Last weekend I took a road trip with my roommates to visit some friends in Pennsylvania. I came back with an alter ego.

He’s everything I’m not: suave, sophisticated and spiffy in loafers. He makes men cower in awe at his masculinity and women swoon with his soft touch. His dance moves have been known to cure pneumonia. He makes the Dos Equis’ ‘most interesting man in the world’ look like a bearded Richard Simmons.

He is Daniél, the exchange student from Spain.

Daniél was born Friday night, when a friend of mine from a Syracuse University Abroad program in Madrid dared me to test my finely honed Spanish accent on a complete stranger. As I took my spot in a lonely corner at a Lehigh University house party, a puzzled-looking freshman approached me to inquire the whereabouts of a bathroom.

I responded in Spanish without thinking, ‘Lo siento, no soy de aquí.’ I then translated in heavily accented, broken English: ‘Sorry, I’m not from here.’ Before I knew it, a crowd had surrounded me to learn about ‘the life story that I leeved as a chico from Madreed.’

It was amazing. People who were complete strangers five minutes earlier were now captivated, asking me to teach them how to roll the letter ‘R,’ cook paella and dance flamenco. Suddenly my flannel shirt and jeans, normally described as ‘vintage lumberjack’ by my friends, was ‘European chic’ to a room full of new acquaintances.

Best of all, when I spoke English with an accent, something amazing happened to my audience: They believed every word I said. Normally, I have trouble even convincing my parents that I’m me and not one of my brothers, but on this night, I had an entire audience gobbling up every lie I could possibly cook up:

— ‘For exercise I do much swimming because eet ees very difficult for running with my Amigo — this ees my dog’s name, Amigo — I do not run with Amigo because he misses a leg. When I save him from fire as puppy, he lose it. It geeves my eyes water some days.’

— ‘I do not know eef they say the truth that the Spanish men make the world’s best love partners. I am sure the men from your country can satisfy you all five times eef you ask.’

— ‘No, I am not — how do you say? Royalty? Yes, royalty. This is the word. I am not a royalty of Spain because my brother ees the one to be king. I am just to be prince. Oh, you say this is royalty as well? Oh, then I am royalty.’

— ‘Eet ees great thing to make Olympics for Spain, but life does not complete itself from money and the pretty girls. When I win medal in front of the millions of people, I think to my mind that I want to love a woman for longer than just a week at the castle where I leeve.’

Maybe it was the accent. Maybe it was because my friends played along. Maybe it was the passion in my eyes as I flamencoed the night away. Whatever it was, my new acquaintances left the night knowing they had met a royal Spanish Olympian with more money than God and more heart than Mother Teresa (not to mention more bedroom endurance than Lance Armstrong).

Hopefully, I’ll one day be able to tell my children that I lived a life half as cool as my Spanish alter ego. Until then, you can call me Daniél.

Danny Fersh is a junior broadcast journalism major, and his column appears every Wednesday. He wants his readers to know that he teenks you are very biutiful. Maybe one day you may travel on his yacht. He can be reached at dafersh@syr.edu.