Catalans. Argh!

At some point last week Loco informed me that we had been invited for lunch at the weekend at his ex-work colleague's house with some of his other colleagues.

"Ok" I said.

On Friday Loco informed me that his work colleagues might speak in Catalan.

"Hmm" I said


"But they probably won't" he added

"Hmmmm" I said.

On Saturday armed with the obligatory bottle of plonk, we set off for lunch in one of the many industrial polygonic urbanisations that around these parts they like to call "a village". The BBQ was lit and we milled around the garden waiting for everyone to turn up. I believe that during this period I exchanged a few words reagrding Prison Break with a colleague of Loco's that I had met once before and then that was it because

For the next 6 hours I sat and listened to everybody laughing and joking away in Catalan while I sat there like a lemon barely understanding a word.

Were these people unable to speak Spanish? No. The majority were of a spanish mother tongue and had spent some years living in Cataluña, yet knowing that there was a non-Catalan speaker they still chose to converse in Catalan for the whole time.


Did at any point anyone try to make any conversation with me? No they did not. Other than Loco who does not speak in Catalan but understands perfectly. However he didn't really get that for his one sentence spoken in Spanish there was 100 sentences that had been spoken in Catalan making up the rest of the conversation.

What did I do?

I quietly sat and raged. And daydreamed about smacking each and everyone of these uncivilised animals with a big long stick over the head. Especially one of Loco's uber-Catalan friends who, for some reason, just looking at him makes me seethe. I've only met him 3 times. I don't really know why I dislike him so much. It's just his face I think.

The we left.

The rest of the night was a write off. I was full of nervous energy and bored but my bad mood meant that I didn't actually want to do anything. Happy Days.