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After a couple of days back in my country I have finally found this quiet time to sit and think.
As I said a couple of days ago, I decided I was going to go to Switzerland. However this decision is not completely taken yet, given that I have not communicated it yet to the Ph.D people. I asked for a few corrections and clarifications about the contract so this gave me a few extra days.
Let's go back to my visit to the small swiss town. Besides the few features of the people and the town I wrote before, the visit gave me a new insight about the institute and its researchers. They made me feel completely at home, with their warmth and the relaxed and informal atmosphere. They made me feel wanted and admired, which was something I had not felt for a whole year at London. Relationships between senior and junior researchers seem to be gentle, trustful and open, and even if there is some hierarchy there is not a strict etiquette regarding their meetings and everybody seems to be pretty close to each other. They do seem to be quite a close group, and this human interaction is very important to me.
On the legal side, they are offering me a proper work contract, and therefore a proper working visa. The most appealing feature, however, is that this contract can be broken by me after a year if I do not feel sure about continuing my research with them, so this would allow me to keep my options open and still "wait", for either a better Ph.D opportunity (which is what most of my professors and other senior economists have advised me) or a more appropriate time to make a long term decision. On the other hand, this implies that I would no longer have to start right away, but I could wait until january next year, so this would give me a few months either to work here or simply relax.
Regarding the not-so-good aspects of the place is that it seems to me that it will be substantially more expensive than London, which is something I though was not possible: given that the university does not have any halls of residence, I would have to look for private accomodation, and given the size of the town, it is most likely that I would have to look for a place of my own. The concept of students sharing flats is not very common there, and this would imply a considerable amount of money in accomodation. Food also seems to be expensive, so they recommend to go to near-by cities which can be cheaper.
Even if the assistantship is supposed to be able to cover my expenses, I do not like to live so tight and there are still bits and pieces that require proper funding: namely (yearly) tickets to and from Colombia, clothing, books, accomodation deposits and all the moving expenses. My father is willing to give me some money, but it is most likely that I will have to ask for some sort of credit, perhaps some other scholarship.
This is all for today regarding Switzerland. The funny thing is that... options seems to have arisen here. That will be next time...
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