Outsiders.
 

The name of this forum explain it well, we are expats – outsiders. It's not a big deal in a foreigner friendly country which welcomes integration, but there are dangers.

We can overdo our efforts at integration. It can lead to resentment. A decent knowledge of the language and our host country's traditions will improve our lives, but I think that we should observe certain limits and not get too carried away.

I've been invited to weddings, funerals and christenings because I've been here for a long time and treat people with respect, but I'll always be the guiri in the corner and I respect that.

Sometimes it's 'Muy privado', and we are excluded, and rightly so, we are celebrating the Battle of Britain at the moment, and paying our respects to 9/11, and our hosts are excluded, especially from the former.

My pal, Ramon, has never even heard of the Battle of Britain, I tried to explain earlier until I remembered Franco.

Re: Outsiders.
 

um, ok ?

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I'm never quite nationalistic enough to actually celebrate the former, and as for the latter, had the twin towers been packed with the americans who supported the IRA and lied about Iraq, I would have cheered their fall to the echo.

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My wife is a born Cockney but has lived most of her life in Spain, learning both Catalan and Castellano on her back (I'm dead if she reads this, and we're both on our second go on the marry-go-round).

On Wednesday she was watching Eastenders, a reminder of a long-distant home for her. I was on the terrace but came in when she started cursing, first in Castellano and then in Catalan as she got more exited.

The Queen Vic was burning down and she called Barbara Windsor a Puta. I nearly fell off my chair laughing, and she implied that I was Windsor's son. It got more heated and she forgot her English and really went to town.

She could integrate tomorrow, again, but I would have no chance. They never taught me the Spanish F words at night school.

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Read el Jueves.

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Is it just me who feels a little uncomfortable reading something like that!?

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You've mispelt things, Bil. Mis huevos would have been more appropriate. And as purely Spanish is rightly discouraged on this forum, bollocks would have been more appropriate.

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Wasn´t that after the 9/11 attack ?

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I can dream, can't I?

I think I am right in saying that the US has screwed more democracies than ever Russia did

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If you want to bend it that way, fine.

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I think you will find that there is a magazine whose name is El Jueves = Thursday.

It's full name is 'Thursday. The magazine that comes out on Wednesday'

PS, I think you will find that mispelt is misspelt. As it were. Ahaha.

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OK, just those yanks that supported terrorism and helped to overthrow democracies prior to 9/11.

Of course we might need a few more towers to hold them all, but ....

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I would imagine it is only you, jocular comments seem to pass you by, I blame it on the constant rain and counting sheep for a living. And if you keep making silly remarks, I'm going to phone the Orchards.

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Yeah yeah yeah... it wasn't an attack... I am a reformed person, I just think its a little disrespectful thats all... I say a lot of shit on this forum but I would never say something like that about the person I share my bed with.

Oh and tomorrow I will mostly be destroying Himalayan Balsam, not sheep counting.

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Well, it's Sunday tomorrow, isn't it?

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Now I agree!

I actually thought at the time it was perfect to make peace between the Christian and Islamic nations. You know, it´s pretty clear by now. "We can hurt you, you can hurt us back"
Let´s be friends, tataaa, Worldpeace in a nutshell!

(sorry for off topic comment, and Geert Wilders is a nutcase!)

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I'm actually waiting for the day that the Jews and Muslims realise they are one and the same and they join up to defeat the Christians... now that will be fun.

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About the West Country, to lighten the discussion.

On a rainy, early morning I walked my dogs in a newly planted forest near Launceston.. Half-way across the forest, we came to a river crossing and could have turned right or left, which the dogs wanted to do, but I decided to go straight ahead into a dark part of the woods.

Twenty yards later I realised that the dogs were glued to my side. There was a howling wind and I stepped into the thick forest to light my cigarette. While I was struggling to light it, I noticed that my hair was standing on end, and I had long hair at the time.

