How Spanish are you, or at least how Spanish do you feel ?

Funny how your loyalties change when you've just bought an atico on a golf developement in Murcia !

Whilst watching the "British" Open over the weekend my Mother said how good it was that Padraig Harrington was at the top of the leaderboard, to which my wife Jane replied, "We're supporting Sergio Garcia because after all we are 'half Spanish now'!

Where's my British Passport gone?  Steve

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good to hear you have "gone native" already!

If only we could pick up "la lengua" as easily -  I get all sorts of odd looks when i try out my Spanish, goodness knows what i am saying!

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The Championship you refer to is the Open as any "Golfer" knows not the "British Open"

The Open Championship is the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf. It is the only major held outside the USA and is administered by the R&A, which is the governing body of golf outside the U.S. and Mexico. The event takes place every year on one of nine historic links courses in the United Kingdom. In 2007, The Open had a prize fund of £4.2 million (at the time, approximately €6.197 million or $8.638 million). Historically, The Open's prize money was consistently the least of the four majors; since 2002 it has been the highest. The tournament is sometimes referred to as the British Open by the ill informed (usually Americans) although it has never been played in Wales. The Open is played on the weekend of the third Friday in July, and is the third major to take place each year following The Masters and the U.S. Open and before the PGA Championship. The Open features a four hole playoff for all golfers tied at the end of regulation. It begins on the first hole, and then moves to the 16th, 17th, and 18th. If any golfers remained tied at this point, they play the 18th hole over and over until there is a winner.

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Hi Johnone

Thanks for misreading my post as "British Open" rather than "British" Open. I too have been a "Golfer" for 35 years and have always know it as The Open. Remembering not all people who are on this forum are "Golfers" so sometimes I deem it neccessary to "Define" the location of the championship in question for their benefit. However I applaud you in giving everyone a history lesson of the same.

PS. Although there is a four hole playoff it may only be at Carnoustie that they use the 1st, 16th, 17th and 18th, depending on course layout.

Best regards your fellow Mensan ......Steve

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"....learning Spanish so the local population accept us as part of their community is a complete waste of time!"

Quite true. Anybody asked a resident Argentinian, for example, how accepted he feels here? I think learning Spanish and using it as much as possible, whatever level you have attained, is a good way of showing repsect for our hosts, which will sometimes but by no means always be appreciated, but anybody who thinks that it makes them blend in and feel "accepted" (and I've met plenty) is sadly fooling themselves. I've had lengthy conversations with a Mexican friend, whose Spanish is arguably better than the average Andalucian's, and he feels just as much an "alien" here as I do.

Interesting thread!

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Hi, been reading this thread and there are some interesting comments coming out.

I go along the lines of I will never be Spanish but it will not stop me from integrating as much as I can. I have some really good Spanish friends who accept me for being me not for being English.

I think some people do accept you into the community and some don't, just the same in the UK really. The majority of people I have met are very friendly and accommodating. I used to live between Granada and Jaen in a small village, we were the second British family to move in and on the 1st night we were greeted at our door by a group of 15 Spanish women who wanted to talk to us and make us feel welcome, one of them even bought a Spanish/English dictionary with her so she could try and explain. We all got by and had a great time. After this we were inundated with invitations to their homes and weddings etc.

Maybe I am not fully accepted but I feel most welcome.

Regards to everyone

Russ

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"Maybe I am not fully accepted but I feel most welcome."

Another good point, and one that happily I also find to be mostly, but again not always, the case.

I have a Spanish neighbour who recently commented to me that he finds it strange that the Chinese community (which is quite substantial here in Torremolinos now) do not seem to want to make any attempt to integrate. Perhaps I don't find it quite so strange because a) as a foreigner I know how unwelcome you can sometimes be made to feel no matter how hard you try and b) because coming from England, I'm very used to the idea of various different nationalities/cultures all living in the same area, while still keeping pretty much to their own. The very concept of a "Chinatown" as in London or Liverpool or many American cities is probably quite alien to the Spanish.

The same Spanish neighbour has a baby son named Luis. The other day in passing he said, jokingly (although many a true word is spoken in jest) to his son, "watch out, here comes the Englishman - they stole Gibraltar!" or words to that effect. I retorted to his son (jokingly?!) that his daddy named him Lewis, because he'll do better in life with that name than if he called him Fernando! Without wanting to get drawn into the Gib debate (either with my neighbour or here in the forum) I didn't mention anything about Spain claiming to have more right to "possess" Ceuta or Melilla than Britain does Gibraltar.......

I have another part-time Spanish neighbour - he lives most of the year in Extremadura. On his latest  visit, he decided to take over tackling a community problem that has so far beaten me as president, namely getting an intermittent fault on our automatic garage door fixed. He presumed, I believe, that my 18 months effort had failed to produce results, because I was probably being given the run around by the spectacularly dismal company (based in Fuengirola, name on request) on account of me being a foreigner. I did feel that he may be right to a point, but it's interesting that he thought that one of his "own" would behave that way. Takes one to know one? Anyway, to cut a long story short, after 2 months of intense effort, he got precisely nowhere with the problem, and concluded that it was because "this is Andalucia". It would never happen in Extremadura of course!

The first neighbour I mentioned has often expressed to me his dislike of Catalans (he is Andalucian). So the North / South divide in all it's permutations is alive and well here in Spain as well!

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Davmunster

how true, back in the early nineties, my wife and i had several good holidays in Spain. The best two by far were touring round on my Kawaski 900 motorbike. We got such a welcome everywhere we stayed, and in the small villages the locals would come out and gather round us with their young kids in fascination at the bike. The reception we got was always freindlier than we used to get touring in britain. Even at the time we were very aware that the fact we were on holiday was much to do with the 'good'  feeling, but it still left us with a real love of Spain and its people.

Sadly, five years ago it changed very much for the worse for us when we attemped to buy an appartment. Thanks to bad UK agents getting us involved with bad UK and Spanish lawyers and an even worse Spanish developer, we have now had 5 five years of being swindled, worry and stress and like many, are the middle of a long and expensive court battle to get our deposit back. It's sad how it makes us feel, the very word 'Spain' now fills us with sadness and despair at their justice system, and it's the last place we would want to visit at the moment. Such a shame, i just hope one day we will feel the same way as we did once. We were made to feel very welcome by the 'real' people of Spain, and i hang on to that memory.

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Hi All. Having lived here for over 12 years now, I feel totally at home. I must admit to my spanish not being as fluent or as quick as it should be but mainly that is because most of my clients are english!

Both my children are totally fluent and have lived teh spanish way since 4 and 5 years of age. However, they cant stay up as late as the spanish children without being incredibly grumpy the following morning and I doo see differences in the culture which I think is in the blood.

I do wonder if by having their full education in Spain but being british will hold them back in the future and I was told about a couple of fathers at the rugby club who are changing their sons passports to Spanish nationals to help them in their quest to join the army or the police!

I havent felt alienated at all - maybe down to the mix of blood I carry - but sometimes feel I let myself down by not fully knowing the language. Workwise its never been a problem and in attempting anything within the system I have never felt held back - a try at the language and a broad smile seems to open all doors imaginable!

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