Day 4 in Central America. Today's theme: (and it's a quick one) Clothes

Hey, I'm no fashion critic/guru/expert/controlfreak or even fan. But some things you just notice.

Also, by way of introduction, I've been spending a lot of time down here at a university. There are a few U.S. students studying here, but by and large these are local citizens.

At first glance they appear to dress much like their U.S. counterparts. There are quite a few T-shirts, some baseball caps, sneakers, jeans, ladies in capristyle pants. What you notice is that for a place where the temperture gets above 90 most everyday, you very seldom, and I mean very seldom, see anyone in shorts. And if you don't see it on a small university campus, you don't see it much on the streets.

This is one of those things I think is best left at the observation level. Trying to explain it is rather futile. I suppose some possible explanations for this could be there is something more fundamentally conservative about this country (or region), or maybe it's something that is fundamentally... whatever.. about U.S. culture that we think the moment it gets above 70 everyone is entitled to run around in their underwear.

If you can believe it, I didn't even bring a pair of shorts with me, with the exception of the gym shorts I wear in the fitness room. During that mental check-off of occasions I needed to prepare for, workdays, evenings and weekend, from the "sort of nice" look to "very casual" I remembered there was really no benefit to bringing a pair of shorts. Even this weekend if I stroll down to the supermarket or around town I'll probably be wearing a pair of lightweight long pants.

And a heavy metal T-shirt.