That SUCKS!! Yeah. Europeans aren't as worried about hurting your feelings. Thank god for "political correctness" and protecting my vulnerable ego. I once had a saleswoman in Italy flat out ask me if I was really sure that I could afford the shoes I wanted to buy, while she looked me up and down like I was a stinking carcass. I was wearing typical backpacker gear, but found the comment quite stinging - felt like I do in those weird dreams where you are standing naked in front of your junior high class...

One of my French friends, Anne, and I were talking about that one day. She told me after years of living in the States, she had grown "tender"/sensitive. She went into a store in France to buy her mother (a typically skinny French woman) a necklace. As she was trying it on, the saleswoman told her that with Anne's "neck like a bull" the necklace really totally unsuitable. lovely. She had a few more stories like that.

Anyway, I don't think I ever dared to try on pants in Spain - thank you Gap - but whenever the saleswomen would get snooty with me at Zara's I would feel just fine looking at them with the 3-shades-darker-than-their-neck make up and freaky exagerated Cleopatra eyeliner and prance my natural (and voluptuous) *ss around the store anyway.