About Euroresidente (information)

The first site in Spain for foreign residents

I suppose I started to think about the possibility of writing a guide for foreign residents in Spain, when I began to experience for myself some of the infuriating difficulties involved in applying for residence, getting a work permit, health care, a driving licence, finding, renting and then buying property, having a baby, learning how to ask for roast pork in restaurants without being served half a suckling pig with it's head still on, how to get my kids into state schools, how to get them out again and matriculate them in the European school, how to locate reputable Spanish courses for students interested in coming to Spain to study Spanish language and culture.....

The list is endless, and yet at least I spoke Spanish! Foreign residents in Spain who don't yet speak the language can experience real problems when trying to fathom Spanish burocracy or when just trying to get on with life over here.

Another thing - although I love Spain, I missed my own country right from the beginning. My family, newspapers, Coronation Street and other British television treasures, marmite, custard, English books, even the rain (honest!). Then Internet arrived. In 1988 when I started living and working in Spain, Internet was just beginning over here, and it wouldn't be until about 8 years later that it caught on to such an extent as to really affect Spanish peoples' personal and professional lives. It was obvious that Internet offered foreign residents here a whole range of hitherto unthought of possibilities, not only information and advice about how to go about things in Spain, but also resources and tools to help us feel more in contact with our friends and families in our home countries. I started to develop this idea further some 7 years ago, while I was on maternity leave and Euroresidentes is the result.







 
 



 





 

 







In 1999 I started to publish the first contents armed with an idea, a computer, a simple modem (and very slow) Internet conexion and Netscape Composer (all the rage in those days). Soon a portal started to emerge, albeit with a rather homemade (if not catastrophic) design (see left). Although I was very proud of it at the time!

To begin with I published the site on a free hosting service in the USA, and when that place disappeared just at the start of the dot-com crisis, I moved to another service after losing half the files. It was to my great surprise, and delight, that we started immediatly to receive messages and questions from foreign residents in Spain, aswell as from European nationals thinking about moving to Spain, and wanting to find out more information before actually taking the plunge.

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7 years later, Internet has established itself as a basic source of information for more and more people all over the World. The new Euroresidentes Spain site reflects this and other changes, and as you can see the design has become more professional too over the years (thanks to Trini who tactfully transformed my first attempts into a real portal). The contents in Spanish have grown substantially, particularly the scientific and technologies sections. Euroresidentes Nanotecnología is the Spanish-speaking world's first and most consulted portal on Nanotechnology, our section of recipies is one of the largest selections of recetas available in Spanish, our travel section is one of the most extensive in Spanish on the Internet. Euroresidentes continues to grow in strength, visitor statistics, breadth of information and content. We now collaborate with several media groups in Spain and in the UK, we have collaborated on different projects with the European Commission and Spain's Telefónica, we have also signed agreements with banks, travel companies and the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology in the US. 
Our independence, versatility and freedom is one of Euroresidentes' greatest strengths, as are the hours and hours of hard work and the enthusiasm of the team who contribute content.

.... Which leads us on to visitor statistics: In 2000, after about six months Euroresidentes received on average 50 visits a day. And I must admit, most of them were from my loyal family!! Six years on, and we now receive more than 14 million visits per month from residents from all over the World (more than 100 different countries). And very few visits these days are from my family because they are now too busy helping me with content in their spare time! My Dad is the author of two of our blogs, Spanish classical music and Ageing, and publishes regular articles from his home in Bath, England. My sister, who lives in San Sebastian, is the author of our online English language course, the DIY section (in Spanish, Bricolaje) and other material included in Hotels in Spain. She also translates some of our Spanish content into English. My Mum supplied me with some of the first recipes in the Spanish section Recetas and helped me with the content for the section on panic attacks (she is a counsellor) in the Spanish section. My cousin-in-lawadvises and writes for our Spanish Food and Health section and my mother-in-law is the author of many of our Spanish traditional recipies. My husband helps in all sorts of ways, from content in Spanish, to strategy, support, stamina and company. And our children have even caught the bug too, and create content on another of our sites called Estudiantes. They have also contributed to the section on Adolescencia in the Spanish section.

Meanwhile the network of staff, collaborators and projects continues to grow. A big thank you to everyone who has helped the site grow into something much greater than I ever expected it to be, thank you to all the people who send us their helpful comments, suggestions, contributions and enquiries every day, and thank you to the growing community of Euroresidentes in Spain, Europe and further afield whose visits and interest remain our main source of inspiration. Anyone wishing to comment on or contribute to the content of Euroresidentes please send an email to euroresi@euroresidentes.com.