Tell me what's really different.
Feb 7th 2011, 9:03 pm
#61
Straw Man.
Joined: Aug 2006
Location: That, there, that's not my post count... nothing to see here, move along.
Posts: 46,302
Re: Tell me what's really different.
That reminds me, I must put in for that name change again...
Feb 7th 2011, 9:04 pm
#62
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 39
Re: Tell me what's really different.
No, because it's fairly easy to say "Hola!" on entering the bar (perhaps with a "buenos dias" or "buenas tardes"), give your order, and then get served 100 times faster than you would in a Starbucks. There again I've seen tourists enter a UK pub, sit at tables for a while, then edge up to the bar, and eventually realise they've got to force their way to the front of the queue in order to get served. A different etiquette, but people generally soon learn.
Feb 7th 2011, 9:10 pm
#63
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: May 2009
Location: Alicante province
Posts: 5,753
Feb 7th 2011, 9:10 pm
#64
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 39
Re: Tell me what's really different.
Just thought of another one. Spanish don't possess kettles, first time I bought one my wife thought that it was to heat the milk! Her mother had never even seen one before. Keep telling me we are the same. Yeah right.
Last edited by dios41; Feb 7th 2011 at 9:16 pm.
Feb 7th 2011, 9:12 pm
#66
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Joined: Jun 2010
Location: Galicia
Posts: 85
Re: Tell me what's really different.
I couldn't agree more with what cricketman said (as usual, btw):
<<<In the English team I play for, the new player is ignored and put on as a sub for the last 5 minutes, only after they keep turning up for a few months do people start to speak to him. And then they respect him for his perseverence. Only one example I know, but to NOT make a stranger feel part of the group in Spain would be cuturally unacceptable and seen as incredibly rude. >>>
I'm Spanish and I lived in Britain for a while. I'm not the Spanish stereotype that you mention here sometimes (I don't like noise, I don't like rubbish on the floor, I don't talk to the first person I bump into, etc) but what he mentions is BY FAR the worst thing I could say about Brits. I don't know if it's cultural or just me having bad luck, but I experienced that many times and I hated it. I would say I'm open-minded and whenever I lived abroad or with foreign people I've tried to be flexible, but for some reason I couldn't accept the fact that if I'm new somewhere (a job, a group of people, etc) people won't make things easy for me to integrate. In England last year I was working in a school and nobody ever talked to me. They didn't even say hi. When I mentioned this to British friends they all said that the logical thing to do is be the one who approaches other people. I don't see how that is logical.
But leaving the working place aside, I've been in situations when I'm with a British friend + some friends of his that I don't know. You'd imagine that I'll be introduced to the rest and people would make an effort to talk to me and make me feel comfortable as I don't know the rest. Yeah, right. I've been totally neglected for hours and what's worse, not only by those people I didn't know but by my "friend". In Spain, that's totally impossible. Talking to them afterwards they didn't understand my point. I wonder what would happen if it was the opposite. I teach here, I imagine a new British girl coming over for a few months, it wouldn't be more than 5 seconds until someone talks to her, offer her a drink, a place to stay or a coffee at the next door bar. I'm not saying all Spaniards are kind and wonderful, but I want to think people usually are when someone is new, etc.
As cricketman said, I think that in Britain, in my experience, you need a lot of time. I assume that if the new person keeps going out with them or trying to talk, for ages, it will come to a point where he'll be accepted. I just find it incredibly unfriendly and sad. And again, I'm not saying everybody here is friendly. I'm not the kind of person who is very chatty with strangers or "la alegrÃa de la huerta" in the Spanish-caricaturesque-way, but still, I hated that.
There are many others things I love about the Brits but that, is not one of them. (Sorry about the long post)
<<<In the English team I play for, the new player is ignored and put on as a sub for the last 5 minutes, only after they keep turning up for a few months do people start to speak to him. And then they respect him for his perseverence. Only one example I know, but to NOT make a stranger feel part of the group in Spain would be cuturally unacceptable and seen as incredibly rude. >>>
I'm Spanish and I lived in Britain for a while. I'm not the Spanish stereotype that you mention here sometimes (I don't like noise, I don't like rubbish on the floor, I don't talk to the first person I bump into, etc) but what he mentions is BY FAR the worst thing I could say about Brits. I don't know if it's cultural or just me having bad luck, but I experienced that many times and I hated it. I would say I'm open-minded and whenever I lived abroad or with foreign people I've tried to be flexible, but for some reason I couldn't accept the fact that if I'm new somewhere (a job, a group of people, etc) people won't make things easy for me to integrate. In England last year I was working in a school and nobody ever talked to me. They didn't even say hi. When I mentioned this to British friends they all said that the logical thing to do is be the one who approaches other people. I don't see how that is logical.
But leaving the working place aside, I've been in situations when I'm with a British friend + some friends of his that I don't know. You'd imagine that I'll be introduced to the rest and people would make an effort to talk to me and make me feel comfortable as I don't know the rest. Yeah, right. I've been totally neglected for hours and what's worse, not only by those people I didn't know but by my "friend". In Spain, that's totally impossible. Talking to them afterwards they didn't understand my point. I wonder what would happen if it was the opposite. I teach here, I imagine a new British girl coming over for a few months, it wouldn't be more than 5 seconds until someone talks to her, offer her a drink, a place to stay or a coffee at the next door bar. I'm not saying all Spaniards are kind and wonderful, but I want to think people usually are when someone is new, etc.
As cricketman said, I think that in Britain, in my experience, you need a lot of time. I assume that if the new person keeps going out with them or trying to talk, for ages, it will come to a point where he'll be accepted. I just find it incredibly unfriendly and sad. And again, I'm not saying everybody here is friendly. I'm not the kind of person who is very chatty with strangers or "la alegrÃa de la huerta" in the Spanish-caricaturesque-way, but still, I hated that.
