Today is the day of Saint James (Santiago), the patron saint of Spain. Spain is a predominately Catholic country, so this is a big deal. Especially here in Galicia that has Santiago de Compostela as its capital. The street in front of my uncle´s summer apartment is packed with people and for the past few days, every few hours there have been loud colorless fireworks (petardos). It's kind of fun in a way, but mostly kinda annoying.

Speaking of Galicia, there is a lot of talk about independencece from Spain. This is a typical feature of Spanish politics called nationalism. Some autonomous communities of Spain have separatist parties that seek to achieve, to some degree, greater independence from Spain. For an American point of view, this doesn't make much sense, and, indeed, most Spaniards consider separatism in an era of European unification to be prideful and stupid. But for many, it makes sense. Galicia is in many ways a different country. I'll have to elaborate later. It's gigantic two hour long lunch time.