Hi everyone,

My sister and family have just headed back to the airport after a few days in the sun, and I wanted to reflect on the joys of living where everyone back in the UK regards as a holiday destination, and the impact thereof.  Obviously we haven’t been out here very long, and we’re still delighted to see everyone and show off our sheer good fortune in being here - but friends with more experience are more cynical, and I was wondering about coming up with a good list of reliable ‘house rules’ for visitors to adhere to in future!  I would like to base a future blog article on this thread so if anyone responds here I would consider that permission to quote your ideas, attributed with anonymity guaranteed.

So far my best rules are:

1.  Get your own car - starting and ending at the airport.
2.  Visits of more than 3 night’s duration owe us at least one babysit
3.  Don’t turn up without bringing the list of things we have politely requested - surely there is room in your luggage for some Calpol, my favourite conditioner, vegan chocolate, etc etc (what do you ask people to bring?)

But I am sure there are those of you with far greater ruthlessness/cynicism/experience who have much better ideas on how your nearest and dearest should behave when they visit you in Spain, so please do share it before the next time I have to start shaking out the spare bedding.  Of course if you want to stay really anonymous PM me!!

Hope we can share a laugh,

Maya x

Rules for house guests from the Uk

sorry the cat and dog has that room , get a hotel , rent your own car as my car in the shop get repaided after the last lot where here , we do drive on the right here , not like last guy drove my car ..... about 1,800 euros for side off the car repainted and my night in A&E;your on holiday n joy i have to work to eat here unless wnat to pay my wages here .....

Ja ja ja Ha ha ha
jurdy

When I eventually move to spain my rules for family and friends will be:

1. Don’t expect to be given a drink in my house unless you’ve brought me a decent bottle of scotch malt whisky (Talisker - can’t get it easily in spain!).
2. Don’t expect to eat out every night that you’re here if you are here for three or more nights. Expect to contribute to the wine/lager list on the ‘eat in’ nights.
3. If your stay is for a week or longer then hire a car so I dont have to chauffeur you around all the tourist sites every day.
4. If a week or longer, then a contribution to the lunch bill now and again wouldn’t go amiss even if we are eating in our patio garden!

Ahh, happy days! I can’t wait!!!

How about “just because you can’t speak Spanish as well as we do, it doesn’t mean you can’t order (and pay) for the odd round of drinks”? and “you could drive us to the restaurant and back so I can have a few glasses of wine for a change.” Then there is “don’t bring your summer clothes in winter - it’s normally f***ing freezing.”  “Please don’t feel obliged to say everything is “a bit like when we were in Italy/France/Mexico/Cornwall”“.  And the essential “yes you can go to the Alhambra without us.”

A slight variation on a theme - if you let people use your Spanish house when you’re not there, either comercially or just as hospitality to friends, how do you stop people smoking indoors/marking the furniture with cups/getting toothpaste all over the bathroom/locking themselves out?

I am loving these responses - I can see my guests have got off way too lightly so far.  Another occurs to me - don’t say ‘ooh we really want to see the Real Spain’ then whinge when the restaurant we take you to has smokers in it, napkins on the floor, and wont start cooking till 8pm..!

BuenosDiasPet - 21 February 2009 02:31 AM

‘ooh we really want to see the Real Spain’ then whinge when the restaurant we take you to has smokers in it, napkins on the floor, and wont start cooking till 8pm..!

Ja, ja!  8pm?  Try 9 in Andalucia and 10 in Madrid (and 11 in high summer when it’s too hot to eat earlier).  In my experience people have no idea what “the real Spain” is so they wouldn’t be looking for it in the first place. Don’t know about you, but one thing that really, really gets me is friends/family who think they’re somehow more sophisticated than we are because they like France or Italy, assuming that Spain is somehow not genuine because they’re thinking golf, costas, guiri urbanizaciones etc.  (I speak as someone who knows French and some Italian as well as Spanish, b.t.w., so it’s not like I don’t get it.)

Maybe we’re being too defensive of our life decisions for when they come over as we havent seen our friends for a long time and there’s stuff building on our minds day to day that we need to express in some way.

I mean, we’re just trying too hard to convince our loved ones that we made the right choice. Trying to justify our newer way of life and how we so do not want to come back to the uk. And how hard work its been to settle and actually ‘make it’. Getting our friends to order a round in the bar using the lingo to show them how difficult it was for us. Give them a taste of what we endured. Etc.

To be honest, when my family and friends all came over to our wedding they got really stuck in to it and made positive comments about the spanish way of doing weddings (we got married in the local village where we walked through the street, later coached it to the city reception). Happy days.