I live in France and have worked on canal hire boats for nearly 50 years. A few years ago we had customers from the Lebanon on a boat for a week. It rained the whole time and when they handed the boat back at the end of the week I mentioned what a shame the weather had been so bad. "Not at all. It was wonderful. It never rains where we live." They were so happy to have spent a week in the rain. Lovely people and what an amazing attitude.
In Australia we use the term, “A good rain”, which means we’ve had a worthwhile amount, usually greatly appreciated in a country where droughts are common. However, I discovered while visiting Ireland that they were bemused by that phrase - it rains there so often that there’s no such thing as a “good” rain! While travelling through Europe on a coach tour with mainly fellow Aussies, we stopped at a hotel which was a former palace. As we walked in, many of us stopped to “Ooh” and “Ah” - not at the building, but the fact there was a sprinkler watering the green grass in front of the hotel. After 3 years of drought and no watering of lawns at home, seeing such a sight impressed us all!
@@heatherjay8802 in Spain we also use the term "a good rain(or whatever)" wich means that is raining A LOT, but as a bad thing, f.e. "my mother gave me a good scold" Its curious.
@@williamgeorgefraser We (Netherlands) had friends over, from the Hopi nation in Arizona. We went to the famous Keukenhof gardens, an abundance of tulips, colours and green. It rained the whole day. My friends had bought their first ever umbrella. But we (always complaining Dutch…) said "oh, isn’t it a shame; all that rain!" They didn’t think so, they wanted to take all those clouds with them, to their arid corn field…
I think it's older Brits that tend to have that problem, they basically treat Spain as part of England for holidays and retirement. I recall they got upset when Brexit meant they couldn't as easily go to Spain for a holiday anymore, just didn't register to them that it is an entirely separate country.
It is not just Americans and Brits. It's just that a lot of people speak English, and can understand how stupid the reviewers have been. It's people from countries which were Empires, or still pretend to be. Russians, Chinese, Turks.... I sometimes see Russian reviews of Bulgarian and Serbian tourist attractions. I wonder whether they are being sarcastic when they do not know that one of the countries above was NOT liberated by Russians, that Cyrillic is not a "Russian" alphabet (The one developed for Russia was the Glagolitza) that when a sign with a dozen words has a single letter out of place does not mean there is a typo, but is in a different language, and most words happen to be spelled exactly the same way as in Russian. Or when they look at medieval books, and say that they are not really Bulgarian or Serbian, because they are in Old Church Slavonic, "and that is just archaic Russian".
@@Yesnaught So you take a tiny minority of Brits and apply it to the entire population.... Answer a question to yourself, and try to do so honestly. What does that make you?
There might not be an ocean in London, but there is a beach around Tower and London bridges. During the early part of the 20th C, Londoners, not able to afford to go to the coast, would go to the beach on the Thames. Not really recommended, and definitely not to swim in.
@@albadure And so you should! Stop being so Spanish immediately and do something about that rain! Seriously, a few years back I went on holiday in N Spain where there were no tourists except Spaniards escaping the heating of Madrid. No one spoke English and I don't speak Spanish but between a bit of French and a lot of miming everything was fine. And I couldn't help wondering if someone with zilch English rocked up in England whether hoteliers, restaurant owners bus drivers etc etc would show them the same amount of patience good humour and courtesy that we received.
Agreed. It reminds me of the time I visited friends in South Africa (I'm English) and as we approached Jo'burg airport one of them nudged me and said with a smile "It's not going to be the same as home y'know." I replied "It had better not be, I've just spent twelve hours on a plane". 🐘🦁🦓🐊🦒
Yeah, people travel 6000 miles to get here and they're pissed off it's not like home. They've spent thousands and thousands of dollars to get to New Zealand, but they don't like that New Zealand isn't America. It just does my head in.
