The doorbell keeps ringing. Another group has arrived. They descend a staircase decorated with rugs and mirrors and sit with the other diners, who were waiting for them. The restaurant El Rincón Persa is packed with Iranian families and groups of friends who have come to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which coincides with the beginning of spring. With the clinking of cutlery in the background, many mouths devour aromatic rice dishes and stews while chatting happily. But behind the smiles, the unease is palpable: many have their minds elsewhere.

The world is divided into two types of people: those who prefer to chat and engage in some "collective therapy" when they go to the hairdresser, and those who don't know how to achieve silence. At the Catalan salon Integral, In Barcelona's Eixample district, there's still a third category: those who choose to listen attentively to all the knowledge Jordi Boix displays about the world of hair while he scissors them. This Barcelona native is an unusual hairdresser: he opened a center that uses only non-toxic cosmetics, and he never misses an opportunity to combat the "vast ignorance" he claims to have about how to care for our hair.

Imagine your eyes shining when you talk about the love of your life, yet at the same time you believe that loves like yours should never exist. This is what happens to Barcelona native Emilia López, who during her youth cared for (and loved) the most iconic orca of all time, Ulysses. "When I was young, I thought I'd die with Ulysses in a pool; he was the love of my life!" she recalls while showing old photographs from that time. She appears thirty years younger, with very long hair and the same intense gaze. What does she think now? "That dolphins and orcas shouldn't exist in captivity."

Aside from large doses of anger, frustration, and resignation, the repeated disruptions to the commuter rail service in Catalonia have also led many users to develop strategies for surviving the experience of taking the train every day to and from work. Below, we've compiled some of the most notable:

ARA workers who live outside Barcelona and who are commuter train users write a diary about their experience on board the trains in a week that has been marked by the two strike calls – Tuesday and Thursday – and by the Two train drivers removed from service for alleged sabotage.

In the first full month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation has reached a new record high in Catalonia. The month of March has closed with an increase in prices of 9.5% compared to a year ago, according to the consumer price index (CPI) published on Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). It is the sharpest increase since 2002, when the INE began collecting separate data by regions.