Dear Spanish ladies,

I know you aren’t always at the cutting edge of fashion, what with the mullet still a popular hairstyle, wearing leggings as pants, and confusing style with the sporting of designer labels – and I don’t expect you to be. But I felt particularly pressed to speak up about a recent disturbing trend that I have seen everywhere for over a year now–summer and winter–that has me cringing: Flesh colored pantyhose worn under short shorts.

I get it ladies – you want to wear the shorts, but want some coverage and don’t want the lady parts hanging out. But nude hose are not flattering and are never fashionable. They look dated and crappy on the waitresses and chambermaids who are still forced to wear them, and they look dated and crappy on you. Just remind yourself when you reach for them in the sock drawer: You are not a cirque du soliel performer, you are not Lady GaGa and you are not a professional ballroom dancer. Put them back in the drawer.

I’m not saying don’t wear the shorts, put those things on! And if you want to hold the ladyparts in/hide the buttcheek (and I commend you for doing so) or just be warmer, then don some sheer colored tights or even patterned hose.

Just please, not the nude stockings.

Do you need more reasons to dissuade you? OK: They are particularly disturbing when your legs are wanting of a shave. Stuffing your leg hairs into nude pantyhose does not hide the hair. I’ll be blunt, when you are a grown-ass woman, you can’t get away with shaving up to your knees and stopping like you did when you were 15. No. You are hairier now than when you were a teenager. Some of you teenagers are hairier than others, so don’t think because you still have a 1 to the left of your age numbers you get a free ticket.

If you don’t want to commit to shaving the full leg out of laziness, denial, or the belief in some myth that shaving makes your hair grow back thicker and darker (it is already thick and dark enough, believe me and everyone else you’ve stood next to in that outfit on the metro) then please, do yourself a favor and don some colored tights.

That’s all.

Love, Me

The second most common question I receive after the where should I live question is the “How Can I Stay Legally as an American?” question.

There are several ways to get residency in Spain–either for the short or long term. I have a long overdue interview I need to publish on this from someone who is taking a different route than what I am going to present here, but meanwhile, I want to share a relatively simple solution with my readers (Key word relatively. there are no simple solutions in reality)

Student Visa for Spain

Many Americans don’t know that you can get a student visa from language school. It’s true, you don’t need to attend a University to get a student visa. You just need an accredited language school where you attend classes for 20 hours a week or more. Now, there are a lot of language schools in Barcelona–I should know, I’ve attended no fewer than six seven of them–and each have their varying levels of cooperativeness in arranging the Spanish paperwork for a visa. I actually applied for a student visa in 2011 and received all the paperwork I needed from a school very quickly. Despite my level Spanish level being advanced intermediate at the time (B2 that would be called here), they enrolled me for a full year course, starting with the very beginning level and adding in study time for their level tests, in order to extend the length of the visa. Very helpful! I didn’t actually have to attend the beginning classes, and jumped into the program later at the advanced intermediate level, which I repeated, and then repeated the advanced level too.

Schools should work with you to arrange a 6 month, 9 month and 12 month visa if their class schedules coincide with those lengths – smart schools will have that figured out. (Some schools are better than others at this!) I would suggest a 9 month course, because that ensures that you get a visa that is over 180 days in length. Here is why you want a visa that is 180+ days: Because once it is up, you can renew it from Spain. No traveling back to the US and waiting around for another application to be processed.

You only need to be prepared to pay tuition up front, (and then of course fulfill the paperwork on the US side of the visa). Some schools are much more expensive than others, but all of them are a lot cheaper than a student visa from a University.

So if you looking for a way to extend your stay beyond the 30 day tourist visa, and are planning to learn Spanish while you are here anyway, a student visa could be a good solution for you.

Check the student visa requirements page for a detailed list of everything required (it’s long, but thorough).

Note: Apply for a student visa early. Getting all of the medical checks, FBI background check, paperwork and of course processing time can take up to three months!