I'm from southwestern Virginia, but I spent a month at a time for several years with my family in Italy in my teenage years, mostly in the same small town, and

I'm from southwestern Virginia, but I spent a month at a time for several years with my family in Italy in my teenage years, mostly in the same small town, and later lived in Lausanne, Switzerland for five years while working for the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Mind you, my parents are from the US, went to grad school in England, spent a lot of time on the continent, and my (homeschooled) education reflects that, so it's hard to say the effect on me. I think the most valuable aspect has simply been experiences and viewpoints that serve as counterexamples when I am thinking about how society is organized.