I've lived in Catalonia for 8 years. There are 5 things tourists should know before traveling to this part of Spain.

14.08.2024 - 02:49 / insider.com

If your idea of Spain is eating paella, dancing flamenco, and improving your Spanish, Catalonia might surprise you.

Even those who have visited the regional capital, Barcelona, might have missed what makes Spain's second most populated region different from the rest of the country.

I wasn't prepared when, in 2016, I moved to Catalonia from Madrid with my then-partner and our 18-month-old son. As foreigners in Spain, Madrid was getting expensive, and we were thinking about a second baby. The greenery and clean air of Girona appealed as much as the lower rent we found on a two-bedroom apartment at that time.

We moved two months later, but it took me a while to realize that we hadn't just left Madrid. In many ways, we'd left Spain.

Although Spanish is the most common language and almost everyone is bilingual, Catalan is the main language outside Barcelona.

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Some Catalan words are the same or close enough to Spanish, for example, "hola" is still "hola" while "adiós" is "adéu" (ad-ay-oo). But you'd never guess others, like strawberry is "fresa" in Spanish but "maduixa" (mad-oo-sha) in Catalan.

Living here, you're expected to speak Catalan, though many foreigners don't. Now, as a single mom of two boys, my children have only two hours a week of Spanish instruction in school, and the default for all school communication with parents is Catalan. I regularly have hybrid conversations with other parents where I speak Spanish, and they respond in Catalan. Luckily, I can follow the majority of the conversation. But if I get lost, they'd usually rather switch to English than Spanish.

For many Catalans, the language is a political and emotional representation of cultural identity, not just a communication tool. Catalan independence is a heated topic since the 2017 independence referendum, which Spain declared illegal. Instead of ignoring it, the police used force to prevent people from voting.

No wonder the parents of my children's friends feel so strongly about what the language represents. The school my kids attend in Girona was a polling station and TV footage of the violence at the gates there circulated widely.

Despite not being a seafood fan, I love paella because I can just pick out the prawns and mussels. Until I got to Catalonia and discovered that the yellow rice with seafood, vegetables, and chicken or rabbit is Valencia style. Catalan paella is dark brown in color, much more seafood heavy, and never contains vegetables.

There's also the Catalan version of paella made with short noodles (fideua) and served with aioli (garlic mayo) or the dramatic squid ink dish (arroz negro). My children call it Halloween Rice because it stains their teeth, tongues, and everything else, black.

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