Where did you learn Spanish?

One of the more surreal experiences was the daily dance around the questions, "Where are you from?" and its close follower, "Where did you learn Spanish?" Being a veritable United Nations of single lady travelers we generally stuck with "We study in the United States" for the first answer unless one of us was asked specifically. The second question made for some ridiculousity.

My favorite conversation was one I overheard between L the Mexican and one of the Costa Rican hippies. The exchange went something like this:
H: Where did you learn Spanish?
L: I'm Mexican.
H: Oh so you learned Spanish in Mexico?
L: Uh, yes.
H: Did you take Spanish in school? Or just from living there?
L: What?
H: Because you speak really well. You even have a Mexican accent.
L: Right.
H: Because that other girl has a different accent. She says she learned in Bolivia.
L: But I'm Mexican.

Conversations with me usually went:
Where are you from?
The United States
But you speak Spanish!
To which I would respond either "I lived in Bolivia" or "All New Yorkers speak Spanish."

Upon reflection, this isn't as strange as it at first seemed. We did meet several Americans living in Costa Rica who had made no attempt to learn Spanish. One of the hippies, for example, had been coming to CR for 11 years. The owner of our hotel had been living there 15. No Spanish. Honestly, besides the Subways and Dennys and Walmart and Burger Kings, I think this is one of the reasons that I didn't really enjoy Costa Rica as much as I could have. At the very least, our sojourn into hippydom gave us the opportunity to speak with real live Costa Ricans who were super proud of their land and the efforts they made to make the country environmentally friendly.