Having recently arrived back to the UK after splitting my time over the last year between Barcelona and Paris, I thought I would write a post about things I learnt during my time there.
- The influence of English
I am starting with this point because it is, by far, the thing that stuck out to me the most from the beginning of the year, right up until the very end. Don’t get me wrong, I understood that English is taught in most schools, is common in the media and in music etc. but I did not understand the extent to which it is used day-to-day. Now, I must address the fact I was living in big metropolitan areas (Paris and Barcelona), so I know that I cannot make a blanket statement for entire countries. I just don’t think I understood what English being the Lingua Franca REALLY meant.
I have witnessed countless conversations, in English, in which there are no native English speakers present. TONNES OF THEM. I was living in a flat share in Barcelona with 7 other people and I was the only native English speaker. However, everyone spoke English to one another. Then it of course made sense. How else was an Italian and a Dutch person going to communicate? Unless they have a variety of language skills under their belt, there clearly has to be a common language. I just, up until this moment, had never considered that it might be English.
Up until moving abroad, I genuinely believed that people spoke good English to make up for the lack of language skills that native English speakers commonly have. But now I realise that English natives are not the sole cause for many people speaking at least a basic level of English, it’s just usually a common language (usually as a second or third language) shared by people from across the globe.
In addition to that, it is also generally very common for people to speak several languages. It is usually their native language(s) as a minimum, with at least a bit of English (if not a very good level) and perhaps even another language they have learnt, whether it be in school or beyond. As someone who comes from the United Kingdom, where it is rare for people to speak more than one language (unless they speak it at home or with family abroad, for example), I would even go as far to say that, when people find out that I speak not just one second language, but two, they are almost in disbelief and think that it is some kind of wizardry to be able to do so. However, I do have to vouch for English natives. When almost every foreign person you come across speaks your language (and usually better than you speak theirs) it is almost impossible to practice or develop any useful language skills it all (I will definitely dedicate an entire post to this subject later on).
- Living abroad = significant personal growth
There are some things that you just cannot learn until you have lived abroad (bonus points if you go alone and/or to a country where their official languages do not include your mother tongue). This is a perfect example of being thrown in at the deep end, and it does work (mostly because you literally have no other choice).
I arrived in Paris and Barcelona thinking I had such a great level of French and Spanish because I’d spent so many years studying. Well I was wrong, very wrong. Although I knew the word for random things such as ‘plant pot’ or ‘wardrobe’, I couldn’t even string a sentence together in a normal conversation. This type of situation is hard, especially when you feel you’ve dedicated everything to your studies, only to be slapped in the face by reality. There were days that I vividly remember at my first internship, where I was so discouraged. I felt like I couldn’t understand anything that was happening although I supposedly had a great level of French on paper. This is when I realised for the first time that perseverance really is key and even if you feel you’re never going to get there, you will. This doesn’t just apply to languages, it can apply to anything. So, perseverance and resilience were the top things I developed in that specific experience. But there were a thousand more.
Adaptability is also really important. You are living in a culture which is likely very different to your own. There are different social expectations of you, and it genuinely feels like nothing is the same as you’re used to. The food in the supermarket is different, going out culture is different (there is no Wetherspoons) and the daily timetable of everyone’s life is different. In Spain particularly, I noticed that the day starts and ends later. I lived in a very central part of Barcelona, and it was desolate until around 10/11am. In the same way, I would leave the apartment at 8/9pm and people would be out shopping, strolling or dining, whereas I was used to dinner time and shops closing at 6pm in the UK. All of these experiences are completely unique and therefore the skills you develop from them are also very unique.
Navigating life in another country, doing things such as going to the doctor’s or the post office, can be really daunting. You realise there are so many things that you just know about life at home, or that your parents just know, that you do not know in the foreign country. Just the little tricks of life and the society that you grow up in, that you accumulate from being born and raised there or having parents who have lived there for decades. Things such as opening a bank account, going through the process of renting an apartment (policies, guarantor etc) or making a doctor’s appointment. You are totally alone in navigating these situations and working them out for yourself. Maybe you don’t do them the best way they could be done, but you still do it, and the character development from it is huge.
- You don’t realise what you have until you don’t have it
This is kind of linked to the previous point about personal growth and how one develops when thrown into unfamiliar situations. I just want to talk more about how moving away makes you 100 times more grateful and aware of your surroundings when you go back home. As cliché as it might sound, you could be walking down a street in your hometown and not notice a cute independent shop that has always been there, but not once did you notice it in the past.
Home comforts and accessibility to things was a big change for me. All I wanted to do was go to Boots to find reasonably priced, drug store makeup and products. This was SUCH a struggle in Paris, everywhere seemed to only sell high end products. I did, however, find the shop ‘Normal’. It doesn’t come anywhere near to Boots or Superdrug (it’s more like Savers) but it was a god send at times. There were also countless times that I just wanted to make a classic British dish, and finding the ingredients for it in the supermarkets was a challenge. I ended up asking people to bring back things from the UK at any given opportunity, if they were going to visit. However, the thing that stuck out to me the most was the accessibility to medication. You can only buy ANY form of medication, including paracetamol, in a pharmacy. You also have to go up to the counter and actually ask for it, which is something I was totally not used to.
Aside from missing physical things from home, as previously mentioned, I also missed the culture in some ways. Going to bars in Paris, although lovely, was very different to back home. The people are different, the staff are different, the vibe is different. I really enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but it was just different, and sometimes I craved that feeling of going to my local pub and chatting with people with the football on and a pint of cider. Is that too much to ask? Barcelona was slightly more pub-esque (made up word alert), but still not the same. There is genuinely nothing that compares to British culture in that respect. By no means am I complaining that these situations SHOULD have been anything like the UK, because of course not. The world would be a boring place if everywhere has the exact same customs and culture! I am merely pointing out things that I personally took for granted while at home and missed while away.
Overall, my time abroad opened my eyes to so many things and made me desperate to go and explore more of the world. If you have any further questions, perhaps you’re currently planning your year abroad, or you hope you to do one, let me know!