Brace yourselves…it’s the Catalan question
No, I can fend it off no longer. This week’s guest article for Metropolitan finally sees me broaching the thorny issue of nationalism, and how the Scottish referendum is making my life worse.
“Every time I answer the question “Where are you from?”, it begins. Taxi drivers, shopkeepers, people at work. “Ah, one of our Scottish cousins!” is the fairly standard response. My nationality seems to confer tacit admission into some level of Catalan society. Cousin is kin, and kin implies collusion. The implication? That we’re all somehow in it together, we victims of imperialist expansion, but one day shall be avenged.”
Guiri is one of those words, like feminist or peely-wally, that I want to reclaim. Locals use it to refer to tourists - you know the ones - who stick out a million miles. No matter how long I live in Barcelona, that's always going to be me. (P.S. While Barça locally refers to the football team, Brits use Barca as shorthand for the whole city.) 
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