A conversation on the anniversary of 9/11

Two nights ago, I needed some fresh air (our apartment is prettty small), so I decided to sit outside on the front stairs of the apartment building and watch the passing parade. Also on the stairs were three older men, who were just smoking some cigarettes, talking, and drinking diet cokes (or, as they say here, "coke light"). I haven't had a chance to really talk to any Greeks outside of the program, so I was very excited when, after I asked one of them for the time, they struck up a conversation with me.
"Where are you from?" the guy in the middle asked.
"The United States," I said.
"Ahh," he said. "I hate America."
I asked him how come, and he said that he couldn't understand why we couldn't just stay home and take of our own people ("we" meaning the government, he had no issue with most Americans). He talked at length about the Iraq war, and how Americans had no right to do what we were doing. He said that he has a young daughter, and is upset that when she grows up, the world will be a much more dangerous place, and a lot of the blame for that lies with us.

Even though I agreed with almost everything he had to say, I suddenly was extremely uncomfortable. I tried to explain that not all Americans support what our government is doing, and that the U.S. isn't all bad, but it felt like I was just making excuses.

We changed the subject to Greece, and he said that for all the improvements, Athens is still in very bad shape economically. I asked him to explain this more. "An example," he said, "is the Albanians." I said I didn't understand. The Albanians, he said, had been flooding into the country for years, and that they had very little respect for the rule of law (he's an ex-policeman). As he was talking I was struck by how his speech about the Albanians and how they were ruining Athens sounded almost identical to rhetoric in the U.S. about our own immigrant situation. I asked my Greek teacher the next day about all this, and she said that it was more complicated than my new friend had made it sound (I wasn't surprised). She said that after Albania opened its borders in the 1990s, they came into Greece, half-starving, looking for work and a better life. Because they had been literally isolated from the rest of the world for so many decades, they were distrustful of foreigners and were often very agressive in their pursuit of economic stability, which put off Greeks. They can't vote (franchisement is based on ethnicity, regardless of whether you're born here), but she said that it'll be interesting as second- and third-generation immigrants start to integrate more with Greeks.

Anyways, after he finished talking the guy stood up to smoke another cigarette. He pointed to a hole in his jeans and said to his friends and me, "Modern. They call this "modern" now in stores. This hole will cost 5 euros, and if I rip them up completely, 200 euros." We all laughed and I decided that it was a good time to go inside.