Maybe it´s just the Salmantinos

Back when I lived in Salamanca, nearly 20 years ago, I really suffered at the hands of the Salmantinos (the people of Salamanca). Daily I would hear some comment as to how bad my Spanish was ("you´ve been here 6 months, wow, your Spanish is really bad"). It always came as quite a blow. I mean, let´s face it, I know my Spanish is pretty bad. I also knew that I gained 5 kilos over the holidays, and that I had a pimple on my chin but I didn´t really need the Spaniards to point it out to me. On this trip, however, I have met lovely people from all over Spain. Several of them, from the Basque Country, Santander, Madrid, and Mallorca, have told me that my Spanish is quite good. (I know it is not, but they can understand me so it´s good enough). The other morning I was walking and met up with a Spanish woman. We started talking and I was so excited to hear that she was from Salamanca. I told her all about how I had lived there, loved it, etc. Within minutes she said something along the lines of "Well, I can tell it´s been years since you have lived in Salamanca as I can tell that you are really struggling with Spanish". And then it dawned on me, maybe it is just the Salmantinos. Maybe if I had lived somewhere else and didn´t have people telling me daily that my Spanish was so bad, I wouldn´t have reduced the amount of Spanish spoken on a daily basis in order to have some relief from the criticism. LAM--what do you think?