For as long as I can remember I always wanted to move abroad, after I did a Spanish course in 2021 in Barcelona I knew I wanted to live there eventually. So when I was finally done with school in 2022 I decided it was time to follow my dream and move to Barcelona. If you look at my Instagram feed or Tiktok page you’ll see a happy me loving life in Barcelona. But what you can’t see is all the problems I dealt with moving to another country. Don’t get me wrong I love my life here and I am so grateful that I could make my dream to real life. But moving to another country is definitely not easy. With this series I want to talk about how it was to move from The Netherlands to Barcelona, Spain. Enjoy reading!
21 July 2022 was the day it finally happened, I was moving to my dream city. It is funny that you talk about it all the time with your friends and family, but when the day finally comes you can’t really believe it is actually happening. So the realization hit only when I was finally in Barcelona with my 4 suitcases (yes 4) on my way to the Airbnb I rented for two weeks (wrong decision number 1). The Airbnb was really cute, at a nice location and clean. For the ones that know Barcelona, it was located in Sant Antoni, so it was close to the city center. Because I did some research on how and where to find an apartment I knew that the best way was to look when I was actually in Barcelona so I could see the apartments in real life and (trying to) avoid scams. When I still lived in The Netherlands I found a job in Barcelona, and my first day was the first of August. So that meant I had around 2 weeks to find an apartment, and now I hear you thinking “that is not the smartest move”. Yes you’re right, it definitely gave me stress, and really should have gone sooner to Barcelona so I would have more time to search.
So in the two weeks I had to search, search and search till I finally had an apartment. I already did some research on what the best ways were to find an apartment and which sites to look on. And in the meantime I also had to get my NIE number, and get some documents for my company. So really enjoying Barcelona wasn’t on my planning unfortunately.
So what did we learn from my mistakes:
- book an accommodation for a longer period of time.
- Move at least 1 month before deadline, it gives you a lot more time to arrange everything in your new city and gives you way less stress.
- Make appointments for apartment visits before you move, that way you can start right away with searching when you arrived.
This was the first post for the Barcelona Diary, I hope you enjoyed reading it. And stay tuned for the next one 🙂
Travelwithbodien 