agoreira

So you haven't really any personal experience of either?

Unfortunately, I have been on the receiving end of major operations, intensive care etc, and never really had a problem, we can only speak as we find.
For once we are in agreement, many looking to move to Spain are deluded, with completely false expectations. Wanting to escape from one's ex, is for me, not the best reason for wanting to move to Spain. After reading these type of forums for many years, I have seen hundreds of similar cases of people asking for advice about moving to Spain, and despite the negative comments in this thread, it's probably not what the OP wants to hear, so they'll ignore it and go anyway. IMHO, any couple with both having jobs in UK, would be absolutely mad to consider going to Spain at the moment with no promise, and no hope of a job. But they probably will!

manamama

Hi

In my experience..the education system is OK..no way better than the UK though.

Yesterday, we went to a meeting at the secondary school our daughter would join in September. So not impressed !!

The only good thing about the spanish education system is that they push Maths..so are about a year ahead of the UK but everything else is lacking.

We actually want to come back mainly because of the Education.

However I would recommend that anyone who can afford it, come for a few years while children are very young..not 9 or 10 which is too old. Yikkes it can really backfire and cause more problems than it´s worth. Me and Jojo can vouch for that!

If you just want to escape from the EX, can you not move to another place in the UK?

pain-in-spain

As a Londoner with Spanish family and the experience of coming here all my life (to Barcelona), I moved over lock stock and barrell 8 years ago. I wasn´t looking for a dream as Spain was already my second home, I was 40 and I felt I wanted to spend my later years in my father´s country, aside from this my parents had retired here 3 years earlier and I missed them. I thought I knew all there was to know about Barcelona, and Spain in general, I was very very wrong. Back them, I did all the possible research I could, assumed I´d pick up work easily with Spanish language skills with it being a large cosmopolitan city, again I was wrong! The luck I had was buying my flat cheap and having some cash left over to live on, without that we would have returned home within a year. I´ve been lucky to find jobs but with the very low wages and insecurity of temporary contracts (although a new labour reform has just been passed to try to rectify this) I´ve been out of work much more than in it. Renting my flat to tourists has saved us from having no income at all. My parents warned me not to come, despite wanting me nearby but being a stubborn type and thinking I knew it all, I moved anyway and for the first year it was very exciting. Now I am planning to sell or rent out my flat and move back it saddens me deeply to leave, I still love Barcelona and Spain but there´s a lot I´ve come to hate and despise. My hardest choice is leaving my parents, although they are convinced I´ll end up coming back, which I cannot totally discount as being here is just as much in my blood as being back home in London. I left a good job to move here and sold my house which would have increased in value, these I regret. If I move back, I will also be giving up a job, although lowly paid and my flat is going down in value due to the dire straights that Spain is now in. I wont have the hope and anticipation I had moving here when I go back to London, I know it so well and pretty much know what is in store. I too have read may posts of those wanting to move here, often with no language skills or contacts, it is often a big mistake but as I´ve done it myself I know that nobody could have talked me out of it. Life is for living, making mistakes is a big part of it. If I´d stayed put in London I would have been very miserable all these years hankering after my life in Barcelona and it would have no doubt had a negative effect on my life. Either way, I had to do what I did and I have learned an awful lot about Spain and the Spanish and myself too!

lynnxa

it was freezing - well for these mostly Spanish & Spanishified kids anyway


it did dry up & the sun came out later though

agoreira

That's very much the point I was making, people ask for advice, hoping to hear all the good things, but when they don't, only hear the negatives, like you, they'll go anyway! At least they have been warned, they can't say nobody told me I'd never find a job.

