A taxi driver was giving me some pearls of wisdom the other day. He said that even though I've been out of the country for so long, nothing has changed. 

According to him, the sun still rises, the water is still on the east, the people still talk the same language and the food is still the same. The only thing that's different nowdays is this 'crisis' - a bit of mild bother.

So if that's the case, the people of Catalunya don't disappoint. They are just as parochial as ever and on every corner there's a flag to prove it. But Barcelona itself still looks exactly the same too. It smells the same and it feels the same. Oh, and how could I forget? The futbol fanaticism hasn't changed either. I actually stumbled across the FCB school - where they were hard at work training the next generations' Puyol, Messi and Iniesta!

I think the taxi driver might have been on to something...