The People I Never Expected to Find When I Moved to Spain

When people talk about moving abroad, they always talk about the obvious things.

The weather, the language, the food, the travelling, the new experiences.

But I don't think anyone really prepares you for the people.

I've met people from all around the world since moving to Spain, and honestly, I've somehow met people who mean more to me than I ever could have imagined in such a short amount of time.

People who would genuinely do anything for me at the drop of a hat.

Sometimes I wonder if it's because we're all in the same situation. A lot of us are away from our families, we've all had those moments where we've felt lonely or completely out of our depth, so maybe we understand each other differently.

Or maybe anyone mad enough to pack up their life and move to another country has the same slightly silly brain and that's why we all find each other.

But then again, that can't completely explain it, because some of the most genuine relationships I've made here have been with local Spanish people.

My neighbours are probably the best example of that.

They originally started off as simply a family whose daughter I tutored in English. That was it.

Now I genuinely consider them family.

I actually rent an apartment from them now and live next door. We go on days out together, we spend time together and they've completely taken me in as one of their own.

When I've been sick, they've driven me to the hospital. They've brought meals to my door. They've checked on me and looked after me when my actual family couldn't physically be here to do it.

At some point they stopped being "the family whose daughter I tutor" and just became my family here.

Then there's my best friend.

We met at a language exchange in Tenerife, which is already funny considering I've mentioned language exchanges approximately 700 times in my blogs.

But this one gets even weirder.

We started talking and eventually realised that not only were we both from England, we were actually from the SAME town.

We had never met each other there.

He'd even gone to school with my cousin.

We had to move all the way to Tenerife to meet each other.

We clicked instantly and honestly the rest is history.

He's become one of the biggest supports in my life. If I'm sad, he's there. If I'm happy, he's there. If I need picking up from the airport at 1am, he's there before I've even really had to ask.

My first birthday in Tenerife was actually quite a lonely one.

It's one of those things you don't really think about before moving abroad. Birthdays, Christmas, New Year... suddenly the people you've always spent them with aren't there.

But my best friend and his fiancée were.

They turned up at my door and took me out for a birthday dinner.

The Spanish family I was living with at the time had bought me presents and decorated my room too.

I remember thinking how strange it was that I was so far away from everyone I'd always known, and yet there were all these people around me making sure I didn't feel alone.

Christmas was another one.

I ended up spending Three Kings Day with someone who is now my boyfriend.

At the time, we really didn't know each other that well. We were friends, we had mutual friends, and that was basically it.

In any other situation, spending such an important family holiday with a guy you'd only recently met might sound a little bit insane.

Wayyyy too soon.

But I did.

His family welcomed me into their home despite the fact that they didn't speak English and my Spanish was still very much a work in progress.

That morning was definitely an interesting mixture of smiling, translating, guessing what people were saying and hoping for the best.

But I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas.

And the rest, apparently, is history.

Nearly a year later, I couldn't imagine being in a healthier or happier relationship. Somehow I've ended up with someone from a completely different culture, with a different first language and a completely different upbringing, and instead of those differences separating us, our lives have just sort of fused together.

Somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like "his culture" and "my culture."

It's just our life.

And somehow I've reached a level of happiness here that I really don't know how to explain.

Then there are the people who helped me get here in the first place.

The team at INLAES started out as the people helping coordinate this massive decision I'd made to move to Spain.

Now they're genuinely my friends.

We keep in regular contact and they've become so much more than work colleagues or coordinators. They're people I know I can rely on.

When onboarding comes around in Madrid, or when the academic coordinator comes over to the island to see us, I genuinely look forward to it.

Not because I have to.

Because I actually want to spend time with them.

I think that's the part of moving abroad that I could never have planned for.

I knew I'd improve my Spanish.

I knew I'd gain teaching experience.

I knew I'd travel.

I knew I'd learn how to live independently in another country.

What I didn't know was that I'd build an entirely new family.

A family made up of people from England, Spain and everywhere in between. People I met through work, through teaching, through language exchanges, through completely random circumstances and sometimes just through being in the right place at exactly the right time.

Moving abroad can be lonely. I've written about that before and I won't pretend it isn't.

But there's another side to it.

When you're away from home, the people you meet become incredibly important incredibly quickly.

Maybe it's because everyone knows what it feels like to be away from their family.

Maybe it's because we're all slightly crazy for moving abroad in the first place.

Or maybe I've just been unbelievably lucky.

All I know is that I came to Spain thinking about everything I was going to experience and everything I was going to learn.

I never really thought about everything I was going to gain.

I've gained another language, another culture, independence, confidence, memories and experiences I probably wouldn't have had if I'd stayed at home.

But more than anything, I've gained people.

People who will pick me up from an airport at 1am.

People who will bring food to my door when I'm sick.

People who welcomed me to their Christmas table when they barely knew me.

People who somehow went from strangers to friends to family.

And now I'm getting emotional writing a blog post, which wasn't exactly the plan.

But I suppose that says everything really.

I moved to Spain expecting to build a new life.

I just didn't realise how many amazing people would end up building it with me.