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I moved from Spain to the UK at the age of 14(Image: Ashley Bautista)<\/p>\nAt the age of 14, my parents decided to pack our bags and move from Spain to the UK – having spent my teenage years in London, there are some things I wish I had lived back at home<\/p>\n
Ashley is an Audience Writer for The Mirror\u2019s Emerging Content Team. She covers entertainment, culture, and travel for under-35 audiences. Prior to joining The Mirror, Ashley worked as a sub-editor for Snapchat Discover at MailOnline.<\/p>\n
I moved from Spain to the UK at the age of 14(Image: Ashley Bautista)<\/p>\n
My generation – which is Gen Z – dream of moving abroad and living their 20s like they do in the movies.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny because, now that I\u2019ve lived abroad for quite some time, I still reminisce about my life in Spain<\/a> and can only hope for the day when I can move back. In search of the British version of the \u2018American Dream\u2019, 11 years ago, my parents made the life-changing decision to pack all our belongings and drive a total of 14 hours from a little town in the Costa Brava called Empuriabrava <\/a>to the UK\u2019s capital, London.<\/p>\n At the age of 14, the only thing I cared about was hanging out with my friends after school and having the typical Spanish teenage <\/a>rebellious life.<\/p>\n OPINION<\/p>\n I never understood the British lifestyle, or perhaps I didn\u2019t get the memo about running to the ice cream van after school hours for a traditional 99 Flake. During the majority of days after school, I would go home and do my homework, and I wouldn\u2019t make an effort to make plans.<\/p>\n Well, I guess it\u2019s hard when everyone is from different boroughs, and it takes ages to get from one place to another. Being from a small town, it was much easier to make friends and spend time with them. Even now, at the age of 25, I can still relate to it.<\/p>\n Despite everything, my teenage years in the UK were fulfilling. I made good memories, and I will always cherish them. Thinking back about my life in Spain, it always makes me wonder how things would\u2019ve turned out if my parents hadn\u2019t made such a drastic decision.<\/p>\n But I guess I’ll never know, but I’m not mad about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the age of 14, my parents decided to pack our bags and move from Spain to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[150290,2000,299,104,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-500399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-american-dream","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-spain","12":"tag-travel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115375953341441184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_the-inbetweenersJPG.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Author](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_JBP_DXX_190325STAFFBYLINESHEADS29JPG.jpg\")
Almha MurphyREAD MORE: ‘I’m an American student in the UK and one thing here doesn’t make sense’<\/a>![\"Vintage](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_Vintage-filtered-on-silhouette-of-depressed-girl-sitting-on-the-window.jpg\")
Spending my teenage years in two countries made me realise a huge difference(Image: Getty Images\/iStockphoto)READ MORE: British family who ditched UK say Christmas is ‘much better’ for kids in Spain<\/a><\/p>\n