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The
decision of spending a year abroad wasn’t difficult to take; in fact I didn’t
even question any possible bad aspect it might have. Let’s go for it! I repeated to myself, excited, counting back the
days to start this new and encouraging adventure. I was especially motivated by
these people who, after having spent a year abroad, would speak
grandiosely about their experiences. I hardly remembered a negative opinion
about living abroad, and even if I did, Españoles
por el mundo would tell me differently, so who cares? Apart from these encouraging friends and acquaintances I
had always wanted to spend a period of my life abroad. Speaking English 24/7 and getting amazed by the
English culture were two of my dreams since I was little. For that reason, when
this opportunity presented itself to me I didn’t think twice. However, and
after being here for a while, I dare to say that
this is not what I
expected; this is not what people told me, this is not what Españoles por el mundo keeps telling us program
after program…
Reality
is light years from what we are told, from what I was told. I expected that me and my housemates would give the best parties
ever and we would share tortilla de
patatas pictures on Facebook every week. I expected I would travel every
single weekend, not just England, let’s discover Europe too! I expected that 'working abroad' just meant, first, travel abroad and, second, work, no paperwork, no legal
issues. I expected that having a good level of English would let me understand
everybody, and I would be understood by everybody. I expected that
food wasn’t that different, coffee wasn’t that different, going to the supermarket
wasn’t that different. I expected that I wouldn’t feel alone in such an amazing
country with such amount of new international friends. I expected that I
wouldn’t want to go back to Spain. I expected that I would feel cool for living abroad. I thought
mistakes didn’t exist abroad, illnesses didn’t exist abroad, loneliness, tears.
I thought you’ll never get lost, you’ll never feel fear, you’ll never feel
pain.
Well,
I never expected all of that. When we see pictures of our friends, when we
listen to the experiences of others, when we watch TV programs we don’t expect
that. We don’t see everything, we are not allowed to. But when we live the
experience ourselves everything changes, and you see reality. Life abroad is
not that good, and surprisingly, you
don’t feel as happy as you were supposed
to feel. At this point, I wonder what was wrong in the positive feedback
everybody gave to me about their experiences. Where was the trick? Maybe I
didn’t get the message
Or maybe we all prefer to share the
good things, we prefer to look like we are successful and we took the right
decision. We simply don’t want to worry anyone. Maybe we just want to forget
the negative staff and make it our secret.
With
this little reflection I don’t want to worry anyone, I’m fine. I’m just being
sincere with myself. Reality is what it is. And living abroad is what it is too. You can
have an incredibly experience, make good friends, find a boyfriend, make money,
grow as a person, perfect a language, travel, progress in your career, write a
blog. OK, this is pretty amazing but, remember that feelings have nothing to do
with the situation you’re living. You can be surrounded by millions of people
in central London while you take the most beautiful pictures ever and feel
incredibly alone. Remember that
all that glitters is not gold.
Remember
that the coin has two sides. Remember that TV will always be TV. And, most importantly, don’t be influenced by
anyone’s opinion (not even mine) because we may keep our secret to ourselves.
xx
