12 Years in Spain (An Honest Review)

I mean I guess this is probably the most honest video I've ever made saying that feels a bit weird because it feels like somehow I'm suggesting my other videos aren't honest or anything like that but you know it's it's you and me I'm literally staring down the barrel of the lens and I want to tell you about after 12 years in Spain what my life is like The Good the Bad and the Ugly I recently made a video where I went to Valencia and spoke to some people who had moved to Valencia in the last you know year or so they're all having a great time yeah there were challenges but there wasn't really dramatic challenges for them in the move which made me reflect on my time here they were clearly still in their honeymoon period I've been here for 12 years I am well outside the honeymoon period what comes after the honeymoon period what are the phases that I've gone through what what is my life like when you've taken off those Rose tinted glasses when you moved to Spain or you moved to any new place that you have a dream to go and live in so I've thought about my life in terms of buckets right first one I want to tackle is is relationship as many of you know I'm married to Yoli we met in France a million years ago I was probably I think 2005 2006 I always get it wrong Yoli always corrects me then we moved to Spain for about six months then New Zealand for about five years and then we came back here 12 years ago our relationship has and I assume will continue to work out I have seen friends uh met two male friends who have married women from another country not from New Zealand and in both cases they had kids and got divorced both these friends are now living outside of New Zealand they would rather live in New Zealand but they can't leave the country they're in you know with Spain or the UK because they have kids there that's where their family is and they can't take their kids I feel lucky that it's all looking good for the moment in terms of our in terms of our relationship but having said that when you I mean any relationship goes through phases right but when you move countries uh in one case we met in a country that neither of us were from in the next case we moved to New Zealand pretty much where I'm from and then we moved to Spain where yolly's from has given me an interesting perspective on what it's like to live both as two foreigners in a place but also in your spouse's country and also have your spouse in in your country we've kind of had all three combinations and why I say this is because I think it's important to realize that if you're in an international relationship in a place if one of you is from that place then the other is really going to rely on you for a period anyway and it depends a little bit on the language and that can it doesn't necessarily create friction but it can be disempowering for that person so I think you have to be ready for it to have a lot of trust to be able to lean on each other we were in New Zealand I felt empowered and you can kind of look at Yoli and feel like oh you poor thing she feels a little bit lost right and that's hard to see the person you love feeling a little bit lost then it flips and we're here and I feel a little bit lost and I have to lean on Yoli so I think in those relationships when you're in those situations you need a lot of trust so if you're in a dense relationship moving to wherever you need to have a lot of trust that you know that it's gonna it's gonna shift your roles in the relationship but I think the biggest challenge in an international relationship is when you have kids together right whether neither of you from that country or one of you are we have a two-year-old almost two-year-old daughter luffia she's wonderful she's beautiful uh you can see my my face you know she is the you know she's just a total Joy Spain is a good place to bring up kids from what I can tell this is a country where Community is important where people love kids waiters love kids that just makes it easier right you're not a burden when you're out with your child access to Nature is pretty easy here Healthcare is paid for through your taxes not expensive in terms of out-of-pocket expenses to just have a baby and so I think that in so many ways my experience is this is a this is a wonderful place to have a child you know talking about people who do take my move to Spain masterclass a lot of them are from the United States and if they're coming with kids more and more in every cohort I see gun violence as mentioned what I feel fortunate here is this feels like a safe place to bring up a child this feels like a place where I don't have fear for her for future but there is a butt here and this isn't something that I expected when you have a child in a country where one of the people isn't from there immediately your support network in terms of family is cut in half right I see people who are from here you know they're both Spaniards and they have kind of four babysitters and four family members in terms of the grandparents if they're all still alive around all the time particularly if they you know if they live nearby and I think wow that would be amazing obviously my parents are in New Zealand Yoli's parents also actually live kind of far away they don't they don't have a car they can't sort of come and just sort of babysit that easily so in a way we do actually live the experiences of neither of us are from here we've only just gone out for our first evening in two years we got a babysitter now we have a relationship with the babysitter it's going well but my God not having that support as as a parent uh from family in the early years makes it you know challenging you know your relationship becomes completely about parenting and you lose an aspect of of your own relationship right so going back to luthia there is one thing that I miss a little bit based on where we live and that has her access and as a family our access to Nature now it's easy to jump on a train it's cheap to get on you know go