Car Fads in Spain
I don't know about in the rest of Europe, but here in Spain, pimping your ride is very much in fashion. Driving around, you will see no end of "tuning" garages ready to convert your Seat Ibiza into a lean, mean, driving machine with blacked out windows (apart from the driver's as it is now illegal) extra large footpads, a souped up gear knob and other veritable treats.
I have noticed 2 new fads recently
1. Removing all signs of the make and model of your car - making your car kind of "white label". Why? Sometime you replace your original logos with the logos from other cars.
Note to people that do this: A Seat Ibiza is still a Seat Ibiza even if you stick a ferrari/lamborghini/porsche logo onto it
2. Painting on the rear of your car in fancy letters (preferably in silver or gold) the name of you and your loved one/pet dog/mum so that everyone knows whos in the car. Very Classy, Jesse and Julian in the black Seat Toledo.
And let's not forget the sound systems - any respectable "tuned" car has a full set of speakers, subwoofers and bass box so that eeeeeeeevvvvvvvvverrrrryyyyyyyyonnnnneeeeeeee can hear your garrulo music as you cruise through the streets with your windows open when it's 3ºC.
Oh - and this has now extended to motorbikes too - I was lucky enough to encounter a motorbike with its very own set of very loud speakers the other day. Luckily he was playing music I liked (what does that say about me?).
I'm hoping this is just a Spain thing
20 comments:
Nope. Its a European thing. Same in Brussels and I never understand the removing of the make and model of your car. I mean why? Everyone knows its a Polo because you couldn't afford a Golf so don't try and kid us. . .
Same in Scotland too. They do it because they have small willies.
Hi DQ,
I am writing you here in response to your answer to me on your sister's blog because I honestly don't want to discourage her! (Also, I have now signed up for a blogger.com account twice, but every time I try to put in a new comment on her blog, it rejects me. So this is the only way for me to respond to you anyway.)
So who am I then? I could be anybody. Perhaps some bored journalist in London with nothing better to do than surf the web for a trend, a phenomenon that before the internet wouldn't have been possible. Bingo, here's an instant story.
If this were 1987 instead of 2007, would she be going to some town hall 300km away and tacking what she's written on her blog on the local town hall bulletin board, feeling safe in the knowledge that nobody in that town knows her, so it's therefore safe? Not likely, but it would be safer than the internet.
I'm not saying she shouldn't continue, far from it.
I'm just saying that if I, some dipstick sitting in Germany, can read your comments on shamelesshussy, and you're also commenting on your sister's blog under the same name, then anybody can stumble on your sister's site in the same way I did. How did I find the shameless hussy? Via the expat-blog.com blog ring.
PS: d'ya think she saw Ireland the past week, or should I ask her directly?
It is worse in Spain though DQ. They spend money on the car but none on their ability to drive.
Additionally, due to the differing hours of activity (siesta 2 through 5) the car stereos don't usually dissipate until 3am at the earliest
Wow! This is the most comments I've ever had. I'm very excited! Thank you and hello!
Teeny I would be inclined to agree with you and also with Spanish Goth - driving skills are atrocious. I see an accident pretty much on a weekly basis which isn't very nice for anyone involved.
Ian - I don't know who you are or understand your comment, but I assume you are my Hamburg visitor :)
Ciao for now
How bizarre - I know the story behind Ian but seems a very strange way of going about it - unless of course he has completely mis-read everything.
Thought I'd post it here to increase still further the comments ;-)
Viva Espana
(sure DQ knows what I'm talking about - sister? my Gothic furry butt) can I be an honourary sister then?????
Ehh? I am most confuddled. I wish I knew the story behind Ian.. it's all a mystery to me....
dooby dooby doo.
Hi all,
I have left a msg for drama queen to check out the comments on this blog, since it's from here, through her, that I found her sisters blog. As I said, I would have commented on her sister's blog directly, but it only allows me to do that once. I set up a google account, make my comment, go back the next day, and it says I'm using the wrong password. All attempts to figure this out have so far failed. We now await the return to this blog of the drama queen for further developments.
Ian followed DQ to her Aunty's site, which is not linked from anywhere and is mainly an online diary of her marriage breakup. DQ mentioned that her aunt is one foxy lady and posted a comment saying that when they went out, people thought they were sisters.
