Note to McCain: Zapatero does not equal Zapatista

McCain doesn't know shit about Spain, including where it's located and who its prime minister is.

This pisses me off for obvious reasons. More to come when I get out of work.

Update
So, according to Matt Yglesias, John McCain didn't mix up Spain and Latin America or Zapatero (the President of the Government or Prime Minister), he just refuses to meet with him, a la Bush, who has not gone to Spain since Zapatero came to office in 2004, and also hasn't invited him to the White House.

So a little background: the Spanish prime minister before Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was Jose Maria Aznar of the conservative Partido Popular. He was one of the original members of the "Coalition of the Willing" and sent troops to Iraq. But then terrorists linked to al-Qaeda bombed the main train station (Atocha) in Madrid, killing hundreds, and his government tried to blame it on ETA, the Basque separatist militants. This happened a few days before the elections, and in response to the attack and the lying, the Spanish voted Aznar out and Zapatero and the Socialists in. Now, by this point, Aznar and Bush were pretty good friends, but one of Zapatero's major campaign pledges was to pull the Spanish troops out of Iraq, and unlike most politicians, he kept his promise. And since then, Spanish-American relations have been pretty chilly. As a side note, Zapatero and the Socialists were reelected in March with an even larger plurality in the Spanish parliament, but the Spanish economy has plummeted in response to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

It really is ridiculous if this is how McCain feels about Spain, a NATO member, EU member, and the world's 9th largest economy. And this just makes me dislike him even more, because I love Spain.

Insert Witticism Here

So I noticed I hadn't blogged in a while and ultimately, I can't blame it on busyness, only laziness. How sad, but I do have some updates.

• I'm going to Madrid this weekend for their pride week finale. I hope I'm not too disappointed considering last year, Madrid was host of EuroPride and close to a million people showed up. This trip will also be my first one out of Barcelona and a chance to hang out with friends from last summer!
• Hopefully on this trip I'll be able to rein in my tendency towards getting fucked-up-drunk. Not to go into too many details, but I had an episode of drunkeness last week and ended up needing medical attention. But the bright side was I fell in love with socialized health-care.
  
• Tomorrow the consulate is celebrating the 4th of July and I'm getting paid 100 freakin' euros to serve pizza.
  
• Speaking of work, I recently moved to my new office; basically it's a big room divided between two sections by a wall of filing cabinets. The worst part, my chair sucks and hurts my bum. But my boss is leaving to NYC for two weeks soon and I'm getting some real responsibility. Not sure how I feel about it yet.
• ...And, my job comes with impressive perks. Like free tickets to a concert held in the Palau de la Música Catalana, the inside of which was breathtakingly beautiful. The music (an arrangement of military-themed pieces to celebrate a Spanish victory over Napoleon), not so much.

Oh, and of course, the Spanish are the champions of Europe.














My favorite pic is where they're throwing their coach (who's like 80) in the air.









And while I'm pretty much in love with all the team, my new goal in life is to get the goalie, Iker Casillas, to marry me (cuz it's legal in Spain).










Yes, Spain, the perennial under-achievers, defeated Germany and the country went nuts. The major squares in all the big cities became scenes of revelry on a Sunday night. In the Plaça Catalunya, there was mayhem, but it was very exciting, especially because the Catalans have tried for 300 years to forge an identity separate from Spain. The rivalry between Barça and Real Madrid has always been seen as an expression of this thirst for separateness. I like my Spain whole, so it was very heartening to see not one Catalan flag in my brief walk around the plaza.

But enough about politics. It was a joyous night that I was lucky to be part of, as could definitely be said about my entire time here.