You meet a lot of people when traveling, and occasionally you get to see them again. Five years ago, on our way from London to A Coruña, Spain, we met an American who let us stay in his beautiful apartment in A Coruña when our home exchange situation turned out to be less than ideal. We were able to catch up with Peter this year in Barcelona, where he has been living for the past four of his 15 years in Spain. Over dinner, we chatted about his life in Barcelona, picked up a few tips about the city, and met his girlfriend, Elena, who is from Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean.

We were particularly interested in his take on the Catalonian independence movement. This political initiative shares the problems of other small separatist efforts. Remember Quebec, Spanish Basque… Violence is involved and none is successful. Catalonia’s recent and unconstitutional vote to withdraw from Spain has caused business and capital to leave the area, and has divided friends and family and even areas within Catalonia.