Re: Area best for Brits
 

This map is the best explanation of the new, real and totally authentic Spain :)

http://www.culturespain.com/wp-conte...ture-spain.jpg

Re: Area best for Brits
 

:lol:


You missed the Canary Islands!

Re: Area best for Brits
 

Have just clicked onto these posts tonight. Quite a mixed bag.

"Real" anything is all in a pre-conceived notion, having perhaps gained that notion from having 1st read around the subject.
If you read Jan Morris's "Spain", or V.S Pritchett's "The Spanish Temper", you may eventually find certain aspects of the "real" Spain.
But, as others have said, it's changed, whether one likes it or not!
It's easy to lose oneself in the middle of nowhere in Spain & dream that you have found the "real" Spain. But have you?

You could try reading John Hooper's "The new Spaniards", Ted Walker(deceased) "In Spain", or Giles Tremlett's "The ghosts of Spain". They portray a more up to date version of the country.

There's a lovely quotation of Marcel Proust:
"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes".

Re: Area best for Brits
 

Interesting! I like it.
However, ETA for the Basque country is somewhat skewed. Unfortunately it's what people associate with the Basque country I guess.
Got the best food, wine & pintxos (tapas to the southerners!) in the peninsular.
A complicated language, but different! Few "foreigners", which perhaps makes it more "real"!!!

Re: Area best for Brits
 

Where did you get this map so wonderful? Of the extreme left? Because I don't know the comparision betwen Andalucia (and the rest of Spain) and Morocco, for example, and I say, if you've been in Morocco, that for me is the Third World; ETA ... Well, now we have no ETA, and say that terrorism has not been unique and exclusive to Spain, I can remember the IRA, the Breton movement, the corço movemente, the Italian mafia, etc etc; corruption ... Well, is that fortunately or unfortunately, we have a transparent system, that gets all the shit afloat, I would like to know if the rest of other European countries do the same, I doubt it, because it's the same story that they talk about when the deaths of women in domestic violence in Spain, when it is proven that more women die in America and northern Europe

For put some examples

Re: Area best for Brits
 

Spain has not been changed by foreigners, it has changed because the country has changed and progressed.

Do you think that people dont have a lot of children because of the number of foreigners in the country?

Do you think that people left the tiny villages to find jobs in the city because of guiris, or because that type of life was unsustainable?

Spanish couples now live together before marriage, women work, there is abortion and birth control available, and believe it or not, it has nothing to do with a british, German or Russian invasion......it is because we wanted to move on and change.......Even if we did not have one single foreigner on Spanish soil the changes would still have happened.

you have already admitted that you know nowt about Spain.

Re: Area best for Brits
 

And don't forget to mention J that many of the changes came about soon after the death of Franco.
I remember that holidays here in his lifetime were a very different experience, there were no British larger louts back then...they would have ended in jail and the key thrown away!

The people (as you know better than I) were very repressed, no wonder they wanted change and as fast as they could get it, and good luck to them I say.

Re: Area best for Brits
 

Isn't it all because we have a global economy and the world has been opened up by the web? This is changing the face of the whole world not just Spain. Look back a couple of decades and see how most countries have changed, Russia, China,et al.
It's not down to an influx of immigrants but communication is now global.
I was going to call it progress but in some ways I am not sure that is correct.

Re: Area best for Brits
 

I think modern ideas were spread originally by television, films and books. But you're right, the internet has helped the spread of the western culture.

Re: Area best for Brits
 

No, that is putting the cart before the horse

10 years ago in Spain hardly anyone had internet. Things actually havent changed that much in the past 10 years. The biggest change socially in Spain was in the 80s, immediately following the death of Franco, although to be honest Spain was liberalising itself in the 15 years before Franco's death.

The internet actually hasn't changed society that much, especially in Spain when the local shops and restaurants most often do not have an internet presence.

Probably the biggest influence in the UK has been on teenagers where they are now constantly connected to their friends virtually rather than physically (a big negative imo). I dont think that impact is quote the same in Spain where kids are unlikely to carry iPhones or Blackberrys around with them or have a computer in their bedroom

Re: Area best for Brits
 

It was only meant as a joke. And yes, people from Britain sometimes make generalisations about parts of the UK - for instance Scots are often portrayed as aggressive alcoholics, the Scousers as car-stealing scallies.
Here's another map showing Europe - again it's taken from Spanish opinion (apparently - I didn't compose it myself)

http://www.culturespain.com/wp-conte...-and-spain.jpg

Re: Area best for Brits
 

I dont agree (I work a lot in this area)

Most internet use happens in the person's own language. People go to forums and social networks in their own language. Facebook had a miserable 1 million euro of revenue in Spain last year, so much for it being a $100 billion company :rofl:

In some respect, the internet has opened up possiblities for developing nations e.g. Indonesia, India, Philipines who will do your coding or data checking for $3 per hour - and made companies more comfortable doing business internationally. But the social impact is limited.

Re: Area best for Brits
 

Good one Stevie I think the map is great, Galicia being labelled as Scotland, we have the greenery and the bagpipes already, but forget the little pleated tartan shirts, no chance!!!!!!!

Re: Area best for Brits
 

I agree with you. There are very few places in the world that have not changed in the last 30 years.

What I think Spain has managed to do is to maintain an interest and still value their historic traditions regardless of the progression of different influences. Immigrants may change some areas due to their amounts but in places that are relatively untouched by the influx very little structural changes occur. To the Spanish people in my area giving people your time is important, people come first, tradition is important, money is only the means to having a life, having sufficient food is more important than any other thing.

I remember when we first came here that we were surprised how many of our neighbours checked that we were eating alright and that we liked the food. Many of them gave us a chance to taste their own particular favourites. Now we receive bags of oranges, other fruit and veg and traditional things such as bunuelos.

Whilst ever the people maintain this attitude to life hopefully there will not be too many changes to Spanish life apart from the natural progress of using new inventions and learning new skills. They absorb technology in the same way as others do in the world. Maybe it is totally different in larger places, just like it is in the UK and any other country but small communities have not changed drastically but evolved. I grew up on the outskirts of a city and loved the area that I lived in as a child due to the really good community spirit, this was lost when I moved nearer to the centre of the city.

Something else that I have noticed in my town is the fact that a lot of the time they dress the children in what most people in the UK would class as old fashioned clothes. I see children dressed in traditional outfits for a procession sitting waiting for the beginning whilst playing their nintendo DS´s and also see children playing with spinning tops (think this was a new phase for a couple of years).

Rosemary

Re: Area best for Brits
 

I think you underestimate the impact of the net in Spain. They're one of the world's leaders unfortunately in illegal downloads. Also, mobile Internet is one of the highest in Europe, alongside the UK
http://www.itespresso.es/la-penetrac...medium=twitter

You are joking, aren't you? Or did the whole of the events of the Arab Spring last year completely pass you by?