Of all the remarks from Americans (to me or overheard) over the years on my travels all over Europe, the worst was a redfaced middleaged American guy very loudly complaining, that since they singlehandedly defeated the Nazis for "these lazy pr*cks", the least they could do was make it proper American. While he was sitting at an outdoor cafe in a medieval town with a magnificent view, being served really good (local) food. Every single other person there, regardless of nationality, visibly cringed.
Most of these people BELIEVE in "our Lord Jesus Christ" ... and daily post citations from a book that was written 1600 years ago and translated several times.
My daughter worked a phone complaints line for a major tour operator - actually received a Health & Safety complaint from a woman on return form an African Safari holiday - horrified that none of the animals were caged, and were in her words "just allowed to run free, wherever they wanted !" They live among us - and they breed!!
It comes with the ignorance they have for the rest of the world. Foreign politcs only matter as far as it concerns their direct interests. And it also shows if you show an american a map of another continent and he has to guess where which country is. It's not that people in other parts of the world know every country, but at least they have some clue. There are many videos on that. Like an american vs. a european. The give the european the name of a US state and he or she has to say where on the map the state is. and the american it's european countries on the european map. And one of the most funny answer was regarding switzerland. That it can't be that small country within all those mountains! 🤣 According to him it was somewhere in Scandinavia! 😂 Well, if there is 1 thing you should have heard about switzerland: The landscape is ALL about mountains!
My Mum: I will can eat at MC Donald. (Cause Restaurants are so expensive in London, no Mum, there are also affordable Restaurants there. She is European. I always wonder..why don't you try something New? Who needs MC Donald..in freaking London when there are other Options. My Godness. Who wants to eat fat Burgers all the Time ? Being somewhere else. I don't get it.
That's what Venice is turning into slowly but surely. It's losing it's identity as a city where people live and work, and becoming a theme park for the insane amount of tourist that come every day of the year. Nothing is done for its citiziens anymore, it's all for the tourists.
An American I met in London told me he was a European history major at university and had travelled all the way from Seattle in Washington State to England, to see the Battle of Waterloo. He said "So what do I need to get there?" I told him "A cross channel ferry, a visa for Belgium, and a time machine." He didn't believe me.
overheard a woman (shock not an American) "why are the lions not fed a vegan diet?" look of shock on guides face i said to her "cant find enough vegans to feed them) guide then said to me "i am so stealing that line"
@@MAYO20092010 I guess the fact that the language is called SPANISH isn't a good enough clue to its origin. Funny side story: Once I was at a movie theater watching some Penelope Cruz movie that's actually 100% in Italian (yes, NOT Spanish). Two people walked out because they kept complaining that the whole movie was "in Mexican"! 😂
I work in a touristy place and I SWEAR people from the US are so.... Entitled? (idk if that's the word). I've seen them looking at me with a disgusted face bc I was SPEAKING SPANISH WITH MY COWORKERS and one time an American woman came to us as we were talking about some technical issues we had and straight up told us "You know that we can HEAR YOU????? RIGHT????? And we can't understand you, you should be speaking a common language" and I swear I can't make this shit up it's happened multiple times in different set-ups😭😭😭
lol, Spanish isn't a common language? I live in a part of the US that's nowhere near Mexico and I'll sometimes hear people speaking in Spanish. I'm genuinely confused as to where one could go in the US where that's not going to be the case.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade i forgot to mention I'M I SPAIN 😭😭 And they complain we speak Spanish bc they "can't understand what we say". They want us to speak exclusively in English so they can understand everything😭😭 Obviously it's not everyone it's like some specific people (yeah, the well known Karens) And the there's people from the US amazed because I can speak like 4 languages in the span of 10min but lol it's always so funny to me how some people look at us 😭😭 Also happens sometimes with old German couples, I ask them if they speak Spanish, English, French or Italian AN THEY GO "German 😤" bruh
@@sofiavillarroel4354 Oh yes, the old Germans here are either the nicest or the most racist people, there is nothing in between One time my sister, her three children, my father and I were walking to our car and an old man screamed Be quiet, we are here in Germany and not in Arabia We are not Arabs and we weren't even loud, the children were laughing and running but that's what kid do, you can't force them to be silent and it wasn't even 8 p.m.
