Nobody is coming to save you, but people will be there while you save yourself.

Articles · Five Things I Learned in Barcelona · Lesson 5 of 5

This is possibly one of the hardest lessons I have ever had to learn while adjusting in a different country.

In the Philippines, there is a level of expectation when it comes to helping family, so there is always a ‘safety net’. But Europe is a totally different world, and I discovered this the hard way.

The friends along the way

During particularly bad moments, I was surprised to find only a handful of friends from the Philippines keeping in touch with me. Maintaining these bonds takes immense effort, especially when fighting a six-hour time difference.

The harsh truth I’ve come to realise is that so many relationships rely heavily on physical proximity. Quick meetups after university lectures turn into meticulously scheduled phone calls — and eventually, those turn into unanswered check-in messages as everyday life simply gets in the way.

Uprooting your entire life to move to a different country is never easy. Add the daunting task of making real friends from scratch into that mix, and it becomes overwhelming.

I’ve always considered myself an extrovert, someone who could easily strike up a conversation and make a friend out of anybody. But navigating social nuances in a third language? That’s where the difficulty level bumped up from Very Hard straight to Maniac.

Even so, against all the odds and quiet evenings, I’ve managed to build a small circle of genuine friends. The kind of people I know, with total certainty, I could call at 3:00 AM during moments of distress.

In a city where everything feels temporary, I feel truly blessed to have found these rare, deep connections.

Comfort zone who?

One good thing about being a Filipino is we have a community-reliant lifestyle. Being part of a collective has always been part of our culture, but there are also disadvantages to that.

Having a constant community to rely on and share the emotional and practical load of daily life could easily become comfortable. Everything is a ‘group project’.

Once I stepped out of the airport in Madrid, I felt this sinking feeling that said, “Actually, it’s all up to me now”. I have the sole responsibility of finding a flat, navigating the complex Spanish bureaucracy and making big decisions. No one else can take the steps for me.

As I have mentioned earlier, I moved out of my grandmother’s house eight months before I moved to Spain. What I didn’t mention was that the dormitory was only a 15-minute walk away.

Even so, the separation from my childhood home has made me grow. I bought one of those small cookers on Lazada for PHP 300/€5 and practised cooking. I learned how to cook all my favourite foods.

Little did I know, that tiny cooker was training me for my first tiny kitchen in Barcelona, where cooking my favourite Filipino comfort foods would become my ultimate cure for homesickness.

Don’t get me wrong, going to restaurants is also an option, but nothing takes away the joy of pouring Sinigang Mix into my cooking pot, and smelling home.

I discovered who I was outside of my family home. Moving abroad strips away the familiarity of everything you’ve ever known, but it replaces it with something invaluable: absolute self-reliance.

It teaches you that even when everything is no longer a 'group project,' you are more than capable of handling the blueprint of your own life.

The strength in saving yourself

I learned how to disassemble and assemble stand fans, build my own furniture and organise my room multiple times until it started feeling like my home.

I learned how to bake banana breads, cookies, and other desserts that my family doesn’t even know I could make. I learned to concoct homemade fly traps during summer, and to manage humidity throughout the year.

I learned to make friends with people from cultures massively different from mine. This has expanded me, learning about their perspectives and their impressions of the world. I quickly learned that our differences aren’t barriers, they are invitations to grow.

Yes, it is all up to me, but that is such a good thing.

When you sit at a table with people from all corners of the globe, you realise that whilst your upbringings look completely different, the core human desires for connection, growth, and belonging are exactly the same.

Being in Europe has expanded my perspectives, dismantled beliefs, and learned new things that I could not have learned if I had stayed in the Philippines.

Yes, it is all up to me, but that is such a good thing. Relying on myself felt so overwhelming and daunting, but hey, it has made me realise how reliable I am.

Looking back on my time in Barcelona so far, I realise that moving abroad doesn't just change your location; it completely dismantles and rebuilds who you are.

You will lose things along the way — moments back home and the ease of physical proximity with the people you love.

But in return, you gain something invaluable: absolute self-reliance, global perspectives, and a small, cherished circle of friends who become your sanctuary thousands of miles away.