It’s been a year since we relocated to Spain from the UK. I think it would be a good idea to reflect on what has been good, what has been not so good, if we are happy and if there are any regrets.
We are in the UK at the moment, visiting family and friends. This is the first time we have been back since we relocated last year. The girls have visited their old school and want to re-visit all the places they know. The weather has been a surprise. Everyone has been telling us that this is one of the nicest summers in the UK in years. The temperatures have been high and there is a lot of sun. So we packed all the summer clothes from Spain and… we are freezing. It is surprising how quickly you adjust to being hot all the time, even during the night. But in the UK even if the day is hot, the evenings and nights certainly aren’t.
Life goes slower if you enjoy it
On Saturday we spent a night at friends’ house and she asked me if I had a feeling that last year went really slow, slower than it used to go in the UK. And I was surprised to admit that it actually has been a long year. She explained that when you find yourself in some new circumstances and your brain needs to start thinking outside your regular routine, the time passes differently. So when I thought deeper about that, it made sense. When you work 9-5 and then have all the other routine tasks to do and you do them on a regular basis, you can literally switch off and do them without thinking. September suddenly turns into Christmas, then Easter and then it is summer again. And you don’t know where the time has passed. If asked, you can’t really tell if there was anything special about the whole year.
Challenges of day-to-day life
For us the last year was so different in so many ways. First of all we had to discover the area where we are living. Finding the best way to walk or drive to school, researching where everything is: shops, local services, the doctors, the church, the town hall – all places for your physical and psychological needs. Then we had to sort out all the residency permits, healthcare, exchange driving licence – deal with all the bureaucracy, learn the processes and Spanish systems. I didn’t realize until we moved to Spain how comfortable life is if you know how the healthcare works, how the taxes and pensions work, where to go or who to call if you need something done. I don’t think this is something that people focus their attention on when they plan their relocation. It is already so much to think about like finding the accommodation, schools, sorting out the NIE, bank accounts and then the packing and transport and you power through all of this with the vision of sun, beach and sangria. Then real life starts and suddenly you find yourself in an environment that you are unfamiliar with and don’t know how anything works.
Then comes the challenge of learning a new language. If we didn’t take into account all factors mentioned above, just mastering a skill of speaking a foreign language is a great exercise for the brain. We were determined to learn Spanish for a few reasons. First we believe that it is imperative if you want to fully embrace the culture and be part of the local community. As we don’t have plans of leaving Spain anytime soon, we would love to be able to make Spanish friends. Saying that, we have actually already started being friends with some Spanish and although they are lovely and very patient with our limited language skills, the language is still a barrier. I have read on different social media posts that Spanish don’t open up easily and they prefer to hang around their circle of trusted family members and old friends. We don’t agree with this entirely. All of the local people we met have been extra friendly, some offering to teach us Spanish, and we have been invited to their houses and parties. Secondly, without knowing even some basic Spanish you will really struggle to sort anything out. Spanish people don’t know or don’t want to speak English and in places like the police station, ayuntamiento, banks and traffic headquarters we had to communicate in Spanish.
The Good
Good experiences certainly include discovering the beauty of the region we are located in. We made several weekend trips to the nearby castles, we went hiking in the mountains, discovered secret waterholes and swam in hot springs. In the winter we took the children sledging in the mountains when the temperature down in Valencia was 16 degrees. The advantage of this location is that everything is within an hour – hour and half drive so you can experience the beach and the snow the same weekend.
Another advantage of living in Spain is that we certainly spend a lot more time outdoors. It’s not only because of the weather but also the daylight. When the children finish school at 4.40pm the sun is still high up so they can stay out on playgrounds or doing sports. Back in the UK or in Poland in the winter the days are so short that you normally start work when it is dark and it’s dark again when you finish. We have noticed that the children also have more energy and want to play outdoors, rather than just sitting in front of the TV or tablet.
The Bad
The bad experiences certainly include getting the car which I have already written a post about. The other thing is obviously the Spanish bureaucracy and sorting out our documents, especially our daughters’ NIE numbers but I will write about it in a separate post. Unfortunately, even if most of the documents can be applied for online (NIE is not one of them), the systems do not work well and we have spent many days filling in the forms a few times until we got stuck somewhere and we didn’t know how to proceed. I will also make separate posts on changing the driving licence and adding beneficiaries to the Seguridad Social (Spanish social security system which is similar to British National Insurance) as we have experienced a lot of problems trying to get them sorted.
The verdict
To summarize, how do we feel about the past year? And most importantly, do we regret moving to Spain? The past year has been really interesting and we certainly lived it differently then we used to do it in the UK. I admit that partly it is due to the fact that we haven’t been really working, apart from me setting up this business so we had more time to focus on self-development and re-think what we want to do in life (workwise). The children seem more happy and energized and they have embraced the new challenges, especially learning all these new languages. I started going to the gym which is not only beneficial for my health and wellbeing but I also made many friends there. The sun lifts your mood tremendously and we wake up everyday with a rush of adrenaline excited about the prospects, meetings or simple pleasures the life in Spain has to offer. So the answer is no, we do not regret moving to Spain as our life has changed in the way we had hoped it would. There are still unresolved matters we have to deal with but we are wiser by the knowledge we have gained and like Spanish we think that there is always mañana.