up into the mountains of the north of Madrid and explore and things like that but I grew up in New Zealand where I would disappear in the morning be playing in the bush with my friends and come back for lunch or dinner we take her to New Zealand I can just see you know walking on grass and things like that the beach just down the road and I think that raises another thing luffia has a Spanish passport New Zealand passport when we were there in New Zealand last I was like I had this feeling this overwhelming feeling I don't want New Zealand for her to be just like this place she visits the Odd Christmas I want her to feel that identity not just have the passport it's so far away in New Zealand that I don't know you know the time the expense to travel there I don't know how we achieve that it's it's kind of like this thing that's in my mind how do we do that you know and obviously a big part of having a children is your your experience of the Health Care System we went through and we remained in the public system we don't have Private health health care it's been good it's been fine yolly was well looked after in all stages luthia has been well looked after with some caveats I will say is that the health system in Spain the public health system is a little rough around the edges at the time you you get a sense that the doctor is a little rushed sometimes you need a little bit of time right to ask your questions and go through things and how it works here is you've got to get your family doctor then they refer to the specialist you can't go straight to the specialist if you're with the private care you could go straight to the specialist so recently I had like this eczema thing I was like itchy probably anxiety which I suffer from sometimes and I was like you know what I don't want to go to my doctor and then explain that and then get the appointment for the next doctor or the specialist and so I made an appointment not again without Private health insurance budget made a direct private doctor dermatologist appointment and so I see a little bit of me wondering will we have as a family or personally will we have Private health care in the future will we pay for private healthcare in the future there's some people who say in Spain that if you have the money you should pay for Private health care and leave the public health care resources for those who can't afford to pay for private I think that's a specious argument because then suddenly what you have is health care for the poor and healthcare for the rich and I think the more of us who demand Quality Health Care regardless of what we earn from the public system then you keep pressure on the public system right to say this is what should be provided for it's like at the same time are you going to sacrifice that for your health if you're worried about something so I've done a big Health Deep dive here which I didn't attend to one thing I did want to say though is that if you are looking at having a baby in Spain and you're not fluent in Spanish or neither of you are I can imagine that would be quite stressful that would be quite challenging because if you don't understand stuff it's a little it's a little rough around the edges the public system and you may not have an English-speaking doctor you may not even have a private English speaking doctor you go through private system but at least you will have you paid money you can tell them to slow down you can tell them to wait they've got to listen right it's different it just feels different so I would if I didn't have really strong Spanish skills and I was looking at you know you know having a pediatric pediatric care or you know having a baby I would look personally at the private system so another area huge part of my life obviously is my work my professional life you know in the 12 years I've been more freelance or running my own business than being an employee that feels like a place where often salaries are low there is high unemployment there's not been great relationship labor relationships between bosses and employees and so when people are looking at you know moving over here and they're wondering about you know can I get a job can I get a job without speaking Spanish yeah okay maybe in an international company There's an opportunity but having Spanish is always going to help you where they earn more for what they do than they will earn in Spain yeah it's cheaper to live in Spain than those countries but the salary drop is often quite significant so my experience has always been to start my own company start my own thing I've had a pretty good run of it I think uh it's gone through phases I started as a freelancer writer and guide then I was running and owning devour tours and now I'm 100 you know focused on running and owning Spain revealed which is the YouTube channel also the course and my Madrid revealed ebook and you know various other bits and pieces people often ask okay being an entrepreneur what's that like because the taxes and the bureaucracy and Nightmare and all those things I think what I'll say for that well first of all I love what I do right I have through a mixture of luck and I guess some smarts chosen to dedicate myself to Industries or things that I do that both I enjoy but although there's like people are willing to pay for those things whether it's a food tour or people want to relocate to Spain and want your help so I feel fortunate for on that side of things and that's made a lot easier to swallow some of the bureaucratic stuff you have to deal with and things like that but before I forget I think one other thing that has I feel fortunate around the the entrepreneurial and the professional side of my life is that the people who I earn money from whether they watch a YouTube video and I get some ad revenue or whether they buy my course are people who come from cultures that are similar to mine broadly speaking and so I understand them I understand their needs you know whether it's someone from Australia New Zealand UK Canada kind of get you