Had similar epxerience in car rental and I told them it is racist to force us use english in our own country while we speak to each other...they shut up, took their paper work, keys and left. They were served by other guy that spoke english to them the rest of us had our country clients. Mental.
I recently returned from a vacation in Spain. The car rental lady asked me if I could drive a with a manual transmission to which I replied: I'm not American. We had a laugh.
@@DanaTheInsane Of course I'm referring to a general tendency. Usually there'll be exceptions. For manual/automatic transmission many. It doesn't change the general picture that Americans are notorious for complaining about manual transmission whereas most Europeans wouldn't lift an eyebrow.
@@DanaTheInsane As a Dane, i can respect the fact, that not all americans are the same. The tendency to lump all people into one group, is typical, but not universal. Respect and hope from Denmark.
I'm in the UK (Scotland)and have lived here all my life. Whilst working in a hotel, I spoke on the phone to an American lady who was asking for general information about the hotel and local area. At the end of the call, she remarked on how well I spoke English. I simply thanked her and wonder how she reacted when she arrived in Scotland to find we're all pretty fluent in our first language 😄
Really? 😁 Your way to speak English is quite different... 😊 I do love the scottish accent, but as a non native English speaker, you are mostly hard to understand...
@kiliipower355 when speaking with anyone whose first language isn't English, I always speak slowly and pronounce words properly. I have a basic knowledge of French and German and find it helps me if they speak slowly and clearly (although, their language skills are usually much better than mine).😊
@@roderickmain9697 Ha,Ha...😂 No, seriously, my English teacher at the time was very ‘Anglophile’. The ‘BBC English’, which is really nothing else, is marvellous for me to understand. Sorry again, dear Scots, Welsh and Irish, but when you open your mouths, I can't understand a word. But when a foreigner who has gone to a lot of trouble to learn the (High German) language. Then, when he comes to Germany and meets Saxons, Lower Bavarians or Frisians, he probably feels the same way.
I don't even think Idiocracy exists. What happened was, several million people all had the same vision of a grisly future. Unfortunately, it appears we were unable to avert or fate.
I had one US tourist tell me that I should drop the weird accent and learn to speak English properly. This was to me, a Scot, in my home town of Edinburgh, (And just in case the ignorance is catching, Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and we are part of the United Kingdom. )
You should have given them directions to Govan. I think their 'education' attempts on the natives of Govan would give them something like a 5 minute life expectancy.
The simple use of the word "attraction" creeps me out. Stonehenge and a ton of other tourist spots are popular because they're relevant to humanity, not because somebody thought to attract some entitled slob like some American roadside attraction.
I've been there. It's the kind of place where you have to just be in the moment and contemplate. That's not the strength of the stereotypical American, longing for bells and whistles. There was an audio guide at the time, but I turned mine off after the intro.
It's because americans think the world is Disneyland and only made for their entertainment. I met americans in the mountains in flip flops, no water no sun protection nothing. And that was in several situations, in europe: the alps, and even in the US: Kauai (Hawaii), Rocky Mountains. etc.
The Stonehenge comment was from an actual Brit...... NOT american! Notice the last sentence: ".....but that can be said of other, far better attractions that OUR country has to offer...." definitely NOT american! That Brit must've missed history classes often to NOT know about this...... like an american complaining about an old piece of paper with something unreadable scribbled onto it behind thick safety glass which is the Declaration of Independence. Or a german writing about that boring huge stone gate in Berlin that doesn't even have some kind of hotel inside.....
once upon a time we bathed on a sandy beach. in the water I suddenly stepped on something alive!! I called for help, and we discovered that I had stepped, and stood on a sole. we somehow netted it, killed it, and ate it for dinner at home. great experience
There is a video of a woman in a motorboat surrounded by whales , phoned the police from the boat because she felt they were attacking her ? Nationality : USA .
