Where have all the Cowboys gone?

Last night a French friend, Vincent was throwing a house party for his girlfriend's birthday- I've met Vincent a few times but I've been asking Sylvain to hang out with him because he's our age and I had a good first impression. We got a bottle of wine, got lost, almost gave up, and found the shack of a house twenty minutes later. When we sat down Sylvain commented on the degradation of the house Vincent shared- he told me when I first told him my parents lived in a log cabin- he imagined something not unlike this place - a real hillbilly shack abandoned on a plot of land... 

The girls here were drinking beer mixed with Fanta- something I thought seemed disgusting, but felt compelled to try sometime. We talked to a roommate who played Flamenco guitar, and Vincent's girlfriend who we both found really charming - she and Vincent met picking apples in New Zealand, she's my age and I loved her for it. We discussed the kissing greeting- how whenever a foreigner meets an American they often get Karate chopped by a hand plunged into the space between as they go in for a kiss- so that if they advance any further, they get a hand stab. It was the first time I understood how cold that must feel- the sort of way Oprah hugs her guests where she grabs their hands and pushes them away instead going in for the real thing. We also determined more than one cheek was unnecessary, pretentious and outdated. 

I've noticed that I am struggling to speak Spanish in situations like this - I use it regularly with commercial transactions void of opinions and feelings; but here I have the opportunity to practice and all I want to do is communicate as accurately as I can- ask the questions I have and share my experiences- all of which are often too sophisticated for my basic level of Spanish... 

Non-Americans are always making cowboy references to me- as an American I feel about as culturally identified with cowboys as I do with eskimos. In the Rosetta Stone Spanish language program I'm using they identify an American hat as a sort of black Mexican cowboy hat which I don't understand at all- ask any American and they'll chose a baseball cap as an "American" hat beyond any other. Sylvain is really into this cowboy identity stuff- and last night walking home he said this:

Sylvain: "Babe, you know the spirit of the cowboy?"

Me: "If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that."

Do we as American's have a cultural connection to cowboys? Because I have no idea what the spirit of the cowboy is- Sylvain had some explanation but I wasn't listening, because every time he mentions cowboys I wonder why foreigners assume Americans even understand this cowboy concept- if we do I doubt it's very developed. I have this feeling Europeans are writing 400 page Masters thesis' on American identity and the spirit of the Cowboy. I have one cowboy reference which is simply playing cowboys and indians- of which I never did, but I think maybe they did once on a Brady Bunch episode I saw.