Hi! My name is Sarah and I have been living in Italy since 2002.
I was born in NYC and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA. Teaneck was an amazing place to grow up: there were approximately forty nationalities represented at my high school, and I think my interest in traveling and new cultures stems from having lived in this town.
After high school, I studied at Northwestern University in Chicago, participated in a couple exchange programs, and then went on to work in the film industry until 1999, when I made the unlikely decision to attend an MBA program at INSEAD in France. And there in Fontainebleau, seated beside me in statistics class, was a handsome Italian guy who is now my husband, so I guess you could say it was a lucky decision as well!
In 2002, I moved to Milan, where I found a job working in the International Relations Office at Bocconi University. As they say in Italian, it was a “happy island”: we were a young, international office filled with motivated people. Then, in 2009, I followed my husband to Parma after he changed jobs. My daughter, Emily, who is now fourteen, was three days old when we moved here, and honestly, it was not easy at all. We had no friends or family nearby, and back then, there were no online ex-pat groups, the European School wasn't sure it would continue to exist, and there was next-to-nothing offered in the way of newborn services.
That is why my friend, Sophie Cord'homme, and I created Parma Mia. We wanted to provide information about events, restaurants, places to visit, and how best to navigate life in Parma (with and without kids!) for ex-pats and English-speaking tourists. Since that time, the international community has grown enormously, and associations like ParmaKids and Expats in Parma have made life easier for new arrivals, but I still believe there is an important place for Parma Mia Expats here, and that’s why I’m so excited to see its newest evolution.
Many thanks to my lovely friends, Doyin McArthur and Elena Molet, for giving it a fresh start!
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