Yes, I have. 5 years in Spain. I was studying there and as someone who was born, raised and now living in eastern Europe, I can tell you that this was one of th

Yes, I have. 5 years in Spain. I was studying there and as someone who was born, raised and now living in eastern Europe, I can tell you that this was one of the most valuable experiences of my entire life. First things first, I grew up in a large city that was torn by protests up until the late 90's, despite the collapse of the soviet union. Even though I was a kid in the 90's, I grew up with the idea that I'll emigrate. And So I did the moment I got the chance in the mid 2000's. I am not sure if things had changed at that time or I had but life was nothing like I would have expected. First off, coming from a poor country with no financial support is extremely difficult. Second, Eastern Europe is a pretty non-secular place so foreigners are not something you see every day. I wouldn't say the foreign kids(as few as they were) in school were bullied in any way or left out but they were almost always pushed a bit off to the side. Something I did not experience in Spain. Students, professors, random strangers on the street - everyone, no exception was very friendly and welcoming, helpful and friendly. I did my last year of school there and at the time my country was not in the EU and I was an illegal immigrant by all means. I was concerned about this when I enrolled and I asked the secretary of the school if that is a problem. Her reaction blew my mind: "We are not immigration services. We are an educational institution. What kind of animals do we have to be to say no to a kid that wants to study?". I truly had no idea what to say, I think I stood there for a good 5 minutes with my mouth wide open. For years I was trying to figure out where the catch was, but there really wasn't one. I studied software engineering and I did extremely well, graduating second in my class by a tiny fraction behind the guy that was first. When I started university I was 18 and I had been writing code since I was 10 so everything was very natural to me. Which in addition made me even more popular since I could help the others and I gladly did. I guess one of the most valuable experiences was that I used to live in the south of Spain, which besides giving me plenty of opportunity to make Spanish almost a native language to me, also made English a native language due to the large British diaspora. 2 years down the road the Spanish couldn't tell I wasn't Spanish and the English couldn't tell I wasn't English. So on that front alone it was all worth it. I suppose I was never a fan of hot weather but I could easily picture myself spending the rest of my life there. However a few life changing events happened(lost my best friend, along a very bitter experience I had with a girl over there), so I figured the best way to cope with it was to move back home and start over. Was it worth it? Totally!