AS part of our ongoing conversations with Europeans who have chosen to settle in Spain, it is the turn of Swedish national Niklas Söderström who moved to the Costa del Sol in 2014.

Up until then, he had run a building company in Sweden, but was effectively head hunted by a real estate company based on the Golden Mile in Marbella.

Easy decision

It took Niklas a full seven days to decide to accept the offer and having landed in Spain nine years ago, he literally hasn’t looked back.

“I love it here as compared to Sweden not only is the weather and lifestyle so much better, it really has been for me, a land of opportunity” he explained.

Doesn’t miss Sweden

Adding “Apart of course from family there is really very little that I miss about Sweden and I have made my life here and I am enjoying it.”

Learning Spanish

Now very competent in Spanish, Niklas revealed his secret, first he found out the Spanish name for everything in his apartment and stuck post-it notes on each item so that he would remember the words.

Next step (which wasn’t just to learn the language) was to find a Spanish girlfriend and his vocabulary expanded considerably.

“Once I had some idea of what I was saying, I decided that I would have to have the guts to just go out, speak my version of Spanish and not be afraid to make a fool of myself and it worked, as because I tried, people helped me to get better.”

The only slight negative (which many people find) is bureaucracy but Niklas shrugged and said “you learn to live with it”.

Recommends Spain to compatriots

Now living in La Cala having moved from Marbella, he finds in quieter but more real and has made a number of friends, mainly English and Spanish as well as some Swedes and would recommend any compatriot considering moving here from Sweden to do so.