pain-in-spain

When I moved here there were no forums like this (well, I didn´t find them anyway) so I had nobody to discuss any concerns with. Although I would have still come, I would have at least been more informed and prepared for certain things that instead came as total shocks. I think most people posting for advice are just doing it as a by the way and to see their thoughts in black and white, which although helpful is not the same as the life experience itself.Aside from this, when I moved here Spain was still in it´s glory days, property was booming and to an outsider it would have seemed like Nirvana. This was the beginning of the problems and only with the experience of working here and seeing the reality and duality of the Spanish lifestyle, gradually the penny (or cent) started to drop. The way of life here has not been based on a sound economy but on foreign investment from much more stable countries, the Spanish have done little themselves but have relied on those from northern Europe bringing in their hard earned cash and buying up the over inflated properties. Even a place like Barcelona is almost totally sustained by tourism and this is one of the reasons I have come to hate it. The locals are pushed aside and greed is the order of the day. The Spanish have not experienced a property crisis before, until now all they have known is property increases and as they put all their eggs in one basket, the walls are tumbling down. The reason why it appears that most Spanish have a good quality of life (to the outsider) is that most bought their flats many years ago when they were dirt cheap and nobody else wanted them, they have made serious money on this and this is why it´s common for a normal working class family to have a city flat and one on the coast, something only the seriously rich would have in the UK. The present generation and those to come will be living a very different life with much less luxuries and no work prospects at all - this is a country with a long long history of high unemployment and cannot be blamed on the global situation that has affected other countries.
For anyone serious about moving here, take a look a the Sunday Times online article published 20 June, it´s a damming article about how the fiesta is now over and Spain is in huge difficulties, many comments to this article say they will shed no tears as Spain deserves it´s bleak future due to all the EU hand outs it´s received and done nothing to contribute, it´s quite surprising to see all the negative comments Spain is getting now after all the years of it being the golden country with a near paradise like lifestyle, frightening how the tables can so dramatically turn.

cricketman

Yes Britian has always had a love hate relationship with Spain going back hundreds of years. British and Spanish people and culture are so similar in many ways but are based on quite different philosophies (probably down the Catholic Protestant thing).

Property is THE number one problem in Spain. And for the UK, but even more so in Spain.

If you halved property prices overnight, back to where they were 10 years ago then salaries would start to look higher and young people could see themselves having a proper life. I'm hopeful we are going to see this correction over the next few years.

As you say, I know middle income Spanish families who live what many Brits would call a millionaire lifestyle all because of property. With a flat in the city, another in their old village and a newer property out on the Coast and spreading their weekends and holidays across the three.

But then many many Brits are in Spain thanks to the property boom too!

JLFS

2 very good posts from Pain in Spain.

I know lost of Spanish who are living with doom and gloom thinking not so much about themselves, but their childrens future.

Nathan27

Thank you all for your comments even though they are mainly negative. We will use the information and points against the advice and feedback from our friends. We will then research as much as we can before making a decision. I am suprised the comments are so negative but appreciate your honesty.

jojojojojo

Nathan, I bet you wish you'd never asked LOL. In all honesty, its the kids that are the difficulty and if you're anything like I was, you're doing it for them. If it was just two grown ups, you could sink or swim much easier. Goo dluck in your decision tho

Jo xxx

fionamw

If you can come up with the € to live on - and it's a mighty big if - and alongside that if you have some thought to how you'd cope if you found it best to return to the UK (and that's another not inconsiderable if) I'd say go for it. Ok there are plenty of downsides (let's not bother to list them again, we all disagree on some and agree on others) but for kids growing up in 2010 onwards, I still maintain Spanish, Arabic, Chinese & English are the languages in which to attempt to achieve fluency if you want a leg-up in jobs, business, politics, etc etc. Is there a better way than immersion in a Spanish speaking country?

patsywhitehair

you have said it all in a nutshell...... I lived in spain for a couple of years, I didnt have to work but.....methinks its a lovely dream IF you dont have to work.... you have enough dosh not to have to worry about money and then you can sit round the pool and enjoy Spain.
But to uproot and take your kids, phew......... tooooo risky the way that spains is at the mo, please please really think about it.........

JLFS

in other words dont EVEN think about it...................

IMO it would be madness..............sorry but in your circumstances that is the truth.

Cheers

manamama

I agree with fionaw...Spain is great for kids because of the exposure to a new language.

But it needs to be in their very early years.

My youngest who is only 2 and a half, she goes to a spanish nursery 4 hours a day and inter-changes spanish and english when she speaks. Her language and vocabulary is amazing..far far more articulate than my other children who only had English at this age.

So if anyone can afford it..not worry about work for a few years, come to Spain while the children are 1 or 2 and put them in a spanish nursery, watch spanish tv instead of english.

Even if it´s just for a few years, it sets them for language learning in the future.

Rotor

Hi

I suggest that you bring at least 20k euro with you for the first year as its very unlikley you will find work ,it`s very tough out here for the Spanish as well, treat it like a once in a life time break and you wont be dissapointed.
And dont forget to keep a good reserve in case you have to return to the UK.

Good Luck.