If there were fish in the sea , it sounds that you actually had a clean beach. In Italy there are little squids thst come up to you and say hallo; try not to be too startled.
I used to work on cruiseships some years back as an engineer, and we had to deal with alot of different pax complaints. One classic was that at the start of a new cruise, there were a number of pax cabins that complained that the "microwave oven" didn't work. There were no microwave ovens in the cabins but there was a safe in each pax cabin. When we went and opened the safe again, we would find some junk food waiting to be heated up inside. This was on a 5*++ cruiseship where the pax could find really top tear food 24/7 at no extra cost. They had room service so they didn't even need to move from their cabin to get the food. Another classic complain was they were so disappointed becase they were promised ocean view, but all they could see was houses. WELL the ship hadn't moved yet, that was the reason...
I love when they complain they cant see the Aurora, at day, in summer, often not even in the North yet. Or when they ask when the Midnight sun is coming up. 🤭
I worked on cruise ships for many years, and we heard all the classics... "Do these stairs go up ?" "Does the crew sleep on board ?" "Does the ship generate her own electricity ?" "Does the ship stop overnight when the Captain is sleeping ?"
An American once told me it was a shame we didn't dress for the period here in Bruges. I mean for one, which period ? Our city was founded in 800 A.D. so which period exactly. 1.200 years isn't "a period," and secondly this isn't Disney Land...
Rotterdam (the (Netherlands) is about the same age, and I bet if we ‘dressed for the period’, they would be very shocked. It would be furs, leather, and some coarsely woven linnen. Oh btw, no sewage system of any kind, nor toilet etiquette, in those days. Now there’s an attraction for you!
Same thing around Carnac, Brittany. Less impressive than Stonehenge since it's "just" rocks standing up, but on hundred of meters. Well in the past 20 years the city council fenced every field where they are and you now need to be part of a group to enter, because people would chip parts of the rocks, or write on them, etc... probably many French and British tourists really given the location. Stupidity is universal.
I was so fortunate: when I was a kid my family drove from London to Cornwall several times a year to visit family. We usually took a detour to go to Salisbury Plain and stop at Stonehenge for a picnic. ( we were very careful to leave no trace )The cordoning off didn't happen for a long time, and can only be blamed on the stupidity of humans. Dad like to drive at night and we were there in the dead of night many times, including under the full moon. The place has such a powerful vibration I feel sorry for those who regarded it as just a bunch of rocks.
Yes, I can remember walking round the stones several times as a child,, over 50 years ago now (hardly believable to me). You touched the stones of course, you wouldn't be human if you didn't, but it was in a sprit of reverence, thinking back across thousands of years to the hands that touched them when they raised this thing. Such a shame children can't do that now.
@@markharris1125 Yes of course, there is a difference between just touching and trying to carve your name in or using a stone to take a stone chip. Wear and tear from regular human use is an issue with touristic sites, but it's not a voluntary thing at least.
My sister and I went to Italy. There was a beautiful local restaurant next to our hotel. We sat down and the staff said no, no no Americano. We said (in Italian) that we weren't Americans. We are Australian. They were so happy when we looked at the menu, happily ordered and ate. We got free dessert. I hate to think what the Americans from the hotel had done because they were adamant they wouldn't serve Americans.
on some game server I and some other guy thought by a mistake that other one is from USA, it was so offensive for both of us :) Fortunately we happy at the end, when we found out that one is from European country and other one from Philippines
I had a similar experience, not at a restaurant, but at a military checkpoint in Sri Lanka. While I was waiting outside for my travel papers to be checked, a few soldiers came up and said "American?" When I replied I was Australian, their faces lit up and they called all their friends over to ask my opinion of the upcoming Cricket World Cup. I can tell you for sure, when you are surrounded by men carrying automatic weapons on the edge of a war zone, it is good to have them smiling and talking with you about cricket.😁
I was once on the train from Rome to Bari. The Bari football team had just had a miraculous win in Rome and the fans on the train were celebrating. Despite that, the 6 American tourists at the far end of the carriage were by far the loudest and most disruptive group. Well know tip for Americans traveling in Europe is to don a Canadian flag somewhere.
