Moving to Spain as a child and having to learn a new language in strange surroundings was never going to be easy, but for The Local's Evie Burrows-Taylor it opened up new horizons.

In the summer of 1996 - when I was nine years old - my family moved from south London to Spain.
 
I had been on holiday to Spain once before - a package holiday to Mallorca which my mother had made sure was equal parts kids fun (pirate shows and chips) and exploring the villages on the island, which back then was really more of her idea of a good time. 
 
Just two years later, we moved to Cartagena in the south east of Spain, where my mother was going to teach English as part of the British Council scheme, with about five words of Spanish between the three of us.

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