Last week, José sent us an e-mail announcing that he had found a deal. Sixty Euros for two nights in a hotel at the beach, all meals included. "We'll take it," we said. So it was that we found ourselves in Lloret del Mar, a small city on the Costa Brava about an hour north of Barcelona. "Lloret del Mar," in Catalan, means:

Old Orchard Beach * Point Pleasant^(Germany+1)
Wealthy Russians + (√Spanish teenagers/Men in Speedos)

It was a tangle of stores selling expensive flip-flops and leather goods, Mexican and pizza restaurants, and hotels looking at the beach. Ok, ok, our deal did not exactly include a view of the beach. But it did include dinner, which led to this exchange on the first night:

We wandered into the dining room. Melissa, as is her custom, was carrying her purse. The hostess stopped us at the door. "You can't bring a purse in here," she said.

"Why?" said Melissa. The woman explained that, since the hotel's Russian guests steal lots of food from the buffet line, they have invented a "No purses for Russians" rule. But, she explained, she trusted us. Unfortunately, if the Russians saw that we had purses, they would ask why they couldn't bring purses, too. This, unsurprisingly, was pretty confusing for us. Now, normally, when I am confused, I assume that I simply haven't understood some Spanish. You sort of forget, when learning a new language, that sometimes people are confusing in your first language, too.

Hence it was with great joy that we then heard José ask to have the whole thing explained to him again. Exonerated, we hit the free buffet. The food was unremarkable until we spotted a little girl with French fries and asked where they were, at which point the hostess emerged from the kitchen with an entire steam tray of fries. Since the other choice was enormous hot dogs swimming in something that looked like ketchup sauce, the fries were a hit throughout the dining room. They may have been easier to steal, however. Covering things with sauce tends to keep them from being lifted.

But we were, oddly enough, not there to eat. This may, in fact, be the first vacation we've ever taken that ended up focused on something other than food. Instead, this was focused on going to the beach. The next day we took the bus to a much nicer town called Tossa and hopped a glass-bottomed boat to a small cove. Through the glass, we could see a lot of bubbles and the occasional rock and fish. The woman sitting next to us, a recent graduate of Cal State-Chico, was surprised to find the Mediterranean both salty and shark-free, a pair of conclusions so oddly juxtaposed that they left us unable to say anything in response. Our collective silence allowed her to keep talking: she had majored in interior design and had attended high school near the town where Melissa grew up. This is the actual exchange that followed:

Melissa: Oh, huh. I'm from Framingham.
Recent grad: Wow! Did you know Kristy?
Melissa: Kristy? I don't think so.

They next day, talking to the hotel clerk about lunch, we were asked where we were from. He loved our answer and declared the United States the best country in the entire world, "because rich people control everything, and they are in the United States." He loved Bill Clinton, he loved George Bush, he loved the New York Stock Exchange. He did not like Europe. Why? Because, of course, the stock market here is rigged, and he had lost a lot of money.

His fellow clerk, obviously used to playing the straight man, brought up Enron. Enron is a relatively widely accepted symbol here of how loco our system of paying for retirement is. That one day you could wake up and realize that you are going to have to work forever and that all the money you thought you were saving has vanished is essentially unthinkable in Spain, owning to a more humane system of pensions and such.

Enron was not an issue to this guy, however. He was on to actors. "Do you know who my favorite actor is? John Wayne. Also, Bruce Willis. And The Godfather, Brando, DeNiro. One, two, and three. But the second one is never as good, but in the Godfather it was great. And Ronald Reagan."

We were quiet for a moment. "What?" he said. "You don't like George Bush? I like Clint Eastwood, too." His friend was making circles in the air by his head with one finger, a gesture he had obviously had to use a lot working next to this guy.

"Ok," we said. "We're off to the beach. Thanks!"

He followed us out the door. "I like all the American presidents!" he yelled as we walked down the street, trying to maintain some polite eye contact while still escaping. "Clinton, Bush, they are so intelligent! And the stock market!"

It is better to be liked, I suppose, even for a collection of presidents and actors, than to be suspected of stealing hot dogs.