One Month Recap Plus Switzerland Travel Story

Hi Friends!!

There comes a time in all our lives where we just need to take a break from the daily grind, and take care of ourselves! Life can hit you when you least expect it and it can take you for a spin! Here’s all that’s been happening in the last month while abroad and now that I am back home I am just super happy to be back to blogging!! I’ve missed you all!! 

There’s beauty in everything!

Balcony night dinners with the family

Catching sunsets on the Rhine

View of Basel from the 38th floor from the new Roche Building 1

Basel showing off

My dad analyzing the city’s site plan

Dinner prep

Making spring rolls with my mom

To keep it short and sweet, my husband and I decided to jump over the pond to Europe to catch our best friends wedding in Denmark, to catch up with our good friends in Basel (we weren’t able to catch their wedding so we really wanted to make sure we saw them on our trip), to see my family in Switzerland and to have a little vacay time to ourselves in Italy. We got to see our beautiful friends get married, I got to catch up with my family, we took some much needed time to ourselves, but we had to cancel our plans to Italy. That was ok because I got to spend more time with my family and see my brother which was the best feeling!

The unexpected thing that happened that took me for a complete spin while on our time abroad was a bad tooth infection. It was caught few days before our flight and at that time I had minor pain, and everyone thought I would be alright to go on my trip and handle it upon my return. Well, the pain became so bad that I had to have an emergency tooth (molar) extraction THE DAY OF INTERNATIONAL travel! Here I was thinking “oh this is nothing, it’s just a little tooth issue, I won’t let it bother me if I get it removed,” – I pulled the brave card on myself. Ha!

So here I was on the plane with a bag of travel sized ice packs, unable to eat or drink, swollen and could barely speak. The thought of seeing my friends and family got me through feeling miserable, and I even fell sleep on the plane which is rare for me, and despite it all, I still had a smile on my face. Once we arrived safe and sound to Copenhagen, a severe tooth pain kicked in. Things got too real all of a sudden. I was on FaceTime with my dentist and was told that I have possibly developed a dry socket. Not sure how this happened when I thought I took all the protective measures, but who knows. I won’t link you guys to it, feel free to google it if you wish, but basically it’s extremely painful and lasts for a while. I visited a dentist in Switzerland and he told me I should NOT have traveled at least for a week after the extraction. Well ok, there was no way around that one sir!

So the severe pain continued and it lasted for about 2 weeks in total and I needed to take pain killers and stronger antibiotics for closer to 3 weeks. I quickly gave up on the idea of traveling further to Italy – I needed to stay in and allow for my surgery site to heal, and I got to enjoy the little things around Basel, Switzerland. I am happy that it happened this way because I got to take much needed time off and focus on my recovery and spend more time with my husband and family, which is always a huge plus when you live on different continents from your entire family.

We got to enjoy lots of rainy days, and I say this with complete joy because I LOVE THE RAIN – we just don’t get enough of it in California! It was a bit cooler in the 60s (daytime temperature) most of the time we were there, which I had not prepared for really well; I was thinking it was going to be 75+ everyday, that probably was the worst part about our trip along with the pain I was in for so long, but getting to ride bikes through a beautiful city, exploring new cities, cultures, foods, seeing and connecting with old friends and family members really made the trip feel complete!

Lesson here for me was to take care of things before they erupt! I heard this one loud and clear! No more postponing personal matters! We came back and I decided to take a week off and get some health and living things in order before returning to daily life things. Now that everything feels somewhat back in order, life can resume in the best way possible! Psst … did I forget to mention … we are moving!! 🙂

xox, Adelina