Catalunya at glance

First of all, thanks for noticing! ;-) Personally, I'd like to add to the list of famous compatriots the great Ar�stides Ma(i)llol, sculptor (I was in Paris not long ago and I fell in love with his work when I could see it exposed).

Probably it is due to the fact that Catalonia has always been looking towards Europe instead of staring at its own belly! Seriously, if you look at a map you will notice that our geographic situation is quite good to keep contact with the civilised world: we are between the Peninsule and the continent, riding on the Pyrenees instead of thinking of them as a wall, we have always thought the were like our umbilical cord. And we have the Mediterranean sea! We have quite a good climate (though here in Barcelona summers are too wet for me...) and we work hard. They always say that we are the "Southern Swiss" (well, we do ski, but don't have such Alps...) Just get a history book and you will see that, while Castilla was obsedded with the Peninsule and with the Muslims, we always tried to go Northwards (those baddy frenchies didn't let us!), back Northwards, because we are one more product of the Carolingian Empire (while the rest of the iberian kingdoms don't have such an european "pedigree"!) That's why of the very special relationship we have with Occitania.

Furthermore (and concluding, cause i'm getting too sticky, I know...) this has always been a liberal country, with not many sense of "state" and used to fighting for freedom (not very succesfully, but...) and, for instance, where the first to join the Industrial Revolution (together with Basques) I don't want to seem too "we-are-the-ones-look-at-those-fools"-ist, but if you take a look at History, you will notice that the Spanish tradition doesn't fit with all that too much...

I hope you didn't get asleep while reading all this stuff, but, you know, we must always put great effort on propaganda, as we're always ecclipsed by our "neighbours" and have to take chances!