-The Mid Years- Part 1

And so, we now come to where I think I had the most fun, I feel very proud of what I accomplished and achieved, I feel grateful for all of those who I have in my life, past or present, as it's for those people I can easy call my friends and some I call my family, and it's those people who easily tell me that I can call this place my Home.

Spain has really made a mark in my life, it is a very important place to me and the people inside it who make it great. It's not just a holiday destination, it's a place where you can easily bring your family up in a nice environment, it gives you a chance to learn one of the most spoken languages around the world... Once you learn the language, you can live a life with some really good people from all walks of life. Good food, history, culture... They have it all and I have had the chance to inherit something a lot of people would like to have.

Sax, the place I call and proud to call home, a little town in the Alicante province, South of Valencia, South East of Madrid, North of Malaga. This little town is a town where everyone knows everyone; a town where everyone knows everything... But it's calm, it has everything and it's enough.

When we first moved to Sax, we moved straight into the country side, the house was small at the time, we had a few neighbours (Not too many, it was just right) but they were as good as gold and they still are. I met my first friend there who was also a neighbour, Vicente, we played and spoke for hours every day and I got to meet his family and they took care of me and of us when we needed information or some help in any way, All the neighbours are so good to us we don't know what we would have done without them sometimes. Electricity was limited in the house (As we were powered by a Lorry battery... I kid you not) we couldn't switch on more than 2 lights at a time in the whole house otherwise you would have a lovely alarm that would go off just to let you know exactly that. It was a small 2 bedroom house to start off with, 1 narrow kitchen, a small inside and outside bathroom, lounge/Dining room, swimming pool, garage and loooooooooooads of land, and on the land we had our fruit trees and the amazing views of the mountain side and neighboring houses. Nothing but peace and quiet... it was the best, I loved it, our dogs loved it... I don't know what more I could have asked for.

The first few months living there were a little difficult without the basics, more than anything else, the electricity, we lived on a generator to power almost everything like the washing machine, the cement mixer and other building tools as at the same time we were making necessary changes to the house as the lorry battery couldn't do well... anything except lights. Eventually we did get it (After months of getting permissions) Then more or less everything was running smoothly.

Mum put us in a local primary school, Cristobal Colon, it was a nice school, it was basic and wasn't much different from La Nucia school... The first couple of months were a little hard for me as I had to get used to everyone speaking the one dialect, my words came out in all the other dialects and I did get picked on a little but not enough to get me down. My brother was only there for a year then he moved on to the high school around the corner, I was there for 3 years, the first day was quite funny, we had to line up to the proper class that we were assigned (Which should have been year 4), Of course, no one told me what class I was supposed to go into, so someone just dragged me into a line and I went along with it... only to find that I got put into a line for the year below me #fml .

Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, they pointed me in the right direction and I got through primary school no problems, I got good marks, I was well behaved, (I actually cried when I had a change of teachers... That's how much I loved my school) And I made it to high school. Here I met some close friends, old friends, past friends... But that will wait for the next part. Part 2 of the Mid years will get to know the people I call Family and have been by my side all the way! 

-The Early Years- Part 2

Unfortunately, our time came to and end in 2002 when we decided to leave Mallorca and continue our journey into mainland Spain, to be exact, La Nucia, 5 minutes outside of Benidorm... this part is quite short as we didn't actually live here for long.

It was only temporary, approx. 3/4 months so my parents could find a place somewhere more inland and in the country side, but let's talk about this part anyway.

The house we moved into was odd... it was a rental, 2 floors, dark, smelled damp, and we had the craziest neighbors ever. On one side we had a German lady who had god knows how many dogs and they kept escaping and tried to attack our dogs, and on the other side we had a lady whose daughter was out of her mind... she, (for some reason) screamed all the time... Just randomly... creepy.

Anyway, despite the loony neighbors, we still had to go to school and it was a quite a change... It was good that we learned to speak a little Castellano while in Mallorca as it came in handy when we arrived, we got slightly confused from the change from Catalan and Mallorquín to Castellano but we still got by. The school was fancy, quite a few foreign students.

I didn't like it here, I'm not a huge lover of coastal area, I didn't make many friends here and I'm not worried, everytime I go past Benidorm I just get depressed haha. I was so relived when we left, I couldn't stand it...

