By Paula Rubio
Lidia Diaz is a Spanish woman who moved to London in 2019 when she was only 21 years old. She wanted to learn the language and about other cultures. ’That’s why I chose London. It is a multicultural city and it offers fantastic opportunities,’’ she said.
Madrid, where Diaz is from, is quite different from London in terms of socialization, gastronomy, architecture, and weather. As London is a huge city, she finds it more difficult to keep up relationships, due to the distance between places, the weather and how individualistic the people are here.
“It’s easy to meet random people one night but not to develop a relationship with them,” she said. Making long-lasting friendships is much harder.
Diaz misses the warm weather in her native Spain, and was surprised by how quickly the weather changes here in the UK. But she has decided to stay in the big city due to her job working at a photo lab, as well as the study opportunities she finds here.
Living in a foreign country is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many. Speaking another language, living on your own and discovering your own resilience is what attracts people to a life abroad, as well as economic and other opportunities.
‘’It teaches you a lot about yourself, about being self-sufficient and about life in general,’’ Diaz said.
Amelia Garcia was born in Canary Island, Spain, and she passes her childhood and adolescence in a small town in Toledo. After she finished the baccalaureate, she started her adventure in London.
‘’I moved around two years ago and, after working for some time I decided to continue with my studies,’’ Garcia explains. After lockdown, she had a lot of time to meditate on what she was doing at this moment in time, and what she wanted to improve in her life.
As a result, Garcia decided to move again, but this time to a smaller place, Essex, where she found it easier to meet new people and cheaper rooms to live in. ‘
’What I find most difficult is to adapt yourself again and again to new people, new houses, new accents… and at the same time. It’s what I most like as it gives me the experience to improve constantly myself’’ she said.
‘’I would repeat this time in the UK without doubt, It changed my life and it’s probably the best decision
that I have taken.’’
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