There are many others things I love about the Brits but that, is not one of them. (Sorry about the long post)
Last edited by siesta; Feb 7th 2011 at 9:18 pm.
Feb 7th 2011, 9:16 pm
#67
Not Banned (yet)
Joined: Aug 2008
Location: Madrid
Posts: 6,400
Re: Tell me what's really different.
I couldn't agree more with what cricketman said (as usual, btw):
<<<In the English team I play for, the new player is ignored and put on as a sub for the last 5 minutes, only after they keep turning up for a few months do people start to speak to him. And then they respect him for his perseverence. Only one example I know, but to NOT make a stranger feel part of the group in Spain would be cuturally unacceptable and seen as incredibly rude. >>>
I'm Spanish and I lived in Britain for a while. I'm not the Spanish stereotype that you mention here sometimes (I don't like noise, I don't like rubbish on the floor, I don't talk to the first person I bump into, etc) but what he mentions is BY FAR the worst thing I could say about Brits. I don't know if it's cultural or just me having bad luck, but I experienced that many times and I hated it. I would say I'm open-minded and whenever I lived abroad or with foreign people I've tried to be flexible, but for some reason I couldn't accept the fact that if I'm new somewhere (a job, a group of people, etc) people won't make things easy for me to integrate. In England last year I was working in a school and nobody ever talked to me. They didn't even say hi. When I mentioned this to British friends they all said that the logical thing to do is be the one who approaches other people. I don't see how that is logical.
But leaving the working place aside, I've been in situations when I'm with a British friend + some friends of his that I don't know. You'd imagine that I'll be introduced to the rest and people would make an effort to talk to me and make me feel comfortable as I don't know the rest. Yeah, right. I've been totally neglected for hours and what's worse, not only for those people I didn't know but for my "friend". In Spain, that's totally impossible. Talking to them afterwards they didn't understand my point. I wonder what would happen if it was the opposite. I teach here, I imagine a new British girl coming over for a few months, it wouldn't be more than 5 seconds until someone talks to her, offer her a drink, a place to stay or a coffee at the next door bar. I'm not saying all Spaniards are kind and wonderful, but I want to think people usually are when someone is new, etc.
As cricketman said, I think that in Britain, in my experience, you need a lot of time. I assume that if the new person keeps going out with them or trying to talk, for ages, it will come to a point where he'll be accepted. I just find it incredibly unfriendly and sad. And again, I'm not saying everybody here is friendly. I'm not the kind of person who is very chatty with strangers or "la alegrÃa de la huerta" in the Spanish-caricaturesque-way, but still, I hated that.
There are many others things I love about the Brits but that, is not one of them. (Sorry about the long post)
<<<In the English team I play for, the new player is ignored and put on as a sub for the last 5 minutes, only after they keep turning up for a few months do people start to speak to him. And then they respect him for his perseverence. Only one example I know, but to NOT make a stranger feel part of the group in Spain would be cuturally unacceptable and seen as incredibly rude. >>>
I'm Spanish and I lived in Britain for a while. I'm not the Spanish stereotype that you mention here sometimes (I don't like noise, I don't like rubbish on the floor, I don't talk to the first person I bump into, etc) but what he mentions is BY FAR the worst thing I could say about Brits. I don't know if it's cultural or just me having bad luck, but I experienced that many times and I hated it. I would say I'm open-minded and whenever I lived abroad or with foreign people I've tried to be flexible, but for some reason I couldn't accept the fact that if I'm new somewhere (a job, a group of people, etc) people won't make things easy for me to integrate. In England last year I was working in a school and nobody ever talked to me. They didn't even say hi. When I mentioned this to British friends they all said that the logical thing to do is be the one who approaches other people. I don't see how that is logical.
But leaving the working place aside, I've been in situations when I'm with a British friend + some friends of his that I don't know. You'd imagine that I'll be introduced to the rest and people would make an effort to talk to me and make me feel comfortable as I don't know the rest. Yeah, right. I've been totally neglected for hours and what's worse, not only for those people I didn't know but for my "friend". In Spain, that's totally impossible. Talking to them afterwards they didn't understand my point. I wonder what would happen if it was the opposite. I teach here, I imagine a new British girl coming over for a few months, it wouldn't be more than 5 seconds until someone talks to her, offer her a drink, a place to stay or a coffee at the next door bar. I'm not saying all Spaniards are kind and wonderful, but I want to think people usually are when someone is new, etc.
As cricketman said, I think that in Britain, in my experience, you need a lot of time. I assume that if the new person keeps going out with them or trying to talk, for ages, it will come to a point where he'll be accepted. I just find it incredibly unfriendly and sad. And again, I'm not saying everybody here is friendly. I'm not the kind of person who is very chatty with strangers or "la alegrÃa de la huerta" in the Spanish-caricaturesque-way, but still, I hated that.
There are many others things I love about the Brits but that, is not one of them. (Sorry about the long post)
Feb 7th 2011, 9:19 pm
#68
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 39
Re: Tell me what's really different.
Have you ever seen a Spaniard wearing knee length socks with open sandals?
Feb 7th 2011, 9:21 pm
#69
Straw Man.
Joined: Aug 2006
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Feb 7th 2011, 9:24 pm
#72
RETIRED ;-))
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Feb 7th 2011, 9:25 pm
#73
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Re: Tell me what's really different.
Thanks for the feedback. I remember an Irish guy telling me that the most inhospitable people on the planet were the English, and reading your post, he may have a point. Having said that, if you go north in the country, for example Yorkshire, you'll normally find the people more opening and friendly.
Feb 7th 2011, 9:30 pm
#75
RETIRED ;-))
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