Checklist - who lived abroad pre-kids?

[MissChief]

..if so where was it and what were you doing?
Seeing this new subject is making me feel all nostalgic for the excitement & smells of pastures new - a sense of feeling really alive...[yeah, very corny, I know, but worked for me every time! Well, for a while anyway...]

Personally, several yrs on, I'm still mighty surprised that I ever came back to the UK! I now seem to be stuck here I suppose what with kids and dh's job..Have occasional fantasy of taking off to Australia/S America/Africa...

Anyway, my years abroad took in Central Africa,
Hong Kong, Spain and Middle East mainly teaching but some of it with the family. How about others?

spent 8 years in the ardeche in france making goats cheese and rebuilding a small holding

We lived in the US for the first two years of our marriage (age 21 - 23 for me).

It was a strange experience. I had just graduated from uni, left home, got married, didn't really know DH very well and found myself in a strange place with no one but DH.

I didn't really know which part of this mix was strange as every part of my life was new. Therefore, I didn't overly dwell on the expat bit. When we became expats again 16 years later (in the same place) it was a lot different, and a lot harder to adapt as we were more set in our ways.

I lived in the Netherlands for a year. Was tempted to stay. Wonder what I'd be doing now if I had stayed....

I sometimes spend a lot of time thinking of what my life would have been like as well had I not gone to Japan or moved to UK
hmm

Hana

One of his best friends is a japanese girl who is helping him with his japanese

lived in Bermuda with dh straight after we got married for 2 yrs.

I came to uk in 1983 from canada and have never gone back ...love it here.

we were British Council for quite a while - I miss it. bit of a family really
travelled all over the place and then ds1 got very sick so home we came to be near family (not so we could use nhs resources like everyone seems to think! we would have gone to France if that was the case but it's hard to tell people in the UK that)
were you BC in Rabat, SSandy?

We had 3 years in US before DD1 was born - 1 year in Minnesota and 2 in NY (Long Island) - plus one after.

It was great as a carefree-student-idiot-type lifestyle but responsibility hit hard

I lived/worked in Germany - but just for a year so that hardly counts.
I was born in Zambia, but came back when I was 3 and don't remember a thing. So that doesn't count either.

[SULK] I want to be part of this thread.

I did the traveling in Australia circuit for six months and TEFL teaching in Poland for a year. Interestingly enough, after years of holidays in the UK with kids and dog, have just come back from 5 weeks in Australia (flew out on my own with dd1, dd2 & dd3) joining dh who was working in Melbourne for a while. It really re-kindled some deep hidden longing in me...didn't know how much i had missed new places, the nuances of parallel but different cultures oh, and the sun, blue skies, red earth, beach blah, blah, blah and big SIGH.

yet another one born in Zambia - there are a lot of us, aren't there?
Also lived for 11 years in Germany - 5 yrs near the dutch border, and 6 years further north.
I miss moving around and living overseas/abroad - at least I think I do!?! Haven't tried it since becoming a Mum!

meeeeee

6 years in Perth, Western Australia.

Before kids I lived and travelled abroad , was never homesick and had a great time, but since having kids (also abroad) I have started to get homesick for their sake really and what I would have found interesting in a european foeign way I now find wierd and I am getting less tolerant. That is the homesickness probably.

Admylin, what do you think they're missing out on?

I think the kids are missing a real home, we have moved 5 times since ds was born and he is nearly 8. They and I always have to start over and find new friends and we miss old friends. Most ofall family is missing, dh's family are all in far corners of the world, mine in UK. I know it is great for them to have been to so many places and lived in Berlin which is a great place but they are not happy and they want it themselves to have a house where they know they aren't going to move and to find friends who aren't going to move either. Ds hasn't made friends here and I'm sure it is a sort of self defence against having to lose them ifhe did make any. We don't know for sure how long we will be staying in Berlin, atleast another year and then ? Maybe we will stay depending on dh and his job contract!

I see admylin. When I was a child, we moved around a great deal too. I always made new friends and don't seem to have had difficulty adjusting (superficially anyway). I have noticed though that to this day, it is impossible for me to feel settled permanently. I always live as if my current situation is only temporary. That stops me building real friendships or building a real nest for myself. I'm always expecting (and perhaps hoping) to move on somewhere else.

After our final childhood move, my db stopped speaking at school. He wouldn't say a word for over a year. It was obviously too much for him.

How do you feel about the prospect of staying in Berlin long term?

I lived in Dublin and the States. The former was very wet and the latter was good fun.

DH lived in Venezuela as a child and had a great time.

I was meant to be born in Turkey but my dad's university wouldn't allow him a secondment so we didn't go.

I've grown up with my mother talking about what might have been...

We will be going abroad with the children at some point.

I lived in Warsaw and Vienna, then went out to Nigeria, where I met DH. Went back to UK briefly, then went to Israel on my own for a bit, then out to Romania with DH (where we sprogged - but gave birth in UK having visited a Romanian maternity hospital in Transilvania - hmmmm!). Now in Belgium, but going back to UK later this year,