Consider listening to this song while you read about some of my funnier moments:
1) In Valencia, you have a to hail a bus at a bus stop the same way you hail a cab anywhere. When I was first figuring out the bus system, I had waited for ten minutes for a particular bus and as it was approaching, I stood, card in hand, preparing to board because the bus driver had acknowledged me from about ten yards away. In the next instant, he breached the non-verbal contract we made with our eye contact and, after sort of easing over as if he would stop, decided to speed away. What a prankster. I had no idea how to react to the situation, so I laughed and waited another 15 minutes for the next bus.
2) One of the first days in my phonetics class, our professor had a list of songs in English whose lyrics at certain points, sounded like something else in Spanish—mostly inappropriate things, curse words, etc. The one that I found most amusing, though, was the theme song from the Lion King. And after a minute or so, part of the sort of chant they sing sounds like a phrase that, in spanish, means doing an unmentionable something to or with one’s sister-in-law. The class loved it.
3) My favorite way to communicate with new acquaintances is with sarcasm. I think it is one of the quickest ways to gauge another person’s sense of humor. And sharing a sense of humor is one of the simplest ways to find and establish common ground. It wouldn’t matter if I were actually fluent in Spanish, though…my sarcasm DOES NOT TRANSLATE. So saying things in jest gets me nowhere. It’s twofold funny because I think it’s amusing when people don’t get my attempted jokes and I also get a kick out of the expressions on their faces when they simply don’t understand. I imagine that it’s the same expression I have on my face when someone speaks too quickly…or I just don’t understand what they’re trying to tell me—which is also quite humorous. It makes for some very entertaining social scenarios.
4) Another, more recent story from the bus: it was a busy time of the day for public transportation and I was crammed to one side of the aisle. Unfortunately, I had to stand very close to a girl sitting in a stroller who hated me a lot and kept kicking me. At one point she pushed my legs with both of her grubby little hands. She couldn’t have been more than two years old. She was shooting some vicious glares at me, though, and again, I couldn’t help but laugh.
I've always laughed at myself a lot...but in Spain, I laugh for different reasons and there is always something new to find humor in.