But my next blog will be where my life pretty much settles down a bit and where the exiting stuff happens...

The next stop, is the stop I like to call Home, and it continues to be my home:

Sax, Alicante, Spain.

-The Early Years- Part 1

The early years of my life seemed to be simple enough. I went to school in the UK until I was 4 years old, from there is where my journey pretty much starts. After those 4 years, my parents decided to take my brother and myself and we moved to Mallorca, Spain for a better life than in the UK.

And so they did, we moved to a city called Cala Major near Palma, they bought a bar near the beach and ran it quite well for a couple of years. My brother and I went to school in Genova for a couple of years, here we learned to speak one of the local dialects of Spanish which is Catalan. Unfortunately I don't remember much about that school as I was still quite young but I was told that (as kids do) we picked up languages or anything we learned like a sponge.

In almost no time at all, we were actually having conversations in Spanish just after a few weeks, we managed to learn it quite quickly, we made friends easily, spoke to teachers with no problems... I can't complain, learning a language can be one of the most powerful tools you will ever have in your life time and it will be a very useful tool, they can take you places.

After a couple of years, we moved again to a much smaller town called Santa Maria del Camí, tiny little village, very typical Spanish style town. Here we met our official Spanish teachers Gloria and Paco along with their daughters Ana and Elena, they taught us how to speak another dialect as well as manage the Catalan and Mallorquín, this dialect is called Castellano, Castellano is the most common spoken of all of the Spanish dialects out there. We also went to school there to continue to learn Catalan, Mallorquín and with Castellano on the way too, we had no trouble.

We loved living there, we made so many friends, learned so much... While we were living in Santa Maria, we lived in the country side outside of town, no one to bother us, we had our own land, swimming pool, the great outdoors so to speak. The house (From what I remember) was massive, it had a big lounge-diner, 3 rooms, small kitchen, a huge cacao bean tree but loads of land for us to run around in with our dogs. I love animals, be it cats, dogs, hamsters... We got our first set of dogs there, their names were Ben and Bella, 2 young puppies that needed a good home... unfortunately that wasn't with us, they caused so much trouble we actually found them another home they could destroy (Lol) but they were happy. Then we got another couple called Chica and Sasha, Chica was a tiny little yappy chiwawa thing and Sasha was... well, even until today we still don't know what breed he is, but they were lovely dogs either way, Sasha was quite protective of us which was nice until one day, some random guy pulls up to our front gates and says that he wants to take our dogs away... Shit got real and unfortunately we lost them, the guy took them away, we were all very sad.

Then (finally) we got our last set of dogs that were rescued as the owner didn't want them and he was going to put them both down and of course we said no... And so we welcome Jade and Gizmo, Jade was a mad Collie cross with something and Gizmo was a one-eyed, baddass pedigree Rottie. These have to be the best dogs we've ever had, they were loyal to us until the bitter end, bless them. We loved these 2 dogs from day one, Gizmo given by his size, he didn't mind me or anyone in our family to poke him, push him, he was just the most loved dog I have ever seen... but you'd never cross him as he'd cross you first if you tried anything :D #yayGizmo , and Jade was as mad as anything, she would run with my brother and I on our bikes chasing us around the field and the house and she loved to chase the big black rats we had running around the field and bringing them inside... bless :D

After all of this happening, this was only 4 years in total approximately and these first 4 years of my life are only the beginning of something great.

-End of Part 1- 

Introduction

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Luke Williams. I'm a some-what normal 23 year old, born in Essex, England raised in Spain for almost 20 years.

I have done many things in my life upto now and I don't plan to stop any time soon but people have urged me to write about what I've experienced and learned throughout my journey as many others also think it's been a quite interesting ride for someone my age.

Thinking about it, it has been on my mind for a little while to write something like this as before I never saw how much I have actually done and accomplished in these past few years. I have met some amazing and wonderful people, and had experiences others could dream for. I feel very blessed to have had everything I have done and I'm very thankful to those who have helped me on my journey to become into the person I am today. 

Many think they know me, many see me as a typical 23 year old youngster who is a party animal, raver, whatever. But I can assure you, I'm far from it.

So, here I am, with more support than ever, I think I am ready to start sharing my life story and experiences with those who are keen to read and know the real Me.

This is my story...