americans = energy consuming jerks

So, Europeans are phenomenally energy conscious. The cars? Más pequeño. Showers? Menos. And so on. 


Recently, I was talking to the kids about Christmas. I explained to them about how we have Christmas trees, and asked if they normally have real or fake trees (answer = fake). I told them how some families, though not mine because that would require too much family togetherness and mi madre hates pine needles anyways, would actually go out and chop down their own Christmas tree. 


For some reason, the most important question that the kids had was, "Well how do they bring the tree home?" I explained that they just throw the tree on top of the car and that's a very common sight in the month of December in America. They were seriouslyyyy shocked. (To me, this implies that their hybrid, energy-conscious matchbox cars are put together with toothpicks and plastic, but whatever. Buena suerte en un accidente.) This leads the teacher to go on a 10 minute rant about how Americans have HUUUGE cars because we don't care about the environment. 


Yeah, okay, that's probably true. I mean it seriously upsets me that we have five family members and only four cars. And if anyone is driving my car right now, despite my being on a different continent, I will be HEATED. But really, my point of this post is that, while I am all for saving the ozone layer or stopping global warming or whatever they were talking about in Cophenhagen, Spaniards really need to splurge a little and invest in some clothes dryers. 


That's right. Clothes dryers are nonexistent, so we only have a drying rack. Since I have been slacking, to say the least, on my laundry, I am now trying to get it all done before Italy so I can bring my favorite stuff with me. Did I mention it's been raining for three days and, in the cold, it takes clothes at least 4-5 days to dry??? 


You win on the clothes dryer front, Spain... but now I need to break out the hair dryer.