Ping: ABasque

A bit of clarity on Damian de Allende. I know that Allende is a Basque surname and I know Damien is of Spanish decent. I'm not completely sure what the "de" prefix to the surname might mean except "from". Your opinion would be app reciated.

 Bump.

 De Allende it's spanish. I never heart it before as a surname but it has to be an spanish surname.
In this case "de" means from and Allende, beyond. Allende it's not a very used word, it's like a cult word used mainly in poetry but not in the daily language. It's widely known related with the word sea(s)-mar(es) for describing "overseas" in a poetical way:

allende los mares

The surneme without the preposition "de", only Allende, is more common. The president of Chile toppled by Pinochet was Salvador Allende, e.g.

 This is one of the great things about having rugby mates around the world ,especially in places we dont think of as traditional rugby strongholds .We get to learn a bit about others .BP would love to know what the Rugby culture if any is in your part of the world ,even if your the lone bearer of sporting sanity in a sea of soccer fanatics .Cheers Brother !

 Where are you from AB? I'm wondering if you're a Bilbao fan?

 @wardad,

here the rugby culture is practically non-existant, as you said I could be "the lone bearer of sporting sanity in a sea of soccer fanatics". Here almost everything is soccer, basketball from time to time (mainly when a spanish team wins like recently the Eurobasket), and then some others like tennis, formula 1, handball, voleyball,...... and then it comes the rugby.
here the only matches boadcasted are the 6-Nations which is not too much followed and the WC every 4 years. The WC is practically the only time that rugby are in the TV-news and something related with rugby is widely known. This year both England's and boks' losses have been the most mentioned
It's also the only time when people can meet at bars or pubs to see rugby matches as they do with the football games.

@AgPleezDeddy
I'm not from Bilbao but my mother is and all my cousins living there are Athletic de Bilbao-fans. I don't follow to much the football but when I was child I was Bilbao-fan as it was the main Basque team at that time and my family is from there.