Easing into Spain

Easing into the EU I eased into my stay in Spain through Amsterdam, my most often-used hub in Europe because it has the shortest, most direct flight from San Francisco. On the shuttle bus from the airport hotel to Schiphol to catch my flight to Barcelona on KLM, two young men, who turned out to be from Spain, were returning home after taking training as airplane mechanics at the KLM center in the Netherlands. My focus during this part of my stay in Europe was to collect information with which to write an article about the upcoming holiday in Catalonia, Dia de Sant Jordi, which is the day of books and flowers in Catalonia, a cultural holiday, that I’d happened upon two years before when I was visiting Barcelona for the first time. I had been reading about the Catalonian independence question in the the newspapers both in the United States and in Spain, and I wanted some people on the street’s opinions of the situation and how they thought about it. And I had the angle to explore in the article about the political context of the situation in Catalonia, which had stirred a lot of emotions, enveloping the traditional, Catalan holiday of Dia de Sant Jordi. So I asked the two airplane mechanics what they thought about it. The one guy said he was Catalan, and he had a positive opinion about the idea, and he said he supported having the referendum in October. After that referendum, in which half the people voted to be independent from Spain, the government in Madrid took over the government duties in Catalonia, arrested several of the political leaders of the referendum, and stripped Catalonia of much of its constitutionally-guaranteed rights of autonomy. His friend was from Madrid, and he seemed a little reluctant to talk about what he thought. I’m not so sure about it, he told me. He didn’t like people being critical of Spain. Both he and his friend were amiable, and both told me that the bigger problem in both Madrid and Barcelona was corruption. That exchange with the two airplane mechanics was my first talk with anybody from Spain on my trip, and I thought it was a symbol for the new Europe that a man from Madrid and a man from Barcelona were flying on an Airbus for their Dutch company talking to an American tourist. The new Europe has a unique diversity among people, especially hub international cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, where old, medieval cities were fast becoming high-tech 21st century start-up engines. Often this Catalonia question was lingering in the conversations I had with people for three months. “What do you think about it?” is something the people I met in Spain often asked. To talk about stuff is the way of life here. So, as a reporter, I reached-out often to talk to people, hoping to capture a story or a viewpoint from an everyday person that I could record and then weave into my musings about living in Spain and Spainish. Many hours I spend many days puzzling out words, reading, experiences and I was wandering around each day in Castellano and Catalan. Everyday was engaging. A simple walk down the street to get a coffee and a bocadillo was many steps out of my usual morning routine. Barcelona’s neighborhoods are vibrant and dynamic, a “pedestrian-centered” life style. And socially-engaging. People converse. All the time.