Mercedes

Depends on the expats. The ones they generally like are the expats who intergrate with the Spanish and try and speak to them in their language rather than the ones who live in British Gettos, eat only British food blah blah blah and shout at them in English as if they are morons (rather than them being the moron). But there again there is alot of the former expats who don't like the latter either. I certainly don't. Makes me ashamed to be British at times.

sibsie

I lived in a Valenciano village. Bear in mind that there is lots of infighting between the Spanish regions and an awful lot of Spanish pride. Road signs in Castilian would be crossed out and hand written in Valenciano. Even if your level of Castilian was decent, you could walk into a shop and they'd suddenly only speak Valenciano. My local post office were the worst offenders for this.

I had two bad experiences that spring to mind. Once was when I got attacked by a dog (dogs just roam around in Spain). I went to the local hospital to try and get a tetantus shot and a couple of stitches for my hand. The woman at the reception desk glared at me and told me she didn't deal with foreigners. I'm very blonde and blue eyed so there was no chance I was Spanish! She point blank refused to treat me. I ended up going to my local farmacia which is run by two lovely guys. They jabbed me and patched up my hand free of charge. They called the woman at the hospital to make sure I'd got my story right and wasn't having language problems. At the end of the phone conversation they said to me that the woman hated foreigners and shrugged.

Another occasion after one of my three robberies, I went into my local Guardia Civil to do the property list. The guard on duty told me to go home and only come back with a Spanish person and a man at that! Not only was he xenophobic but a real chauvanist too.

The only other times I saw or experienced it was fighting between the international school kids and the Spanish schools.

That being said my Spanish friends complained more about the Germans, Romanians and South Americans than the Brits. They viewed Brits as ignorant but harmless.

I can totally understand it though. Imagine if Cornwall suddenly became over run with Spanish people. Imagine if they started building housing complexes all over the place, taking over local night spots, shops and refusing to speak to the locals.

jerry brewer

Hi All,
Interesting thoughts,
My own experience was only for about 7 mths, in 2000, well away from the brit areas, the big majority were real friendly & helpfull, even when I tried my terrible spanish,
but it seemed all the brit 'invasion' was wearing a bit thin with a few then, most spanish worrying if their children would be able to afford housing, Suppose time will tell , and if the money & jobs for the spanish start to dry up.
Must admitt I couldn't believe there were english 'getto's' so to speak, complete english towns in spain, I thought myself, about equivalent areas in the UK, and the reaction from some UK people about these areas.
Cheers
Jerry

jdr

I think you have hit the nail on the head, its the same in every country in the world. Some people love foreigners, some hate them, and everyone has their own reasons. You name the city, i`ll name the ghetto

But you can take your choice where you live.......Most Spanish i have met have been pukka.