I'm going to hopefully write a post about my trip to the Basque Country soon (it was awesome), perhaps mixed with my professor's claims of cultural universality, but first, this joke email the other intern in my office thought was the funniest thing ever. I don't get Spanish jokes. I think they just aren't that funny. The punch lines are always super blunt and tend to deal with the same five tired themes, most frequently that the government is corrupt and incompetent. I find it a little disappointing that I understood most of the jokes in a parody song in my second month in Spain, whereas I still don't get all of the cultural references on American TV. This example follows:
SOCIAL ALARM. NEW PHILOLOGICAL SCANDAL.
The Spanish Postal Service has released a new stamp with the image of the President of the Government, Mr. José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero.
However, it has been detected that the stamps do not stick well to envelopes and fall off, which has infuriated the President of the Government, who has demanded an immediate and exhaustive investigation
After a month of inquiries and polls, the special commission of the Government presented the results of its investigation.
People spit on the wrong side of the stamp.
Said intern is actually Italian, but married a Spaniard and has been living here for a while. The other person who works in the office had an Italian parent, so they speak Italian together. From my experience, it seems like people who speak both languages mix up Italian and Spanish quite frequently, so sometimes they speak to me in a language I only occasionally understand and then wonder why I look confused.
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