Barbie Girl by Aqua

The majority of the songs that I listened to during my time in Germany and Spain never made it to the US.  I think that when it comes to music, Americans take themselves (a little too) seriously and a lot of the Eurotrash dance hits simply weren't sophisticated enough or "real music".  Then again, Who Let the Dogs Out was an enormous hit in 1999 and that was one of the dumbest songs I ever exuberantly danced to, so maybe my reasoning is completely false.  In any case, competing for THE dumbest song I exuberantly danced to is Barbie Girl.  It was an enormous hit in Spain in 1997 and you would often hear it in the discos.  It always makes me think of Albert B. because he liked it (and me) so much, he created an alternative verse, just for me:

I'm a Yankigirl, in a Yankiworld

Life in dollars, it's fantastic

You can dance with me and go to Sabadell!

Albert was the first friend I made in Barcelona and of course I immediately fell head over unrequited heels for him.  He was cute and hilarious and completely unpredictable.  He would often show up at my door at any time, sometimes even at 10pm and suggest going out somewhere and I almost always did.  He was completely ADD and talked faster than I do using all the latest slang and idioms.  It was a challenge for me when I was just learning the language and often resulted in me unknowingly using the most inappropriate expressions to his great amusement.  

Yanki is what Spaniards call ALL Americans, no matter how many times I told them that we only use that for the Americans in the Northeast.  I found the expression so endearing however, that it became my email address for the longest time.  Sabadell was a town just outside of Barcelona and Albert drove me and a couple friends up there to go to some disco that wasn't any better than any you could find in Barcelona.  I can't remember what he thought was so great, but I do vaguely remember his car breaking down and it being some big, stressful, dramatic ordeal to get back to the city.  I found the whole experience to be oh so typical Albert and a good story to boot.