guys right so if you're looking at coming to Spain and you want to start working as an entrepreneur before you worry about the taxes and the bureaucracy all that stuff's necessary right I think think about what am I going to offer uh and who am I going to offer it to and can I earn enough so that I don't feel ground down by all the taxes and the Social Security payments and things like that that I'm living on the edge so red tape what's that like keep in mind that the businesses that I have always run have had a big online component Spain revealed there's 100 online I don't sit in front of I don't give tours or anything like that now Devourer is obviously an online brand but the actual giving the the tours happens in the street and I you know I loved giving tours but you know still a lot of it was really online particularly in the beginning stages it was just you know it wasn't a big team or anything it was just kind of us building it up so generally I haven't found it too hard I recently made Spain revealed a company right so I went through the company the process of starting a company which in New Zealand it's like you go online you just choose your name you do it it's so easy I think that maybe just because there's an ingrained thinking about how things should be done in Spain and that if it's like starting a company you've got to get all the people involved you've got to get all the things signed it's got to be all sort of official and things like that but for example when I started this company to get the Constitution done I had to go through a notary which is a kind of an official legal type person here to write the Constitution they got it wrong four times they kept sending back and then the company's office would reject it it's like really is it that hard it's like a nightmare so if we think about buckets of Life another big bucket is community and friendships and I know this is an area that people really struggle with when they move to a new country I've been here 12 years and for the first 10 really I was a workaholic I kind of still am a workaholic and I something I I struggle with so obviously working I didn't have time to to build a community and focus on that and the other thing is I moved here when I was about 32 years old you've passed that moment in life where you formed those you know those school friends those University friends that are those core friends that that you have when I go back to New Zealand and I see my friends that I went to University with that I flattered with it's like slipping on an old sock you know that the old jokes come back the the references to movies we watched in those formative years and it's amazing and I really miss that you know and I think people used to talk about the Blue zone or whatever that area is called where people live forever right and they're like oh it's the red wine and it's the lack of red meat yeah okay it's community and that is an area that I have not dedicated the time I should have in the last 10 years and now I'm trying to change that and so my friends here are I have sort of English-speaking friends that I hang out with a lot of journalists and things like that and we're great friends we have a great time together and the other side I have are Yoli's friends that I acquired when I moved here I feel a little ashamed or regretful that I don't have more one-on-one like they're my friends Spanish friends you know when you live in a place and you have say a lot of friendships in English can make you feel like a little bit of an outsider and I know I'm supposed to be the ultimate Insider but it's there sometimes with Spaniards because I just can't be as quick on my feet or or I don't feel like I represent who I am completely in my language I'm not as funny in Spanish as I am in English um feel like a bit of a burden in some of those situations or relationships so you shy away from that a little bit it's time for me to get over that so literally as of six months ago you know I'm a very list driven person I have a recurring item in my to-do list every Friday I have a checklist item called friends in which I look to the week forward and it's like have I got stuff set up with friends this is me trying to build that Community muscle trying to live my Blue Zone and and and extend my life uh which you know I've realized that less red wine more friends is probably the answer to that so someone asked me when I said I Was preparing this video what my biggest challenge is living in Spain that biggest challenge and kind of my biggest regret is how I've treated my Spanish learning when I moved here I sort of just figured okay I'll learn it through osmosis of course I'm in a relationship with a Spaniard and I did a lot of it you know leading tourism busy Tapas bars and talking to the vendors like I have a good live in Spanish and I think generally I'm pretty good at languages so so I've been able to to pick it up but there's like gaps in my knowledge because I've never actually studied Spanish and I regret not doing that I think in the first three or four years it's like hey I'm learning Spanish it's okay my Spanish doesn't have to be great I'm new here you know after 10 11 12 years you're like you kind of should have a higher level about a year a year ago I started going to a tutor apps like Duolingo are great tools right but they're not a study plan they're kind of like just spokes in the wheel but the Hub the thing in the middle is actually a teacher you need a teacher whether you go to class or you have a one-on-one tutor whatever it is so we can go to my chair it's like hey I told you it was like therapy you know I was like this is how I feel after 11 years in Spain at the time this is how I feel about my language and these are the areas I know I'm weaken and we just Hammer those and we nail those and it's great my confidence is rising my goal is not to be fluent luthia will be fluent in Spanish her Spanish will be better than me probably by like seven you're never gonna become fluent 100 I'll never speak like