"One, two, three, four, five ... six! There is seven and eight!" The important image in the this picture is, of course, the French flag. Many times when I was stopped waiting to cross the street in Paris, France, I would count the number of French flags like this one. The average number was probably eight, but was rarely less than four and often ten or twelve. By the end of my weekend in Paris, two other students and I had a running joke, "What is that flag? I wonder what it means!" The abundance of the flags throughout the city seemed to mark a sense of national pride. However, after studying in Spain for two months it also created a sharp contrast to the regional pride of many Spaniards. Within the first week in Spain we had studied about the 17 autonomies of Spain and within a few more weeks we had learned about the rivalries between these regions, and especially between Madrid and Barcelona. When I walk through the streets of Segovia or the other places that I have traveled, I do not notice the Spanish flag or a national government building nearly as much as I see the flag of the autonomy. In fact, I can only clearly remember two places in Segovia that fly the Spanish national flag, while I can, however, recall numerous locations labeled proudly, "Castilla y Leon," the name of Segovia's autonomy. Therefore, seeing the abundance of the national flag in Paris proved to be a contrast to the regional Spain and highlighted the differences of allegiance.
In another class, when I mentioned the abundance of the flags, our teacher mentioned that in Spain the French are known for their national pride, and not necessarily in a positive context. While this may be a result of historical tensions, it also speaks the differences within their cultures and their opinions of government. Another interesting thing that I learned was that the modern French flag, is the flag that was used during the French Revolution. When it was first used the three different colors had different proportions in order to make them esthetically similar; Napoleon is credited with requiring each of the flags to have equal proportions.