The 34 year-old from Buenos Aires, Argentina, has always wanted to move abroad. A year and a half after migrating to the UK to be with her boyfriend, Natalia is now living out her dream.
Michelle Gooden-Jones
Before moving to London, Natalia Copercido admits that in her mind it had appeared to be “the perfect city”.
“I imagined a lot of elegance, and thought a lot about the Queen, but when I arrived, I found it was not all full of wealthy people and it isn’t just about Notting Hill. There are many areas that are not wealthy, and I love that”, she says.
She acknowledges that she wasn’t expecting there to be so many migrants living in the city.
“When I’m on the tube I can listen to maybe four or five different languages being spoken. The city respects every culture, people are very tolerant and being in London opens your mind”, Natalia explains.
She believes that “everything runs smoother in London” and recalls once asking somebody: “What would happen if the electricity were to cut out here?” to which the person replied, “Why would the electricity cut out?”
Natalia reveals that power cuts are something that happens regularly in Argentina, “entire neighbourhoods can go for two to seven days without electricity, but in England something like that just isn’t normal”.
“I feel very safe in London, in comparison to Argentina. Here, I can cycle until 2am without the fear of being robbed. In Argentina I always felt tense about the people around me. I was robbed four times there. In London you are freer to explore the city. If you do something wrong here, you go to jail, you pay the consequences, but in Argentina, it’s not like that”.
Although Natalia has not made any English friends and jokingly says, “migrant people make migrant friends”, she believes that English people are in general “very friendly and polite”, expressing, “they usually try to speak slower when I don’t understand something”.
Natalia has mostly been charmed by London, but has faced some of the challenges that come along with migrating to a foreign country.
“When I first arrived I couldn’t speak any English, I had only studied English in secondary school”, she remembers.
After mainly hearing English from United States growing up in Argentina, she admits that getting used to the British accent, was initially “difficult”.
In Buenos Aires she worked as a copywriter, so carrying on with her profession in London has also been problematic.
“Here, I work as a freelance copywriter for a few clients in Spain and Latin America, and also as a translator for some TV commercials, but the amount of work I get here is not like the amount I got in Buenos Aires”, which can probably be put down to the language barrier.
Natalia admits that although she has been captivated by the city, she doesn’t think she could live in London for her whole life.
“I like the beach. I need more summer. In a few years I might move to Barcelona”, she says.
What Natalia definitely appreciates about London is the diversity in cultures, shops and cuisines, and although she is far from Argentina, she is still able to enjoy a cup of yerba mate everyday between breakfast and lunch.
(Photos: Pixabay)
.jpg)
