Yes of course I am generalising Still stand by what I said except to add "in my experience". Did have a Romanian gardener who was hard working unfortunately he knew nowt about gardening!

Whats fish 'n chips on the costa got to do with it I often read in the spanish press that many Romanians have set up camp like ghettos on the outskirts of cities in Spain, they have had to demolish some, Inland that is.

Yes indeed they have. There is a Romanian camp near Madrid which is one huge rubbish tip filled with rats. The Romanians go around stealing copper wiring from building sites, telephone wires and train lines and take it to their camp where they take off the plastic coating and sell the copper.

The camp is surrounded by hundreds of tons of plastic casing.

I also saw a news report that 90% of all pick pocketing on the Madrid Metro is by Romanians.

Not all Romanians are bad of course, my OH works with a very nice Romanian woman, but they are a huge problem in Spain because they commit so much crime.

Read the post.

Whats wrong with eating fish n chips or hamburgers anyway???? Wherever you go in the civilised world you'll find "foreign" restaurants and areas where certain cultures are more prominent than others

Jo xxx

I love living in a multi-cultured society for most of the time. Today we had a Hungarian meal, a menu del dia at five Euros – fish soup, goulash and an unpronounceable Hungarian sweet. It was somewhat spoiled by a Moroccan lookie-lookie man who was so persistent that I nearly lost it.

It’s starting to worry me. I mentioned to my wife that maybe we should start dressing down, and she gave me a right dressing down.

“Why should I dress down for these arseholes? I work hard and these arseholes walk about with their silly ****ing carpets and don’t know what work is.”

I still worry. There’s a lot of them about.

I really dont understand the obsession with intergrating for everyone who comes to Spain.

Granted it does make life easier, and you can be more "self reliant" if you are fluent, but I dont see what is wrong with still wanting to eat the same food as when you lived in the UK ans watch the same programmes and buy the same newspapers.

For those not looking for a job, or with children to educate, why not live as "brit?" If that is what you want.

When we moved to the UK we did intergrate fully, wether it was totally by choice, I am not too sure.

It was probably more down to circumstances than anything, as at the time most of the immigrants to the UK were young, single people without families, unlike my parents.

But looking back, with my adult eyes now, I am sure that if my family had a chance to mix with more people like ourselves, Spanish speakers, and could find more shops and restaurants that had Spanish food, we would not have hesitated to frequent those places.

I dont see why we should have turned out back on all that we knew, just to prove a point, ie that we were totally intergrated.

Because qute frankly I dont think anyone really gave a toss what we ate and what language we spoke at home.

Do you ever really READ what is written?

There is nothing wrong with eating fish and chips or hamburgers....I even eat them myself on occasion.
I was answering your GENERALISATION, and offering another generalised view that some people hold of how things are here, also stating that it's not how all expats are or how we all live.

My own personal view on the matter is....why with all the delicious food on offer here do some Brits in some locations not feel in the least bit inclined to give their taste buds a break from the fat laden over processed food they generally stuff their faces with?

I don't for a moment think anyone should turn their back on their home country, after all it is the place that made them what they are!
Unless you move to a new country at a very early age it's extremely difficult to fully integrate, though I do feel an effort should be made....
None are worse than the Brits for bemoaning the fact that many immigrants to the UK never learn the language or try to fit in.

We personally do what we can, we love Spanish food but also still enjoy the kind of food we grew up with in England.
We do make the effort to converse in Spanish even if we are rubbish at it, though of course when the doors are closed it's English we speak and British TV that we watch and books that we read.
I would say that we try to pick the best from both cultures and join them together to make a pleasing mix....we just do our best with what we have!

You make it sound as though there is only delicious food here in Spain.
And you imply that only Brits eat fatty processed food.

The shops are full of frozen croquets, san jacobos, burgers fish fingers, frozen empanadillas for frying and such just like in the UK and most of these are catering to the Spanish market as they are available all over the country, as is the staple breakfast for many, the bollycao, and all that commercial bolleria.

