STARTING A NEW LIFE ABROAD A — Emma Everyone told me my school French would be more than enough, and I believed them — which was my first mistake. I could order a coffee, but following a conversation at speed, full of slang and local expressions, left me exhausted and close to tears in those early months. What saved me was an elderly woman next door who, out of sheer kindness, invited me for lunch every Sunday and patiently corrected my mistakes over the meal. Little by little, through her, the language and the place both opened up to me. Five years on, something has quietly reversed: when I go back to England now, it is that country that feels foreign, and here that feels like home. I no longer count the days until my next visit 'back' — this is back. B — Daniel I'd pictured all the romantic parts of moving abroad and none of the tedious ones, and it was the tedious ones that nearly broke me. Nobody warns you about the mountain of paperwork — the residency permits, the tax registration, the endless queues at offices that shut for lunch just as you reach the front. For the first six months I felt I was fighting the system rather than living my new life. Professionally, though, it has paid off handsomely: the move opened doors in my industry that simply didn't exist at home, and my salary has nearly doubled. My one piece of advice to anyone thinking of it would be to research the practical side ruthlessly beforehand — the visas, the healthcare, the banking — because the dream is easy and the admin most certainly is not. C — Sophie The things I expected to miss — my friends, my family — I did miss, of course. But what caught me off guard was mourning the silliest things: a particular brand of tea, the sound of rain on an English roof, the dry humour that nobody here quite understands. It's the tiny, unglamorous details of home that ambush you. Oddly, leaving has also made me see my own country far more clearly. Living somewhere that does things differently — the healthcare, the food, the whole pace of life — I've come to appreciate what my homeland gets right, and to notice, for the first time, quite a few things it gets badly wrong. Distance, it turns out, is the best way to understand the place you came from. D — Ryan There was a night, about three months in, when I sat on my suitcase with a flight home already booked in my head. I was lonely, I'd made no friends, and I'd convinced myself the whole thing had been a terrible mistake. What stopped me was, of all things, the people. I'd arrived expecting a certain famous coldness, and instead found neighbours who noticed my misery and simply refused to let me stay miserable — dragging me to dinners, football matches, family gatherings. The reputation these people have for being unfriendly could not be more wrong; I have never been so quickly and so warmly taken in anywhere. I unpacked the suitcase, cancelled the imaginary flight, and I've never seriously thought of leaving since.