Living in Portugal, send me back to England!?
This summer, me, my mum, my dad and my little sister moved to Madeira (located in Portugal). Ever since then I’ve been feeling down, sad and I cant seem to find my own place. I have come from England to this small little island. Not only do I not fit it, but language barriers are a ’slight’ (ok, massive) problem. I’ve tried everything and yet nothing seems to work to somehow enlighten my parents to move back to England. The language is hard, and seeing that I am thirteen years of age, it’s going to take me longer to learn. I’ve got no social life, since nobody speaks English, and everyone is used to their old friends so they don’t need any new ones! I know I’m somehow lucky to be in such a lovely sunny place, but England was my home town and it will always be. I don’t mind the ‘rainy’ weather, I actually like it! How on earth can I persuade my parents to move back to the U.K?
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If you have a bit of money to spare, invest in a talking language translator. They have them that translate from English and back into as many as 40 languages now. The prices vary on the models and how many languages they translate. Might be kind of fun and help you learn some phrases. All-in-all living on an island is every kid’s dream, at least people my age. Give yourself time to adjust, it even takes adults months or years to adjust to a different country/culture/language/climate if they are the ones making the decision to move. And make the most of your experience, when you feel uncomfortable about living there most likely it means you need to learn some things in order to grow as a human being. You never know how much this experience will positively benefit you if you stop resisting and accept it and make the most of it. For example, you may have enough to write a book about living there later on when you grow up.
Oh sweetheart, I really feel for you. At 13 it’s really rough to uproot and move to a completely different country where everything is alien and new.
I have lived in three countries (including the UK) so do have some idea what you mean, but then I did it by my choice.
To be very honest, it is completely normal that you are feeling like this and it is still very early days. It probably takes something like 6 months to really get familiar with living in a new country and that means throwing yourself into it as well.
The first thing I would suggest is to sit down with your parents, not with the “I want to go home to England” stance, but just to share your unhappiness., Chance are they are already aware of it anyway, and hopefully they can help you. A good thing to do before this discussion is to write down on paper all the things you find positive and negative about living there, because sometimes emotions in conversations like this, make you loose track of what you are saying.
Now you already know that learning the language is a big deal and will make a difference, so do try to muster up some enthuiasm and learn as quickly as you can. This will help you not feel so much of an outsider
Finally it’s likely that you are not the only one in the situation and I looked for some forums for you. This one seems like a good one http://www.expatsportugal.com/phpBB2/index.php
Maybe you could post a question to see if there are others in your age group in Madeira just so you can have a friend who is in the same situation. Something as simple as this can make all the difference really
I wish you much luck, honestly, and chin up