Meet a family in Sant Pere de Ribes
What is your name?
Heather Mercier
Where did you move from, what was the town like?
We moved from Park City, Utah USA. Park City is a mountain town, with very easy access to lots of world class outdoor activities including resort and backcountry skiing/snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking, road biking, boating, etc. It is a year-round resort town. Many of the residents live there for the natural beauty and access to the outdoors. Park City also has good public schools, is 30 mins from an international airport and has a large hospital on the edge of town. The population of Park City is between 8-10 thousand people.
Which town have you moved to here, and who did you move with?
We moved to Sant Pere de Ribes. My husband, our two children, aged 15 and 12, and I moved.
What was the biggest thing you had to get used to? The fact that most things are not open on Sunday, many businesses close in the middle of the afternoon and restaurants don’t open until 8pm.
Is there anything you still cannot get your head around?
No, I think we are pretty well adjusted and have come to appreciate the way of life.
What is the best and worst thing about living in Sant Pere de Ribes?
We love living in Sant Pere de Ribes. The bus access for the kids, the proximity to Sitges, and the small-town community feel are wonderful. We love being able to walk for our errands versus needing to drive everywhere. Also, our children have so much freedom here which they love.
What would have helped you the most when you first arrived?
The hardest thing to understand was navigating the bureaucratic systems (for lack of a better way to say it). Getting our TIE cards, getting in the healthcare system, registering our car, etc. The language barrier for those things is really intimidating because they are pretty important.
Where are your favourite places to relax, get advice and play?
We love to go to the beach of course. But we also enjoy just chilling at home as a family. We always have. I get advice about living here from a small group of friends we have made that we trust. And we love playing outside – anywhere in the vineyards surrounding Sant Pere. We also love to travel and because of my kids sport we have gotten to go really cool places in Spain.
Is there any Expat business you know that you want to give a shout-out to?
Yoga with Magdalena Gladstone. (I see you already have her listed so am not sharing the info)
What problems have you faced since living in Sant Pere de Ribes?
No real problems per se. It was/is a pain in the ass to deal with anything related to our TIE cards. But other than that, we have been able to navigate pretty easily. Thank goodness!
What do you miss the most about your home town?
It is funny, the longer we are away, the less we miss. We lived very close to my parents and sister, so I do miss that. The boys miss their cousins as well. I miss not owning our own home. We enjoy working on a house and feel less motivated to do that in a rental. But, buying a house seems very overwhelming so we haven’t really decided to tackle that yet.
What would be the one piece of advice you would give someone moving to a new international town?
You have to just jump in feet first. Everything seems a bit daunting at first, but more often than not there is always someone there to help you. And everything always works out in the end. There is nothing to fear.