I lived nearby and asked the locals. A man had killed his wife there and hanged himself, 50 years earlier. Nonsense, of course it is, only my dogs knew the truth.

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Errr..... riiiight.....

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It's just an expression. It doesn't mean anything disrespectful. People say I learnt Spanish 'on my back'. It only means I have a Spanish boyfriend. Nothing wrong with that. I don't find it insulting.

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Getting back to the above for a moment ;)
Yes you raise a valid point & of course the more we learn the easier it could be to trip up ?

Never known anyone celebrate the battle of Britain, but I guess you were just using this as an example ?
Interestingly (well for me) there was a program on about the Polish pilots in the battle & to summarize they were the most ferocious, had the highest kill rate and lost a lot of men in the conflict.
On VE day each country who's troops fought was represented for the march to celebrate & they were from every corner of the world ...... except Poland !
They had to stand in the crowd, because if they were marching it may well have upset the lunatic in Moscow who had been given Poland in the spoils.
The very reason that Britain had entered the war of course, so the treachery was doubled for those Polish who had fought & died.

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I didn't say I found it insulting I said I found it uncomfortable reading... but as you will have seen the discussion moved on so lets join in and... move on. We can't all agree on everything eh?

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Talking about outsiders, we’ve got a small church near to us which is considered to be English but it’s actually Scandinavian. The 50,000 British expats who live in the area have taken it over by sheer weight of numbers.

It’s not very well attended, apart from VE day when it’s packed inside and out with wrinkled veterans showing their colours and medals.

Possibly because of the tax receipts from the 50,000 Brits and their voting strength, the Spanish mayor attends each year and stands to attention when the flags are raised.

It always makes me smile, his knowledge of his own country’s history counts for little, and he’s a politician right down to his plastic smile. He’s been in power for 20 years and his majority increases with each new veteran arriving. That he belongs to the PP (Conservatives) goes without saying.

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During the second world war we moved to a small island from Glasgow after the Clydebank blitz and were known for the next three years as the vaccys. I married an Orcadian and lived on his small island for15 years and was known as an incomer and ferrylouper so I was happy to be greeted in Spain with open arms and have never felt like an outsider and speaking the language is only a small part of the reason. If you live in a small community you have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty not invite people over for a sundowner which most of us thought was the name of a drink.

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If it was a newly planted forest, how did he hang himself there 50 years previously?

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It was previously felled and replanted? :confused: That's quite normal. That's what the Forestry Commission do every day. Lots of places in Scotland are now felling conifers and replanting native species.

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I was an outsider when I lived in the West Country, much the same as I am an outsider here in Spain. On reflection, it was probably a bigger deal back in the UK. Big cities are a melting pot and I feel comfortable in them. Or among a large group of expats (outsiders) who have also chosen to live abroad.

Spanish people seem to accept us and our funny ways, I’ve never seen their ex-service personnel parading around with their colours and medals. Several hundred expats who live locally carry one of the heavy Spanish religious objects through the town during the main fiesta and always get the loudest cheers from the spectators. They like us to show our respect for their country’s tradition, without going over the top and brown-nosing them, as one of the posters on here states so eloquently (and he’s Spanish).

At least once a fortnight, I go to a Spanish café really early to purposely meet a group of local Spaniards, most of whom are elderly men. They invite me to their tables and we put the world right over coffee, though a few of them have a small whiskey to start the day and loosen the tongue.

But sometimes they don’t invite me over, often because one of their sons who are mostly unemployed nowadays, are sitting at the tables. Sadly, those unemployed men are getting more and more resentful of guiris, wrongly proclaiming that they are stealing their jobs.

Maybe they’re not wrong in their thinking.

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General Anders forces were well looked after by Britain after the war in gratitude for their services to the war effort. They were housed and fed for many years and looked after by The National Assistance Board and my father as a civil servant was an administrator in several camps. Their relatives were collected from camps all over Europe and north Africa and brought to Britain to join them. The Poles prospered and eventually the camps were no longer required. Most lived in Britain for the rest of their lives and many are buried in Highgate cemetery in London. So where is the betrayal?

