EXPAT OBSERVATIONS: THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE

October 1st — or 1-O ("one-oh") as they've named it in Catalonia — was strange. Almost as strange as the three days that have passed since.

The morning of the vote was drippy and wet and the gray sky seemed to reflect the mood of everyone beneath it. I ventured out to the gym and was taken aback by the 15+ Spanish (read: not Catalan) police vans—silent but lights flashing—that crossed my path in a slow but serious procession. From the treadmill, I watched side-by-side television news broadcasts—one from a Spanish station featuring images of Spanish police being cheered on by anti-separatists, the other from a Catalan station featuring images of Spanish police being brutally aggressive toward separatists. By that evening, helicopters were hovering over our neighborhood and a group of protestors had assembled not far from our house. We stayed inside and read bits of breaking news about the violence down in the city center. That night's 10:00PM pot-banging session was louder than ever.

In a move I guess I should've anticipated, a "General Strike" was declared for Tuesday, which was as ambiguous and seemingly aimless as it sounds. Shops and markets didn't open, daycares and schools closed, the public transit system ran a little or not at all, taxi drivers stayed inside, and roads everywhere were blocked with protestors. Although I had a lot of time to contemplate it on my surprise hour-and-a-half walk home from work, it still remains entirely unclear who—besides the people who live here—the strike was meant to disrupt. (I'm pretty sure Madrid did not care that I couldn't buy fresh bread yesterday.) But disrupt it did. As did the helicopter that hovered, again, overhead for an hour. And the hundreds of people who chanted and marched down a nearby street. And the pot-bangers who timed last night's session to drown out an unsupportive speech by the Spanish king.

People are still not talking openly or loudly about any of this, although it's right at the surface and impossible at this point to ignore. The Catalan government has said it will declare independence by Monday, at which point it's anyone's guess as to what will happen next. For now, it's an interesting time to be here; here's to hoping "interesting" is as far as it goes.