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VAMOS [ 49 ] NUESTROS RELATOS Hello, I'm Zakaria, more often known as Zak. You probably don't know me but I'm the dude that has blue hair; you might have seenme walk by onmy way to class. Well, basically I go to the press club (club de prensa) and they said that it would be cool if I wrote about my life in London, so here I am… Ever y thing s tar ted in Richmond Surrey Kingston upon Thames hospital on the 6th of august 2008. I grew up in my grandparents’ house until I was about 2-3 years old, then my parents bought a house and we went to live there. As a kid I was a very kind, mature and sociable, making my parents pretty proud of me. I went to a school next to my house called “Grange Park Primary School”. I started when I was about four and I made loads of new friends. Unlike Spain, we were with the same class mates until we went to secondary school, so I had many strong connections with my school friends since we were together nearly all day. The exams were very different in London, in view of the fact that whether you fail them or not you will still pass to the next year. Obviously in secondary it wouldn't be quite like that, where you could repeat the whole year. My mom worked in Human Resources in the chain of Hilton Hotels, and my dad worked for the government in the tax revenue service. They took turns in taking me to school and bringing me home, even though I still stayed hours after school in an “after school club” where I made even more friends and had a really fun time with the teachers and my mates. Nearly every time that I got picked up my parents would buy me an ice cream from the ice cream van that always parked close to the school. Then in 2017-2018 things got worse in London and my parents decided that it was too dangerous for me, so my parents decided to move to Spain. However, my dad had to stay in London so they would be able to pay for the school. When I arrived here it was around August and I was turning nine so I had a birthday party in London before I left in June and another one in Spain on my actual birthday, I lived in my grandparents’ house until we moved into a flat which we are currently living in now. We live around 40 minutes away from school so we have to wake up pretty early to get there on time. My mom had to get used to driving on the right side of the road because in London you drive on the left side and there are also tolls on the motorway which we didn't have in London. In London the school system is one year ahead of Spain so I had to repeat year four, but since there wasn't enough space and I didn't have enough Spanish, I had to repeat year four and year three, therefore, the first day of school when I got to know all of my classmates some of them were a bit immature for me, but I was able to deal with it. At first I found it pretty difficult to adapt to all of the exams and everything else but I still passed to year four, year five, year six and now, year seven. I have to admit that I do miss my mates in London and my family in London, but now I kind of got used to it since I’ve made loads of new friends and I’m hoping to make more and maybe get to know some people in year eight, which is the year that I’m supposed to be in.Well for now that's the end of my story for now, but I’d love to know yours so if you see me, don't be shy to say hi. Hopefully I can continue my story next year, thank you for reading, and let's see what the next chapter brings us. Zakaria Mohidin 1º ESO A British in Spain