STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

jen · Kate Spade

Anyone ever lived outside the U.S

gingembre1 · Kate Spade

France, twice.

First time - I was a Rotary International Exchange student for one year in high school. I lived in Conflans-Ste-Honorine. One of the best years of my life. I had 4 amazing host families, played water polo, traveled all over Europe, passed the Bac de Francais, and developed a killer French accent.

Second time - I went back in college through EAP (the UC exchange program) to Sciences Po for 6 months. Sciences Po was awful, but looking back, I miss my apartment in Paris, the Metro, being able to see my old host families, speaking French every day, and the traveling.

I would drop everything in a heartbeat if I were offered a job in France. I love France, love the people, the food, the culture, the language, everything. I would never live in Paris again, but I love the suburbs, Normandie, south of France, pretty much everywhere else.

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

oh my gosh i was just thinking about this! my friend and i are planning a vaca to europe and we need to know the good areas of london/paris/rome and i was just wondering if any of the st'ers have lived in any of those places well enough to know the neighborhoods?

gingembre: which neighborhoods in paris would you recommend?

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

I studied at Oxford for my junior year of college. I loved every single minute of it. I felt totally at home in Britain and loved everything about it (even the weather, which is not nearly so bad as you'd think--it does rain almost every day, but it often passes briefly, so you can have sun after a few hours of rain.) That year was one of the biggest leaps I've ever made in terms of growing up. Before then, I was a small-town girl who went to a small-town college, and then I spent that year learning to live on a tight tight budget, traveling around Europe by myself, and generally growing into an independent person. And yes, if I could move back there, I would, no doubt.

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

Also, Esquiress, I don't know what your time schedule for your trip will be, but if you can fit in a day for Oxford, please try! It's only about 1.5 hrs from London by bus, less by train, and to my mind it's well worth it. But, full disclosure: I am a nerdy medieval history and architecture buff (British in particular), so if you're not really that into architecture or history then you'd probably be bored.

Alikat · Kate Spade

I lived in the UK for 2 years - separately. I studied abroad at Univ. of Warwick (which is in the Midlands) and did a Master's in History at the Univ. of Leeds (N. England)

I loved it... traveled a lot, really absorbed the culture. I couldn't see myself permanently living there because of a few things: bad break-up w/ Brit boyfriend (who basically was with me the whole time I was there... so much association its lame) and the weather . I get really homesick for Britain, though ... I miss the pub culture and my friends a lot.

Studying abroad I lived with some international students but spent a lot of time with my American and Canadian friends. It was really really fun - but I was pretty much surrounded by people going through the same experience. The second time I was totally immersed in British culture and had only one American friend nearby... it was truly a cultural experience.

I would recommend either experience to anyone - it is so awesome to see who you are, and what you can really accomplish on your own. The world seems a lot smaller in a good way.

twinkle · Coach

i spent a year living in florence studying. it was absolutely the best year of my life. i would probably move there if it wasn't so far from my family!

nikkib222 · BCBG

I lived in Seville, Spain for a year during college and it was one of the best years of my life. I was only going to stay for a semester at first, but I had such a great time that I decided to stay for spring semester as well. I love Spanish and Spain so I had a great time traveling around Spain (and Europe)and learning about Spain and the EU while taking classes at the University there. I lived with a senora, so my experience was different than living in an apartment. Life is so different (in a good way) there. It was frustrating in the beginning not being able to communicate as easily in Spanish as I could in English and not being able to relax and accept that businesses keep different hours, but as the year went on those frustrations went away and I enjoyed myself tremendously. Also, it is kind of empowering to know that I was able to go and live in a country where I didn't speak the language fluently and didn't really know anyone.

I guess I would sum it up by saying, I am a firm believer that if you have the opportunity to experience life in another country you should jump on it. Yes, the first couple of weeks were tough, but it was such an amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. Feel free to ask more specific questions if you want.

Cricket · Gucci

I lived in Italy for three years, from 2001-2004. My husband is an Air Force pilot, and there is an F-16 base there, so that's where we asked to go after pilot training. When we left, my oldest daughter was 3 months old, so she spent all her very early childhood there, and my youngest daughter was born there. We lived in northern Italy, about 45 minutes from Venice, and very close to Slovenia and Austria. Our years there were absolutely wonderful. We lived in a gorgeous little town, had great Italian neighbors, travelled around Europe, etc. It was an amazing time and we can't wait to go back. It will be especially nice when the girls are older, because travelling with small children is not the easiest thing to do. But we didn't let that stop us, and I'm so glad we embraced being in Europe for what it was instead of being homesick and afraid like some other Americans we knew. I miss Italy sooooo much!

Michibanana · BCBG

Sephorablue said:

I studied at Oxford for my junior year of college. I loved every single minute of it. I felt totally at home in Britain and loved everything about it (even the weather, which is not nearly so bad as you'd think--it does rain almost every day, but it often passes briefly, so you can have sun after a few hours of rain.) That year was one of the biggest leaps I've ever made in terms of growing up. Before then, I was a small-town girl who went to a small-town college, and then I spent that year learning to live on a tight tight budget, traveling around Europe by myself, and generally growing into an independent person. And yes, if I could move back there, I would, no doubt.

Ditto to everything Sephorablue just said, except for I was only in Oxford for a semester. But those four months were quite literally the best for months of my life. I really felt like I grew up, and I also felt like I belonged in Oxford. My roomate and I spent a lot of time travelling in England and Europe - we planned all of the trips by ourselves and travelled alone. One of the things that really struck me while I lived in the U. K. was how educated and globally aware the people there are, especially in comparison to the way we are in the States. I had conversations with people about the Amish (I'm from PA), the influence of special interests groups on American politics, and the similarities between the tensions between different areas of Wales and the tensions of the American civil war, just to name a few! Everybody I met was so amazingly friendly, and Oxford's just a really cool, fun, diverse little city. I loved everything about England and sobbed all the way to the airport the day I left; it actually took me about eight months to stop experiencing homesickness/culture shock after I got back. I have a dream of moving back to Oxford some day. I love it there.

-- Edited by Michibanana at 16:09, 2006-06-07

bex · Chanel

I spent a semester living in Paris, France when I was in college. I studied French at the Sorbonne. I have always felt a pull to Europe ever since I was a kid. I begged my jr. high and high school to find me a program to study while I was in school, but all the school officials thought i would be upset later on if i missed certain American rites of passage (ex. prom, homecoming, etc.). Turns out that my junior year of high school was the worst year of my life and i would have gladly skipped it to live overseas! When the opportunity presented itself to go while i was in college and no one said "NO!" to me- i took it and ran!

I loved every minute of it. I would (will!) go back to live there again. The people are really nice and I just loved the city itself. I would just roam around for hours with no destination in mind and just enjoy the city. I loved going window shopping and market shopping and just looking at everything wonderful and unique.

We are going back for the first time since college this fall (my boyfriend studied in London for a year in college) and we can't wait. We both want to show each other where we lived, where we studied, where we went for drinks, lunches, dinners, people watching, etc.