Life: Idiotropic

Most people come to Spain to escape the rain.  Here, we had over 2x the average rain for Feb and March is looking about the same.  Cold and wet.  So, cultural outings are postponed yet again and I'm learning to adopt my German mantra of getting out each and every day that it's sunny because chances are it won't be long.

Oh well, it gives me time to catch up.

Here's the latest.

Tiara came home on Monday with a scratchy voice from arguing.  She wouldn't normally raise her voice, but here you almost have to.  Her friends are loud, thus she must be loud to be heard. 

The argument?  The number of continents. 

Ok, so how many continents are there?  Tiara posed this question to me when she got home hoarse and flustered.  So, I started to list them. 
      "North America, South America -" 

      "Stop, you've just proved my point."

Well, Tiara's friends (who happen to be some of the top students in their year) said that there are only 6 continents and that North and South America are one continent, not two.  They argued all through lunch.  After lunch, they asked one of the British teachers who said that they are two separate continents.  Tiara's friends didn't believe that, so they went to see their Sociales teacher - a Spanish woman, who agreed with them that yes, in fact, there is one continent of America, not two.

This is one of the top schools in Spain.  These are some of the top students in their year.  6 continents.  Huh.

And they think that Columbus named his discovery "America,"  (Amerigo Vespucci is rolling in his grave) which led to the complaint about the hubristic Americans who use that title as their own.

"People from the US are wrong to call themselves American because in fact, everyone from the continent of America is an American." Huh.  When I say I'm an "Americana", they don't ask which country I mean.  And when I'm asked where I'm from (which happens a lot) and I answer, "de Los Estados Unidos," they respond with "Eres Americana."  You said it, not me.  I don't want to be arrogant.

Columbians don't call themselves Americans.  Nor do Mexicans.  Nor anyone else.  You ask a European where they are from and they say, "I'm a German," or "I'm Italian," etc.  We call ourselves Americans and the world knows us as Americans not because we're claiming the continent as our own, but because our country is called "The United States of America" and frankly every one is way too lazy to figure out how to turn that into an adjective.

Prime example here... back in the days of the USSR, we called them Russians.  Probably because most people didn't know what the USS meant, but still.  They were the Russians.  All of them.  And no one griped about the title then.  Or may be they did and then rotted in prison because of it... but that's another story.

Fine.  I'm an United Statsian.  Feel better?  Ugh.