The Greek

Here's a little anecdote:

On the way out of the bar in the wee hours of the new year, the kids I was with met an older friend of theirs from Greece (I think he was part owner of the bar). When he heard my accent, he asked where I was from. I told him I was American, and he made a point of saying he would never, ever in his life, think of going to such a place. So I acted blissfully naive and said, "but why not?!" He seemed a little surprised about this likely follow up, and said it was because some Americans feel to much "shame" about there country when traveling and they tell people they are from Canada.

This was, of course, ridiculous. But I kept up the act and said (completely honestly), "hmm, I have never met any American in my entire life who has ever told people they were from Canada, or felt this shame. But, I guess there could be some."

I mean, what do you say to that?

He seemed to still want to get some rise out of me, so said he would like to go to Cuba, because Castro, he said, "has balls." A Panamanian nearby was in agreement. "Castro does have balls," he concurred. The Greek started nodding with him. "Balls for sure," the gesture said.

Implicit was that Castro "has balls" for standing up to the U.S. for God knows how long.

The group of us was lingering on the street outside the bar. I had no comment on the existence, size or quantity of Fidel Castro's testicles and instead just waited for some last ditch effort from the Greek to jab the U.S. He searched the recesses of his brain, then grabbed what was left from his minuscule arsenal, he said: "Well, I hope you're not a supporter of Bush."

I immediately wished he had not asked this question, and then part of me wished I actually was a supporter of Bush. My true answer meant I was, politically speaking, somewhat aligned with him. I didn't want to align myself with him at all. The anti-Americanism among Europeans is rabid. The media reflects it. While they say it is rooted in America's foreign policy, I always think it's due in large part to our status as "most powerful" and Europe's status as "formerly most powerful."

They say we're disrespectful tourists (you should see the drunk English people who would visit Barcelona for soccer games - it's ugly.) They say it is because we don't learn foreign languages, (show me all the British, Spanish, French, or Italians that speak another language - there aren't many.) This Anti-Americanism can feel like a religion. I remember one Danish girl telling me she wanted to visit the American South, because she wanted to see the unimaginable racism (she was sitting next to a German at the time, and while it was 65 years ago, nothing in the US ever came close to that.)

So when I align myself with some asshole like this, politically or otherwise, I feel like I'm aligning myself with the asshole about all this other stuff, about all the uneducated, unfair and unsubstantiated opinions they have about Americans.

"No, I don't like Bush," I said, and thought about bringing up something about Greece's political scene, give him a little jab, but then I remembered: I don't know anything about modern Greece. Does anyone? Is Athens the capital? Do they still build things with lots of stone? All I could think of was Plato and the movie 300. That and Windex for some reason.

So I just smiled, looked at my Panamanian companions, and asked if we should be on our way. Who says we're ignorant and self-absorbed?