It was day two of Rebecca's vacation to Spain and she wasn't finding it anymore enjoyable. Her mother and brother had gone to some city to see the sites. She still didn't understand what the fuss was over. Hundreds of years ago some Europeans built some buildings that they thought were big and now Americans are here and are bigger than all the buildings the tiny Europeans tried so hard to build. Well admittedly Americans weren't taller than all European buildings. Taller ones could be found in Spain, Germany, England, France, Poland, Italy and Turkey, even if those structures were skyscrapers to the Europeans and more like lampposts to Americans. Russia also had some absolutely colossal buildings big enough to fit entire European countries inside. (But Russia had been strictly isolationist since the humiliating end of the Cold War, to the relief of their comparatively microscopic neighbours in the Baltics and caucuses who had grown tired of entire towns getting stepped on by the feet of ungodly gigantic Russians.) But even if some of the buildings were bigger, the Europeans were so tiny that Rebecca didn't understand why her family had to pay to visit their countries instead of being worshipped like gods upon arrival given that they could fit an entire village worth of people in their socks. Instead of worship Rebecca had to settle for a pedicure on the beach.
She had decided to order one while sunbathing, making sure it was a home (or rather beach) call as even one of the feet she wanted manicured was as big as the entire salon. 20 minutes after it was placed, two tiny vans rolled up to her feet, which easily dwarfed them and opened their doors. From within each van stepped an entire salon's worth of pedicurists ready to take one of her feet. A square sheet of tarpaulin that was the size of a Spanish WWE ring was unfolded for her to place her feet onto. To begin the treatment, they needed Rebecca to turn her soles sideways so they could massage her feet. That alone was a tedious task. It took a huge amount of strength to loosen up the skin of her sole, they were like big, extra thick, gym mats just rubbing them was exhausting for the salonists. Rebecca, on the other hand, loved the feeling of tiny little hands pushing against her feet. Despite their size, they were well able to massage her feet effectively. If anything, massaging feet that were bigger than them made them more precise and effective. After the massaging was complete they needed to soak her feet. Normally they'd soak them in a basin but that was impractical in this case so they needed to improvise. A hose was hooked up to an industrial vat full of water, it wouldn't be enough to quench Rebecca's thirst on a hot day but it did the trick with regards to wetting her feet. It was cute to her that the Spanish people were so tiny that they needed a hose just to soak an American's feet but it seemed to get the job done. The next step was scrubbing her soles with sponges. It was a task that could normally be completed by one person with one loofa in 10 minutes total but with the size of the pedicure, it took 5 people on each foot 20 minutes to do. It didn't help that the sole, even while on it?s side, was taller than them. When that was done, the tiny technicians had the skin of her feet looking fresh and healthy. The next job was her nails, first they needed to trim them. The nails were far too thick to be cut with clippers and to file them would take all day. Luckily, Rebecca was able to lend them one of her files which the technicians could use. The file was twice as long as any of them and was fairly heavy but was still the most efficient tool for the job. It took two Spaniards pushing back and forth to use the American's file to trim her nails but eventually they had them nice and even. Being so close to her toes and being able to see them in such detail helped them cut them as neatly as they'd ever been. Lastly was to paint the nails. Another truck with an industrial vat pulled up to the beach full of nail varnish. There was so much varnish that the smell was intoxicating to the Europeans but it would be barely enough for everyone of the American's toes. To paint the nails on her first two toes, paint brushes were used over nail brushes as the workers didn't want to be there all night. At various points they thought they would be sick from the smell but they kept working, one technician per toe and eventually they got her nails completely finished. Rebecca sat up to examine their work, raising each foot intimidatingly high over the tinies to inspect her feet. ?Not bad? she commented, ?maybe you Euro-ants are good for something, put it on my mom's tab?. While she downplayed her satisfaction outwardly, inwardly, it was the best and most enjoyable pedicure she'd ever received. She got back up to head back to her ?room?, almost smashing a truck beneath her newly pedicured foot.
On her way back she paid no attention to the tinies on the ground as they scrambled to get out of her way. Umbrellas, deck chairs, picnics, even a hut was demolished beneath her bare feet while Rebecca was oblivious above, lost in thought. ?I should start a business? she thought, a salon where all the treatments were performed by Europeans was what she had in mind. Americans could check in and have their feet worked on by tiny Europeans. ?You could have a group of them stomping on your back to massage it, this could be a million dollar idea? she thought.
Meanwhile Max and their mom were off to Barcelona. The family wasn't actually staying in Catalonia, rather just outside in northern Valencia, just south of Catalonia but the vast majority of their journey would be through Catalonia and the difference between them and the rest of Spain was obvious.
Given Catalonia's autonomy and super strong national identity, it's people had taken on a size of their own and, unfortunately for them, that size was significantly smaller than the rest of Spain. Max and his mom walked along the coast, they couldn't walk on the roads given that Max's comparatively small feet alone were more than 200 feet long to a Catalan and nearly twice as wide as a four lane highway. To put in perspective how tiny Catalans were, Max was a giant in Spain at 100 feet tall (despite not even being 5 ft by American standards) and his feet alone were more than twice that big to a Catalan. And then there was the mother, she was imposing to most Americans at a tall 6?3? but here, she and her son were skyscrapers in their own right at nearly 2000? and 1500? tall respectively. Her middle finger was almost the size of a 737. The journey from Valencia to Barcelona would be a more than 2 hour drive for a Catalan but Max and his mom walked the distance in 10 minutes. As they approached the city, they saw what was easily the largest building in the province, the airport which was built to accommodate flights from larger countries. It still looked like an oversized playset to Max. Only some of the planes were longer than he was while the local ones could fit, roughly, in the palm of his hand, it was so surreal to see actual planes full of people that were that tiny. The terminals were only waist height and the control tower only as tall as a soccer goal post.
The appearance of two Americans, each way over 1000 feet tall had caused all hell to break loose in the city, Max looked down in amusement at the tiny city before him, laughing at efforts of the tiny citizens to escape the giants, the city was like one big anthill that Max had disturbed merely by his presence, the biggest buildings not every waist height. Any preconceptions Max had about being Godzilla to the Spanish people vanished, he was just a giant to them. It was in Catalonia where he was the super scary monster. They even had the Catalan air force flying around them like little mosquitoes, he wasn't sure what good they would do given that their planes were shorter than his index finger and was tempted to swat them to show how pointless it was to send their military after him and add to the monster movie feel but he didn't want to get in trouble with the tour company. As they entered the port, they had to be even more careful about where they stepped and it was impossible to put their whole feet down without crushing something important meaning they had to angle them wherever they stepped.
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