Embrace Diversity

                                                                                                                                                                              Even tiny Catalunyan cities celebrate Spanish victory. Game was not even over when Fiesta started in the streets of Tarrega. Can imagine what is the situation in other, more Spanish cities of the country... As I was told by locals, it is not common to celebrate Spanish victories outside, which certainly is not a case when Barcelona wins.

Barcelona is actually a separate topic, an icon of Catalunya. More than a football club and a huge reason for keeping up Spanish integrity. Can you imagine Catalunyan championship? a game between Barcelona-Girona, or even Barcelona- Espanyol? without el Clasico football loses a lot and as far as it has a great importance for each and every inhabitant of this community it does influence on separatist ideas as well.

However, football isn't always enough for loyalty towards Spain in many cases, even the fact that 5-6 Catalunyan players are represented in Spanish squad is not sufficient reason to cheer up for Spain. 

After moving to Catalonia for a while, I have an excellent opportunity to examine some "Catalonia isn't Spain" claims and have to admit I faced more than I expected.

After a week of observation, I can say that Barcelona is the least non Spanish city in this very autonomous community. People tend to use Castilian more than Catalan, which is not a case in most of the other big cities, not to mention small villages all through the region.

"Spanish team is playing? ah, I don't care!"
"Eurovision? Why should I watch it, my country isn't participating there!"

These kind of statements can be heard all around Catalonia...

But, it is definitely a huge topic to go through and I sort of got interested in this Spanish-Catalunyan story, will write about some other interesting stuff soon. but for now the picture which interested me a lot.