Starting the mission of tackling and decoding a life abroad

I first arrived in Barcelona in Jan 2009 full of expectation and a little teeny weenie bit of dread. I had just returned from a year and a half of hardcore life experience in South America. I first lived alone for 8 months in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I then, for fault of a wonderfully spontaneous but later to become an extremely complex intercultural love affair with a Peruvian doctor, I then moved to Cusco, Peru. I spent a further 8 more months living there with the aforementioned medic. I also give thanks to this experience for allowing me to discover in depth the amazing country that is Peru, and for, without wanting to, losing a great deal of weight due to stress and nervous energy. (Love is a dangerous thing at times, as are Peruvian stomach parasites!)
After this Peruvian/English love experience ended in 2008, I decided to continue my love affair with the Spanish language and Latin culture and moved here to Barcelona. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Two years on, I have learnt many things about the Catalan mentality (and certainly about my own). Most notably, their perception of foreigners, in particular foreign women, is unsettling at times. 
I have fallen in love... (No, not with a Catalan) but with the no rules barred, seemingly relaxed attitude of the locals. Who, on the other hand, are extremely complex and serious individuals.Behind the facade of laughter and relaxed joviality that exists to varying extents in whichever culture you may find yourself in, lies a complex series of ´´cultural detectors´´. These can be used to decode the characters of the locals. Which is exactly what I am going to be doing here in this blog. How does an English 30 year old woman or señora....(sounds so final and formal in Spanish: as if I really have stepped over the age threshold from girl to mature lady, without even knowing it... In the English language I would still be referred to as a girl!!) mange to absorb the amazing Catalan and Spanish culture, whilst retaining her own nationality and satisfying her unique needs and wants?
You can take an English woman (who considers herself to be a woman of the world first and foremost I might add) out of England, but can you take the English out of the English woman????I always thought you could, but now I am beginning to realize that maybe you shouldn´t really want to do so...