august in europe basically equals 31 days of fucking off. i'm not kidding. the post office closes at 1pm every day; consider yourself lucky if you even receive any mail. banks close come la tarde... local restaurants and shops close for the whole month. don't bust any domestic mechanisms as a plumber won't come til september... you get the picture.
but i can't complain. although i begged the boss to let me work this month, it's summer friday. meaning, every friday since the summer solstice the office closes at 2pm. and today, i'm completely alone as my esteemed colleagues go fuck off until the end of the month.
it's really funny living here. having grown up in cali, we're raised to be politically correct, not stereotype people (in public at least), blahblahblah. but here, stereotypes run wild! i've never heard so much passion behind some claims people make on others. spaniards are totally like this; of course, they're italian!; the term paki is thrown around freely; people are colors here like black and yellow... but what's really interesting is, there is never white. well, it's more like it's unknown out here. one time i tried to describe someone as, "you know, the white girl" and that was the one color no one knew who i was talking about. there are times when the n-word is thrown around me as a gesture of attempting to being down. and needless to say i've got a schpeel memorized explaining the complexities behind that term in america, so much so that i can't even spell it out in my own blog. woah, the cali girl in me winces a bit as i've been conditioned to find all of this babble charged with offense. but here, the best i can do is learn not to be uncomfy with it. observation and communication is key.
i just deleted a whole mess of instances where miscommunication here led to swinging fists or getting driven off the road because i don't want you to misunderstand my idea of europe. because really, the best anyone can do is learn through observation and dialogue. anywhere in this WORLD. god, that just sounded very cal-educated. so be it. at the end of the day, it's no sweat off my back if someone thinks i'm yellow (come on now, i'm brown!).
the thing is, i started writing this entry thinking about the negative stereotypes associated with hiphop or rap (for lack of a better term) music here - well, except in northern spots like holland or sweden. and it's kind of sad. it's hard to find a party where i can get my groove on here! the mainstream stereotype here of most drum-based music where word is spoken more than it's sung is that it's ghetto in the class-ist sense of the word. as in low-income, un-educated, and whatever else conservatively speaking. the other day i was listening to a jdilla mixed tape at work and one of my peers started mocking the song, going "yo, yo" and shit and said, "wow jane, i never thought of you as the type to listen to this." what type, exactly? eh, i just laughed.
how can i wrap this up? a few weeks ago, i was having a conversation with some friends about how americans really get the worst beating as far as stereotypes go here in europe (well actually, in america, too). and you know what, that shit is true. perfect example: kenz and i go watch the simpsons movie when it came out. the theater was packed. and everyone is laughing hysterically - it's fucking perfect, an american movie about the dumbest american alive: homer simspon. audience is laughing, laughing, laughing away. but there's one scene where the simpsons stop for gas after having escaped from the bubble. marge goes in the gas station and says something like, "i don't need lady razors, i'm european," and you hear "oohs" and hissing like that shit's offensive. i almost want to say that i was the only who laughed at that line. yeah it's so fucking funny laughing at the dumb american, but we can't say one, albeit irrelevant, euro joke. and there you have it.
"it's a celebration, bitches." !!!!!!!!!
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