friends

Old Zurich, Old Friends

One major reason for returning to Zurich for a year was that it would give me a chance to catch up with old friends.

To be honest, I’ve actually been a bit bad about this and there are loads of people I still haven’t contacted to arrange to meet up for a drink (hello Gerard!). Having said that, I haven’t done too badly either.

However, what’s surprised me is how many people I’ve met up with who I hadn’t even had the faintest idea I would end up seeing again. It really does feel like this is a year destined for renewing old friendships.

Almost as soon as I arrived, I discovered that the company I used to work for 8 years’ ago was pitching for business at my new place of work. Not only that, but it was the very people I used to work with who were coming over!

To clear my conscience, I declared my potential “conflict of interest” at my new workplace and informed them that I wanted to meet my old colleagues afterwards. Since I was only new, it was particularly good to be meeting up with familiar people, catch up on the gossip, and meet some of the new faces in my old company (including the person who took over my old office!), who, come to think of it, after 8 years are probably now regarded as “old” employees. It all added to the sensation that somehow everything about coming back to Zurich has worked out extraordinarily well. Heaven knows why I still like Egypt, where everything insists on going horribly wrong!

Then for some reason I dreamt about an old friend who I hadn’t seen for maybe 20 years and so I decided to drop him an email. I hunted about on the internet, just to check that the email was still valid (it appeared to be current). Anyway, it turned out that he'd wanted to get in contact with me to get a friend of mine's email to archive some email correspondence they’d had (my own emails were obviously never adequately inspiring!) and also he was just about to be passing through Zurich en route to a few days’ holiday prior to a conference.

So, after 20 years, I met up with him and his wife in Zurich. It was wonderful to see them and great to renew the connection again. I had no idea that we’d meet up again and in Zurich of all places!

Around that same time, it felt like I got a flood of emails from old friends. One friend passed me a message from an old friend wanting a copy of an old article of mine; it had been so long since I’d last seen or heard from him that I’d forgotten that he also didn’t like cheese. I mean, we non-cheese eaters usually stick together (hi Simon, I’m talking about Ed!). So, that’s how long that’s been!

And then Teresa, who I used to share an office with when I came over to Switzerland the first time, almost 8 years’ ago, but who then moved to Amsterdam, has now returned to Zurich and is working in the same building as I am. How bizarre is that?

Zurich can be strange like that. Five members of my old Medical Affairs team are now working either in the building where I am or in the building next door (and not in the old team). It’s like we just can’t move away from each other.

Another person I met up with that I hadn’t anticipated at all was Paulo, my former manager, who had moved back to Brazil maybe four years ago now. He’d come over with his family for a holiday in Europe and passed through Zurich en route, so I got to see him again after all these years, too.

Anyway, it’s all been amazing. For now, at least, the gods have been smiling down on me.