This was posted by mountain annie in another thread:
"Well it must be Very Hard for a Brit to hide out here.. I would think that they would ALWAYS just stick out.. There are not many Brits here and they do not do languages or accents very well.. how can I say this.. they are not that culturally "adaptable" .. will always be so very very British forever"
Being a Brit I don't necessarily agree with this in that I speak 4 languages pretty fluently, each with the appropriate accent, would like to feel I have tried to adapt to the culture, and don't drink tea at 4pm every afternoon! Brits travel widely outside their own country, and second languages are compulsory at school, not that I am saying that everyone speaks a second language fluently.
Matilda
I find it fair enough to say that there are not that many Brits in the DR. I find myself struggling to remember when I last bumped into a Brit outside of a tourist area. But then I struggle to remember when I last bumped into any foreigners when living in Santo Domingo other than the Italian guys that occasionally used to come on short term contract to the mines, or the Mexican electricians that seem to come in surges a few times a year.
Sure you can walk down El Conde and see them all in their American Tourist standard issue uniform of Urban Safari style and leather shoes without socks, or the soloist with his younger Dominican side kick and guide, 50 year old Bobby Brown standing 5'2" in his XXXXL sized t-shirt just there for a weekend breeze through. And the obligatory bohemian beautiful couple I can never place and catch myself staring trying to work it out. But I can count on one hand the amount of British accents I've heard while spending hours of the day drinking over priced beer for the comfort of being around a few foreigners for a change just to people watch on that corner on El Conde.
But then to go on and say Brits don't do languages and are not culturally adaptable is a bit weird. The DR is the American equivalent to our Balearic or Canary Islands, and if you go to those Islands you will only find a few American or Canadians kicking about, if any. Is it a comfort thing, I dunno. Are people comfortable being within a few hours flight to their homeland if they need to? What is the difference really in a 10 hour flight and a 2or3 hour flight, not alot in time but sub consciously maybe there is something in it. I've worked all over the world and I've worked with many Brits abroad, I speak 3 languages and this is pretty normal for Brits who live and work abroad, isn't it. I consider Brits to be some of the most open minded and culturally aware travellers on the planet, rarely do you find Brits stirring a fuss, making waves, standing out, integration is something that is easy if you're considerate, and I'd say typically Brits are, but what is a typical Brit, certainly not me as I've not settled in the UK for 20 years, and so maybe that's why I found myself in DR.
So in the big picture Brits won't be noticed (or is it stand out?) just look at the numbers, it is obviously going to be predominantly Americans
USA vs UK comparison on population and size of United states of America and United Kingdom but it is no reason to forget the rest of the world.
And as for others in the UK. When I arrived in Heathrow a couple of months ago I thought I'd flown into Poland by mistake, no one in the airport was speaking English, I felt like I had entered the twilight zone. A bit like the first time you fly into Miami and for a split second need to remind yourself you HAVE entered an English speaking country as all the officials are still speaking in Spanish to me.
As always, just my thought on it.:glasses: