"NUESTRO PUEBLO" (OUR TOWN) Sep 8, 11:30
[This is a story I posted earlier today on our family blog. Several readers of both thought it belonged here, too, inasmuch as a number of BMW ORACLE families, and families of other teams, are living near Puzol. One of my "bosses" has also asked for more stories about life in Valencia, so....]
Our urbanizacion (suburb) is located a few minutes outside a pueblo called Puçol (in Valenciano) or Puzol (in Castellano), which, in turn, is about 20 minutes up the coast north of Valencia. Either way it seems to be pronounced "pooh THOL".
Castellano is, of course, the main line Spanish mandated by the mandarins in Madrid -- similar to Mandarin in China. Valenciano and Catalan, the languages* spoken in and around Valencia and Barcelona, respectively, are essentially the same. But don't say that to the immensely proud Valencianos, the majority of whom consider themselves the conservative keepers of the flame here in Spain as the home of the Partido Popular ("PP"), while Barcelona is closely aligned with the more liberal (in the American socio-political sense of the word) socialist party, PSOE. Most Valencianos do not want to be associated with Barcelona in any way; perhaps like quietly conservative San Diegans not wanting to be confused with liberal, show-biz Angelinos.
It does get confusing at times -- for example, "bank" is caja in Castellano and caixa in Valencianan/Catalan.
Since coming up with a ç is not easy in this blogger software, and takes a lot of farting around to cut and paste, I will stick to Puzol, thank you.
Puzol has a good little website, including daily local news. If you are running Internet Explorer as your browser and have a Google toolbar, go into the Castellano version of the site and right click on the text and you should be able to click on "Translate Page into English" and get a fairly understandable translation.
You will see that Puzol even has its own modern "strap line" or "claim" -- "entre mar y muntanya" meaning, of course, "between sea and mountain." LOL, that actually would pass the truth-in-advertising laws in most countries.
At any rate, we note that our pueblo had another fiesta yesterday involving the running of the bulls. And today Puzol is in the headlines for what one reads is not an uncommon small town problem -- unfortunately one of the bulls died after being confined for too long.
Here is the story from our favorite expat newsletter, Valencia Life:
The traditional bull runs of Puzol – just outside Valencia – were the scene of tragedy yesterday after one of the bulls died. Under the regulations for the running of the bulls in any fiesta, members of an ambulance service must be present, but in the case of Puzol, they took over an hour and a half to arrive, during which time the twelve animals were kept locked up in a truck. A statement from the ambulance service revealed that a mistake had been made over the dates and as a result an ambulance had to be called from Valencia City.
Not exactly a small-town problem I remember hearing about growing up near Pinckney, Michigan. Maybe they need an ambulance service for the poor bulls!
Like holiday parades in
Pinckney, the occasional
running of the bulls in
Puzol. As you can see
in the pics, yeserday we
did get a good bit of
rain -- and for the first
time in many weeks.
*and don't call Catalan or Valenciano a "dialect" -- the locals are proud to say that they, technically, are different languages, and more than a bit sensitive about the difference. (With thanks to my local experts and "Special Advisors to the Blogster on Spanish PC" Sofia Barraclough and Alejandra Mato.)
Our urbanizacion (suburb) is located a few minutes outside a pueblo called Puçol (in Valenciano) or Puzol (in Castellano), which, in turn, is about 20 minutes up the coast north of Valencia. Either way it seems to be pronounced "pooh THOL".
Castellano is, of course, the main line Spanish mandated by the mandarins in Madrid -- similar to Mandarin in China. Valenciano and Catalan, the languages* spoken in and around Valencia and Barcelona, respectively, are essentially the same. But don't say that to the immensely proud Valencianos, the majority of whom consider themselves the conservative keepers of the flame here in Spain as the home of the Partido Popular ("PP"), while Barcelona is closely aligned with the more liberal (in the American socio-political sense of the word) socialist party, PSOE. Most Valencianos do not want to be associated with Barcelona in any way; perhaps like quietly conservative San Diegans not wanting to be confused with liberal, show-biz Angelinos.
It does get confusing at times -- for example, "bank" is caja in Castellano and caixa in Valencianan/Catalan.
Since coming up with a ç is not easy in this blogger software, and takes a lot of farting around to cut and paste, I will stick to Puzol, thank you.
Puzol has a good little website, including daily local news. If you are running Internet Explorer as your browser and have a Google toolbar, go into the Castellano version of the site and right click on the text and you should be able to click on "Translate Page into English" and get a fairly understandable translation.
You will see that Puzol even has its own modern "strap line" or "claim" -- "entre mar y muntanya" meaning, of course, "between sea and mountain." LOL, that actually would pass the truth-in-advertising laws in most countries.
At any rate, we note that our pueblo had another fiesta yesterday involving the running of the bulls. And today Puzol is in the headlines for what one reads is not an uncommon small town problem -- unfortunately one of the bulls died after being confined for too long.
Here is the story from our favorite expat newsletter, Valencia Life:
The traditional bull runs of Puzol – just outside Valencia – were the scene of tragedy yesterday after one of the bulls died. Under the regulations for the running of the bulls in any fiesta, members of an ambulance service must be present, but in the case of Puzol, they took over an hour and a half to arrive, during which time the twelve animals were kept locked up in a truck. A statement from the ambulance service revealed that a mistake had been made over the dates and as a result an ambulance had to be called from Valencia City.
Not exactly a small-town problem I remember hearing about growing up near Pinckney, Michigan. Maybe they need an ambulance service for the poor bulls!
Like holiday parades in
Pinckney, the occasional
running of the bulls in
Puzol. As you can see
in the pics, yeserday we
did get a good bit of
rain -- and for the first
time in many weeks.
*and don't call Catalan or Valenciano a "dialect" -- the locals are proud to say that they, technically, are different languages, and more than a bit sensitive about the difference. (With thanks to my local experts and "Special Advisors to the Blogster on Spanish PC" Sofia Barraclough and Alejandra Mato.)
Valencia | by TFE
