Guatemala has never won a single Olympic medal...

...I mean, no medals at all -- no Bronze, no Silver, and no GOLD in either the Summer or Winter Olympics. I mean, you'd think they might have a medal in a summer sport (since winter is a joke here -- no snow -- and how can you practice skiing on moguls when there's no snow? The mountains here are lava-spewing volcanoes -- hence, NO SNOW) but nope, they got nada. This is really only important in the gold medal category.

And I know why Guatemala has no gold medals. It's not that they lack talent or ambition. It's due to time constraints.

Let me 'splain. Guatemala celebrated their Independence Day earlier this week. (Independence from Spain, that is.) Ok, I gotta be honest -- I didn't know from whom they gained independence from, either -- from the Aztecs? From Mexico? From Jamaica? -- until I asked Joel. He was nice about it and didn't make me feel stooopid when he said, "Oh, from Spain. Like the U.S. got their independence from England." So, not only does he know the details on his country's independence, he knows mine, too. 

Duuuh.

...Ah, but I digress.

So! As we were driving the other day, the Guatemalan National Anthem came on the radio. (The Subaru has a radio -- no A/C, no CD player, no decent transmission -- but by golly it has a radio.) Joel was singing along like a good Guatemala and I was sitting there, taking it in, without a clue as to what the words were. And it went on. And on. And onnnnn... No kidding, that song lasted at least 4 minutes. ('Quatro minutos! Mas tiempo!' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.)

I've counted -- the U.S. National Anthem has a mere 16 lines. Sixteen! Short and sweet. Basically ours says, "The U.S. is awesome. Our flag stands through it all. 'Nuff said."

According to Joel, the Guatemalan National Anthem is 48 lines long. ('Quatro y ocho' for my Spanish-speaking amigos/) FORTY-EIGHT long, painstaking lines saying things like, "May your altars never never be profaned by cruel men" (whaaaat?) and "people would prefer death to slavery" and something about plows fertilizing the soil and honor and thrones of love and the native bird flying around... On and on it goes. I think it repeats itself. I mean, who wouldn't want to hear about the "thrones of love" more than once? Bring on the thrones of love! ('Silla de amore' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.) Soon, every living room in the free world will have a throne of love. Mark my words.

Okaaay. So the lyrics are bold and brave and -- dare I say it? -- macho, but the song goes on and on. I took a nap halfway through and woke up to find it was still not finished. Wow. ('Que paso!' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.)

I think the folks at the Olympics throw off the results whenever a Guatemalan is competing ONLY because they think no one (but the Guatemalans) will want to sit through a four-minute-long anthem. And that is my theory on why Guatemala has never won an Olympic Gold Medal.

Yes, I've been drinking. (Something with rum... and lime -- every drink here has a lime in it somehow. Beer with lime. Coke with lime. Water with lime. Milk with lime. Coffee with lime... I won't get scurvy!) And yes, these are my deepest thoughts at the moment. That and the fact I need to floss. ('Mi dientes estoy malo' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.)

Hope you are having a great day. And I hope you enjoyed my Spanish lesson. I am so bilingual. Si.