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The betrayal I guess was the handing over of poland and poles to the Russians.

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I felt more of an outsider in the west country than here.

And I was born there.

Lovely clotted cream though, especially on my scones, pronunced scones not scons.

Ill always be the extranjera here but not always the outsider.:thumbsup:

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I think he meant that they weren't allowed to take part in a parade.

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That’s very close to how I feel about Spain. I love it to bits, but know that there is a limit to my integration. That limit might be imagined on my part, aided by my obvious guiri appearance.

I met an expat a few weeks ago who had lost his wife recently. I naturally asked him if he was considering a return to the UK.. He was appalled by my question. ‘I scattered her ashes at La Mata, why on earth would I want to return to the UK?’

It’s difficult to reply to absolute logic, especially if you agree with it. Being an optimist, I’ve also asked that my ashes be scattered in the Mediterranean in 50 years time, but I want the telegram first, the lady owes me.

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Actually the USSR just screwed countries that weren't democracies in the first place. The USSR did more screwing than the US ever did IMO.

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Really? Care to list those countries please? The US *****ed with the vast majority of countries in South America, grenada, iraq, Iran. I think it's at least 20 at the last count.

How many have the USSR screwed? They aren't angels, but I think they lacked the scope of the US.

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Well, you can’t get away from WW2, the biggest ever. Spain took no part in it and has not suffered its consequences, the same as Ireland.

Injustices after 1945? The list is endless, Poles, Cossacks, Yugoslaviens, Hungarians, and most of all, Germans. If you dig too deep, the horrors will overwhelm you.

It was all over 65 years ago, few of us were around then, but some reminders will last another thousand years and should.

9/11 was yesterday, compared to WW2 it was just a silly attempt by Islamists to highlight their cause. Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing compared to WW2, silly blips caused by silly people.

There’s a big one coming up, it’s inevitable. We walked out of the caves with clubs to kill the opposition, we’re going to do the same soon with nuclear bombs.

I’m hoping that the radiation levels will miss Spain and that Iran will not point missiles at a neutral country that doesn’t want to fight anyone.

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Great idea to avoid wars. If two countries are considering war, take all the pro war politicians, give them a bread knife each and let them fight it out in Wembly stadium on prime time TV.

Last one standing wins.

Why is another big war unavoidable?

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It could be argued that Spain was involved from the start - the Spanish civil war was a testing ground for army tactics and dive-bombers. As for "not suffering its consequences" read up on the "years of hunger". I'm not sure which European country was the best to wait out the second world war in (Switzerland? Ireland?) but I don't think Spain with the 1000s of regime sponsored murders would have been top of the list. Of course the competition for bottom of the list was particularly strong - Russia, Germany, Poland.

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I suspect you know the answer and are merely fishing, but I’m in the mood for answering anyway.

Iran is extremely close to manufacturing nuclear bombs and already has the capabilities to transport them as far as Israel. Their stated aim is to destroy Israel.

Israel has no choice but to defend itself and has the capability to destroy the Iranian nuclear sites. Unfortunately, the fall-out will be horrendous., Iranian bombs will get through and their scattered peoples across the world will join in the mayhem.

It will be Islam versus Christianity on a massive scale, with weapons undreamt of in the crusades.

It’s unstoppable, the differences are too great.

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Afghanistan, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, korea, most of Eastern Europe, the estimated 11 million slaughtered by Stalin, Gulags, China, Cuba, Angola, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ethiopia.... the list is endless I'm afraid Bil.. and while I'm no massive fan of US foreign policy it doesn't even closely compare with the hand the USSR have had in world conflict.

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Well said mattie. My paternal side of the family escaped from poland because they felt that "living anywhere had to be better than living until russian rule".

Estonia only obtained its independence in 1991.

Both countries have horrific records of the slaughtering of human beings....

Visit russia one day and you can feel the tension.....