Have you not noticed that the Spanish are getting fatter, and it is not throught eating too much of the med. diet it is through eating the fatty stuff, just like their counterparts from other countries.

So anyone who thinks that the brits who dont try the fresh produce in Spain should be singled out, remember a lot of Spanish dont either, and it is getting more and more common.

The people of both countries are not as different as some seem to think, there may not be as much processed, fatty food being eaten by the Spanish, but just give it a couple of years.

The difference being that....yes the Spanish do indeed eat a lot of fried fatty food, but here at least unless they live down on the Costa's it's mostly fresh and not processed food they eat.
Out here in El Campo we don't have the large supermarkets stuffed to bursting with ready meals, the nearest small supermarket is 7 kls away!
Here it's much more likely to be a meal of fresh veg or salad with fish or meat, bought either from the village shop or more likely from the vans that come round on a daily basis.....just as they have always done.

Yes the diets are changing, thirty years ago one would see children eating sunflower seeds or sometimes nuts, now we are more likely to see them eating toffees instead.
We go down to the coast once a month a usually call into Iceland while we are there, (I'm afraid I still miss my English milk and just can't resist the temptation to buy it), I've notice over the last couple of years that there are more Spanish shopping there and buying what I consider to be junk food.
I'm not being superior when I say that, it's just that I never bought processed food even in the UK.
From my own experiences I still think despite the changes the diet here over all is more healthy, and the fruit and veg are fresher.
And no I'm not knocking the Brits when I say that, and I do know that Spain and the Spanish are not perfect,... but I do hope here in (southern) Spain that they hang onto there traditional way of eating as long as possible!

I agree with you. In the sense that the one most horrid depiction I see with us Brits, in Spain or abroad, is "A Brit who likes to clearly be seen living abroad".

With that in mind "they" are normally the constant negative conversationlists who compare Spain to England...list goes on.

ME:
I love British TV, so a 2.4MTR dish gets me just that without reboradcasting.
I love British Newspapers, voila the Internet, and or The Sun iPAD App.
I love talking to fellow Citizens, but I also like my Spanish Friends.

I worked in America for a while, and contray to the stories I've never eaten such nice and healthy food in my life.

On that note of course I love British food, but I also avoid certain British foods now, because of the health implications.
Seriously, have you seen how many carbs etc comes from a large pie or faggots and chips ???? Or cholesterol "British fry up" ????

Need my British comforts, love the Spanish compromise
DSB.

As this thread has gone off topic and now concerns diet in Spain I have moved the relevant posts to a new thread in Siesta Time called Diet in Spain.

Happy dieting

Can we please now keep this thread on topic about visits to the UK.

Personally I don't agree. Living in the UK had so many negative points for me, I just couldn't stand it any more, and I have no intention of going back 'not even in a box.' (Family emergencies excepted.)

For me, any food item I might miss is obtainable here, and as I'm a bad traveller the kids can visit me instead.

Jan tho does like to go back occasionally. It's whatever suits you, whether it's to go back or stay here.

Precisely

It didn't read like it was meant, my point was that we are British and always will be, no matter how much we love our adopted country or how much we integrate we will always be fundamentally different from the Spanish, and that's not always a bad thing.

I totally agree with you about living in the UK, for many years before we left it was no longer a good place to be, and if I never go back again it will be too soon.
For some people England's a great place, but for me I hate it and will never go back there to live, no matter how bad things might get here...this is where we both want to be!
John has not been back at all and I have only been back once in the last three years for a family emergency, I only stayed for nine days....and that was eight days too many!

There are only two things food wise that I miss from the UK, one is English milk and the other is beef (very difficult to buy here), both of these things we can get on the coast...it just means we have a nice day out in the process.

Those of us who love this wonderful country we now live in often get slated on this forum for doing so.....often I suspect it's from people who have failed to fit in or to make a go of expat life here!
It won't stop you or I though from enjoying living here will it Bill?