Quite how he made the link from there to here is beyond me (and I know most of the links between certain bloggers.....)
Hope this clears it up as much as it can be explained?!
besos,
S
If there are no links to the aunty's site how did he follow DQ there? Can people follow me around the sites I visit? UGG
Not quite. When you post a comment using blogger it links to your profile, which then links to your blog.
Easy really. Does not track your movements as such but there is a path to follow.
Aha. So let me get this straight
Ian was reading DQ's aunty's blog randomly one day
(Ian feel free to correct me at any point)
DQ left a comment
Ian tried to reply but couldn't, and at some point thought Aunty was DQs sister
Ian read my blog one day through expat blogs and found another comment by DQ..
Ian decided to answer DQ through my blog.
I get confused
The end
SH,
Here's how I think it went.
I was reading your blog. I saw a comment from DQ. I clicked on DQ, and up came her site. Somehow from her site I came across her auntie's blog (not sister's, I stand corrected) detailing the wrenching breakup of her marriage. I tried to comment on her auntie's blog, but because I didn't have a blogger.com account, it wouldn't let me, so I had to set one up. I did that and commented, but the next day, it refused to let me comment. So I set up a NEW account at blogger.com, commented again on her auntie's site, but then the next day the same thing happened AGAIN. Sick of having to set up a new blogger.com account every time I wanted to leave a comment on DQ's auntie's blog, I'm responding to DQ via the cosy confines of your shameless blog, which is not only more (ahem) open to all comers, but I do enjoy it as well, and would like to know (because we ALL do...) did you go out with Ireland the past week, or what?
So now everything is clear to me. With the tiniest bit of investigation I now know what you guys are talking about. I even have read the auntie's blog myself.. i think it was linked from someone else's page.. I don't know..or remember. It's a small (blog)world ey.
yup,
that's what I was getting at...
Once it's out there, you have no way of knowing who's going to read it. Sure her husband might not know a blog from a slab of beef, but he might be reading about it in a newspaper one day... unless the guy's totally illiterate perhaps?
Wow!!!! WTF is going on and Ian why did you come here to comment back to me??
*confused*
I am trying to follwo this thing through. Argh.
PS its my Auntie NOT my sister. . .
'unless the guy's totally illiterate perhaps'
???
Ian, Im going to come over to yours to comment properly, I don't think its fair to post on SH's re all this.
In the meantime can I just ask that you give us all some respect. My auntie is totally aware of the consquences of blogging but with 55 million of them in the world it is very unlikely she will be in the papers.
Yes she knows that her commenting leaves a direct trail but I don't go anywhere other than my links (which are clearly shown). You might notice we have a pretty tight internet circle going on.
Also her identity is not revealed on said blog. Yes her situation is specfic but I can point you in the direction of a few people going through the same. . .
Anyway, at the moment you are seriously denting a fragile women's confidence. She is going through a lot and doesn't have any close family near and sought solice in blogging. As it stands you have managed to force her into possibly giving up blogging and for what purpose? I really don't understand. . .?
Dear Drama Queen,
I have tried my level best to explain that I have not been trying to discourage her from writing, just letting her be aware that it *could* be discovered. I don't know, if discretion and secrecy is what you were after, then blogging is surely not the way to go. Perhaps an email mailing list with her circle of friends and relatives would be just as quick, yet more secure and private? Or is she looking for feedback from the wider world? The very nature of blogging is that it's out there - it's bouncing around in the wider world, and anyone from New Zealand to New Hampshire and back to New Guinea can read it. Yes, there are 55 million, and growing by 65,000 per day or some such crazy number, but so far there is only one of hers. Perhaps that bored journalist decides to use it in an article as a point of departure for a discussion on the breaking down of societal barriers, where everything is now being discussed in the open, from sex lives to breakups to personality disorders to what have you. Stranger things have happened. I don't know, I'm just asking, not attempting to stir up any anger or despair in anyone. If that was the way it came across then I sincerely apologise. I hope she continues.
I would have posted all this on her blog but like I tried to explain, it will allow me to do it only once, then shuts me out.
to add to your most commented post ever i'd just like to say, dang, i wish i wrote that car fad post. very observant
Thanks v.much!
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