Yoli or like luthia will it's not my objective my objective is to be able to be who I want to be and live the life I want to live in Spain in Spanish right so let's look to kind of like the future how do I feel about the future I mean I feel good about the future I'm I'm I feel like life is good except there is one thing I do worry about and that's climate change that is something that causes me not like I'm my skin is itchy anxiety not that level but it's just there water usage is an issue here and how that's managed and after last June July where there was the heat waves and you know we just had a baby and and you know you can't go out after 8 PM because the baby's in bed so that's often when you go out in the evening because it's cooler we were just we felt like trapped in our house for like a month this August we've rented a house in Galicia in the north for the whole month it's like a climate change driven decision that's where we want to go we don't want to be suffocating and so we're going up there and I wonder what that will be like you know the north reminds me of New Zealand Yoli's always been somebody who wants to travel South and I'd be like I kind of like the north before it's a little cool little cold particularly in winter but I'm like what would that like look like in the future might we decide to move north at some point which I think then brings up another question of are we going to stay in Madrid sometimes people ask me if I would move back to New Zealand and no I wouldn't I feel at home in Spain I've always felt at home it just always felt right the people the friendliness the gregariousness of the culture the history the food the way we eat the way we socialize it suits my personality so no we wouldn't move back to New Zealand but as I say it's important for me to have that as a big part of these life so what that looks like going forward and I don't know and and Weighing on my mind and this is for people who are looking at obviously moving countries is that I have family in New Zealand my parents are there and my parents are there obviously they're getting older my brother is is in London my sister is in New Zealand with her family so I don't really have any family around me and I miss that but I wouldn't change it so it's like the thing that you give up to live in the place that I want to live would we move out of Madrid I have always had a bit of a conflicted feeling about Madrid I love Madrid that it's a big city I love that it's in the center of the country if you're fascinated by Spain you can get anywhere right you're right in the middle there's great connections with trains you can taste food from all over the country here but you know that lack of you know we live in a pretty Urban neighborhood there's not a lot of green space in this neighborhood that we live in so Yoli and I sometimes wonder or I wonder you know out loud in front of Yoli would we move to a smaller place in the North or you know I know we've kind of joked about moving to Khalif but you know what will this August be like in galitia would we move some I would kind of love to live in a smaller place for a while but I think on balance you know it is the best place in Spain for us right now so coming back to that point of the honeymoon period that uh the people in the Valencia video I made were still in am I still in the honeymoon period well yes and no in a way one of the things I feel grateful for about my life in Spain is that my job is to be curious about this country it's always been to learn about its food and and make videos about interesting festivals and meet people it's like I'm always learning different aspects of of Spain and discovering new layers and that has kept me in a sort of Perpetual honeymoon phase if you want to remain in that honeymoon period try and keep curious keep discovering keep don't you know keep discovering new aspects of the country keep exploring so I feel like I have a lifetime of exploration still to do that Spain provides me and that I'm you know I'm excited for but as I think about that I realize that maybe that's like a key to to life and leading a happy life even if you're in your own country your own City like not just keep keep exploring like stay in the honeymoon period uh regardless of where you are so guys that's just one guy's perspective of his 12 years uh let me know if you live in Spain or you know I don't know give me give me your thoughts below I'm curious how this video was I hope I haven't really been boring and also if you are curious about moving to Spain and over food few times to this course that moved Spain master class I run I'll link down below and I'll link it just for a limited time a replay of the webinar I recently gave gave about the seven secrets to a successful move to Spain things I've learned that that make for a successful move and yeah would you be interested in more videos where I sit down and kind of tell you about life in Spain this sort of thing I know Yoli and I used to do more videos together that was hard uh without sort of child care maybe we can do some more videos together as well in this in this format so if you're curious about the stuff let us know in the comments and something I also wanted to say is that I would love to interview more people who have lived in Spain for for you know a longer period have come from somewhere else and moved here and lived here for say five years or more if you're you're leading a life that you think might be interesting to share with the Spain revealed audience uh then I'll put some details below about how you can how you can get in touch with me apart from that thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next episode which won't be in this room uh I promise to reveal uh more interesting parts of Spain

Channel: Spain Revealed

Views: 161,261

Keywords: james black spain, james blake spain, yoly james, spain revealed, yoly spain, spain couple, spain guide, yolly james, yoli james

Id: RMnUubH2X3o

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023