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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:21
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It is certainly true that a lot of Brits are real beer drinking yobs - you see them all over Europe for a start!
But that is a minority usually, there are plenty of Brits like me who are constantly embarrassed by their antics.
However in Europe in many cases they tend to stick to their own 'patch'...
I mean, if places in Spain and Greece for example didn't want these people (who incidentally spend a lot of money!), they wouldn't put up wall to wall tacky meat market nightclubs, 'English' bars and cafes serving badly spelled 'English Breakfasts'...
There's whole parts of the Costa del Sol, or Greek islands like Ios etc that have been turned into nothing better than a sunny version of Essex on the W/E.
Face it, cash poor countries like Greece encourage our yobs to despoil their pristine beaches etc by catering to their every need...
As for Japanese, they're only annoying when they're in large groups and hog everything to themselves - the trick is to either let them pass, or keep ahead of them. Or you can follow them around and laugh at them cos they are so funny! I remember taking a picture of nothing in particular with my digital camera (so I wasn't wasting film) and they swarmed over and started clicking away wasting film.
They're quite sweet and naive on their own and anyway, a pack of Japanese is far better than a pack of school kids any day!
As for Americans...
Generally speaking of course - never have I seen a more stupid, ignorant and naive nationality as tourists...
No wonder everyone loves them as tourists - they gullibly pay top dollar everywhere they go. No wonder they think it's expensive in Europe, they're getting ripped off and they don't even know it!
By far the funniest was the coach tour in Tangier, visiting the carpet sellers during off season paying the full asking price for something that every idiot knows you can barter down to about a quarter of it's original price...
Then there's the dumbass in Venice who couldn't understand why an Italian in Italy couldn't speak English very well! "Whaddya mean you cain't speak American - what kinda country is this!!?" ROTFLMAO!
Oh another nationality pet peeve - Italians.
Why is it when they're on holiday they have to be loud and obnoxious and push into people? You can spot them a mile off with their stupid dayglo 'Invicta' daypacks... 
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:21
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Well I never thought the Americans would place so highly I must admit. Of course if my girlfriend and I are any indication perhaps we aren't so bad. We don't drink much, we don't go on tours, just travel around like normal people. Everywhere we went (except for the NL, sorry) one of us spoke the local language well enough to get by, and we found the prices very competitive and correspondingly spent freely.
I ran into the Japanese horde in France in particular. The best method in dealing with it was to cross the street and go somewhere else. Do no make the mistake of getting into a store with the horde, you don't stand a chance of getting out unmolested.
One thing that I noticed about the Brits is that they are instantly recognizable by their accents even when they are speaking German etc. They speak loudly too. Here in the U.S. they tend to be pretty decent tourists as long as they are not too aggressive. Unfortunately I think the lack of a language barrier here tends to draw some of the morons who wouldn't normally travel so far afield.
We get a lot of Europeans here in Boulder because this area is a climbing mecca. These folks tend to be eco-tourists, so they don't really step on my toes much. They do tend to be a bit impressed with themselves, though this is a trait common to tourist climbers of all nationalities.
Generally alchohol, parsimony and large groups tend to the factors that annoy people the most, with insularity being another big negative.
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Space05us
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quote:
Japanese tourists are annoying because the come in such huge numbers, but they are usually polite and well-mannered. |
Japanese tourists are very well mannered, as are most asians that I've met, but they don't talk to anybody that isn't in thier group which is HUGE. When they laugh they laugh in unison which is scary as all hell.
German tourists are cool! at least the ones that I've met, they like to talk to people and they're funny!! but they complain about expensive things.
British tourists should just shut up. no offense but you guys are annoying. (at least your tourists are) They don't like spending money either. and very offensive to the natives.
Canadians are just Americans with funny accents I see them so often there's no point in calling them tourists.
Austrailians. I've seen 1 in my whole life. He seemed nice enough.
American tourists. They walk slow, look at everything, ask too many questions, take too many pictures, and Spent LOTS of $$Money$$! gullable too. most are anyway.
The French keep to thmeselves and blend in very well, you wouldn't know they're French unless you get them to talk.
Irish same as English except funny.
edit: I live in Alaska. (thougth I would clear uyp any question before they arise)
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Bereta_Eder
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Old? *boggle* I suppose they would be older, on average, than Brits or other European tourists because it costs more to get from the US to Europe than it does to travel from one European country to another. I was 20, though, so I buck the "old" trend if there is one.
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Yes that's one reason. Most Americans coming to Europe are not so young compared with other tourists.
But this is not the only reason. Americans seem to have an ingraned respect for the foreign country's culture.
Again there are no abolutes.
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Bereta_Eder
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Also something else, only remotely related.
Rampant tourism has some "funny" side effects.
I remember in some places in Rhodes and Crete it was like I was in a twilight zone...
Everything, all the signs (restaurants etc) were written in english and german.
I thought I was in another country. The trees, the sun the beaches, the sand roads were all there but that was pretty much all of it.
I was thinking am I in Greece anymore, or did something happene?
Also there were cases where when your fellow countryman realized you are a Romeos too (old name for a Greek) he would just write you off and attend to the foreign tourists which he thought would leave more money.
It was funny when the foreign tourism suffered some years back, they started again to pay some attention to poor old us 
The people in the tourism industry have it the best BTW. They work for only 3 months a year and they get the money one would get from working all year long.
And they have abandoned their old jobs... may that be industry or most of the time farming. Huge areas of Greece have been left unattended since tourism generates much more money tothese people now.
But what happens if tourism suddendly slides down and stays down? 
Also it creates many more funnies. In the islands near Athens, the young Greeks (say 18 years old) will start working in tourism and will earn sums. 5 times more than what their old parents make...
So a young person with 500.000 drachmas a month has no use for school, or education, becomes abnoxious, gets into drugs just for the hell of it since he's so strong and financially independent and often leaves a promising future for a short lived richness with no guarantees.
I remember a girl who lived in one of these islands telling me that she is actually the freak around here for wanting to go to the university and not working for tourist industry and earning money like many of the people of her age do.
Not that the tourist waves of almost 8 million people per year in Greece have not big benefits but there are funny twists to the story as well, as anyone would imagine.
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Bereta_Eder
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Plus that happens in the heavily touristic resorts with a very small local population.
Considering that almost half of the population of Greece lives in Athens, I wouldn't say that the tourists' tips screw up Greece's national education policies.
It is about what happens in several microcosms which adorn the country, which in no way makes it "less important" IMO.
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23-07-2002 08:44
-44
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