>By the way, one of my favorite pastimes was visiting gardens in Boquete.

You would enjoy visiting a place in Volcan, in the same province as Boquete, called the Dracula farm. The owner has collected over 2000 species of orchids, including one called Dracula. It is one of the most interesting places I have been in the country. You tip for a tour. The owner started as a hobbyist and now sells all over the world.

>I was actually in Argentina for a couple of weeks and everyone I spoke with used usted. I don't know if that was unusual or not. When I speak with Latin Americans (in this country) they almost all use only tu and in fact, most (both from Puerto Rico and Mexico) speak very informally and almost at a grade school level of grammar as a rule (there are exceptions for Puerto Ricans that finished school and were forced by their parents at home to speak correctly as a matter of pride)
>
>In Mexico, unless speaking with a relatively wealthy family, the people all spoke a sortof "Tex-Mex" that was grammatically incorrect in almost all cases and consisted mostly of slang (very much like the South here). It was very difficult to understand. It was like speaking with an 8 year old. It took me a while to realize that many did not continue school after the 8th grade and that ended their Spanish grammar lessons.
>
>On the other hand, in general, most people I have met from other South American and Central American countries speak Spanish using correct grammar.
>
>I went to Spain and I've met people from Spain and my experience has been that they speak better Spanish than most (if only they would drop that th! *G*). Also my experience in El Salavador, Nicaragua, Chile, Bolivia (La Paz is all I can talk about there) and Costa Rica was similar.

Yes, some cultures are more formal than others, and definitely your education comes through in the grammar, but that is true in all languages, I think. There is great variety in the way Spanish is spoken within Spain itself. I've heard that people from around Valladolid are supposed to speak the "best" Spanish.

>I sometimes wonder how any non-native English speakers can understand us in the South. Even listening to radio talk shows it is embarrassing to hear southerners speak. You very often hear things similar to:
>
>"We was..."
>"He be..."
>"We run down to the store..."
>
>They don't even realize it.

How about the accent Tracy! That is just how human speech is, however, and we can still decipher it, amazing. That is because speech is Object Oriented, which includes polymorphism, of course. :)

One of the hardest accents to decipher for me was the Scottish accent. But I now understand most of it and think it is charming.

Alex