I find it interesting that, almost two months into this blog, all the information posted about local events, that’s the feria and two religious occasions, have attracted no comments.
However two entries related to football have seen a substantial amount of comment.
It could be that the relatively few readers of this blog – it is in it’s early days – are all football supporters. Then again, it could be a general apathy of English people to all things culturally Spanish.
My personal opinion goes with the latter. I base this on two evenings in Plaza Baja this weekend. It is normal to see a good few foreigners (i.e. not Spanish) in the plaza on warm dry weekend evenings. However, on the Saturday evening of Jesus Day, (ok, it’s more than a day), one of the major annual events in our town, as far as I could tell in a crowded plaza my wife and I were the only English there enjoying the bands.
On Sunday, when the turnout was even greater, we saw one other English family. The had their little daughter wearing her Feria dress for this religious event. Whoops!
Later, in Bar Sardina, we met a party of English residents who had been dining there, none of whom had a clue what was going on and were not interested in finding out! It was all just a noisy inconvenience.
Integration?
Brunel, that’s great and my comments were obviously not aimed at people like yourself, who I still think are a minority of extranjeros!
With your insight into local life, I would encourage you to contribute more to this site. How about a bit of blogging?
Don’t beat us up!
We were there.
Sorry that you didn’t see other Brit faces. Could be one or several reasons. One is that some of us have learned to blend in by attending with their Spanish neighbours, another is some might have actually been involved in the whole process (taking in the religious services as well!) or have found other vantage spots more to their liking.
Another problem is that some Brits belong to “English” groupings such as TAPAS whose “events” often coincide with the home grown pueblo ones.
You are right, though, about some finding La Vida del Pueblo too much…I wonder why they stay here?
Keep up the good work in providing information.
Thanks for the comments Pete.
In defence of the “Purples”, this event had been advertised for at least a couple of weeks by way of large posters in all the shop windows and bars in town. The full programme was, as always, an immaculately prepared and presented document, but only appeared at the last minute, which is par for the course. It was available in all the bars (not the British ones) and some shops. Maybe there was something in your mayor’s observation after all.
Additionally, the routine is the same every year and anyone who was interested enough to ask (and can understand a little Spanish) could easily have found out what it is all about and when and where events would be happening.
Also worrying I think is that British people who would normally sit outside the bars in the plaza at the weekend were not there. Whether staying away on purpose, or frightened away by crowds of local families enjoying themselves I do not know.
The next big occasion in Alhaurin el Grande is early August when the image of the towns Patron, Nuestra Senora de Gracia visits certain pre-chosen neighbourhoods, one each night for four nights. There will be details on this website in plenty of time for the British community to find out about it if they are interested – or avoid it if they are not.
Totally agree about lack of integration. I know of very few extranjeros who I would consider to be fully integrated. And yet when they do, they love it.
As far as the events are concerned, as you yourself know, it is almost impossible to get any information about what is going on. I discussed this with a local mayor, who complained that we were the only Brits at one particular event. I pointed out that there had been, as usual, no information about what was going to happen. He just said, if they are interested, they will find out.
Having said that, when I have been to any kind of event, and asked about what was going on, people have been only too happy to explain the finer points.
But you have to know that it’s there in the first place! We try to list events on our sites, and I was amazed at how little help the local tourist offices are – one woman on the coast told me, tell people to visit our offices! As if we don’t spend enough of our lives in Spanish offices!
One of the many differences…