I'm surprised, usually Americans aren't treated like that here. Such discriminatory attitudes might be seen near military bases where your soldiers are stationed: unfortunately, they don't have a good reputation, and it's often the case that wherever they go, they start fights. Some time ago, the mayor of Vicenza was forced to ban Marines from the city center during the tourist season because some of them had beaten up tourists.
We live in Tasmania. My wife is a goat's Milk Soap maker and seller at local markets. We had a cruise ship arrive and they did a bit of shopping . My wife had to tell several Americans that she didn't take U.S. money to which one traveller said she couldn't believe it, especially with how much stronger the American dollar was compared to Australian dollar. I stood up (my wife is married to moi, a Canadian) and told the woman that she would sell her the soap but on par. Which ment she'd really be paying 2 times what my wife sells her soap for. She was not happy with that, turned and walked away mumbling something. She should have been happy l was speaking English (hindsight l should have jumped in speaking French). Sorry to any Americans reading this, but internationally ya'll are hated and the world would be a much happier and safer place if you just stayed at home.😅 wow, that felt good getting it off my chest.
Typical bloody Americans. Think the world revolves around them. If America is "the best place in the world"- STAY THERE!! I totally agree with you. We don't want them! 🇭🇲
même problème de l'autre coté du globe, me retrouver dans un restaurant (plutôt chic mais pas étoilé non plus) a Nice a expliquer que non nous ne cuisinons pas de mac and cheese et que non, le client ne peut pas aller se plaindre au chef
Many years ago - late 1970s, I think - my recently-widowed mother went, from England, to the Netherlands, to visit various museums. The second time she went to the Rijksmuseum lived in her mind for ever more. As she wandered round, guide book in hand, following a suggested itinerary at her own pace, she noticed a few group tours. Later, in the museum gift shop, she noticed people from one of the groups in there, realised they were American and thought no more about it. Mum was looking through some of the reproductions to buy me a pretty card I might like to keep, when an American voice said to her, Say, do you understand these prices? Mum turned to see an American lady of about her own age (late 50s) speaking. Yes ... said mum, and proceeded to work out how much, in US $, the things were that this lady wanted. Good thing mum was good at, and enjoyed, arithmetic, mentally calculating conversion rates from guilder to pound sterling, then from pound sterling to US$! The American lady then picked up an item, and asked my mum 'Is this a gen-yoo-ine original, then?' My mother told me that she hardly knew how to answer, it was a ready to hang reproduction on a board, a little larger than A4 size, of The Night Watch, which at the time was the last thing you saw before emerging into the giftshop/cafe. She told me she found herself blurting out loudly 'Good gracious, woman, don't talk nonsense! Of course it isn't - you've just seen the original and it's fifteen feet square!' Later, when she went to the cashier to pay for the card she'd chosen, the cashier said that my mum had expressed what all the staff wanted to say, every single day, but of course they couldn't - and handed mum a voucher to use in the cafe, as a small way of saying thanks from all of them.
@@JamesDavy2009 The Spanish complaint in this case happened to be a British woman, if I recall the context correctly. Morons come from all countries, you just can't understand the ones who don't speak English.
I think those people complaining about people not speaking English in Spain may have another problem as I have visited Spain a couple of times and found that most people there speak at least some English and many people speak English very well.
We get that shit in New Zealand all the time. Either we're not "American" enough for them, or they're angry we don't live in tiny Maori villages, living an indigenous lifestyle.
I've seen tourists come to New Zealand and become angry when hearing Maori being spoken. I was yelled at for giving the traditional greeting, while HELPING the lost tourist. The second time it was two young boys talking on a bus, to each other, not the tourist.This lady got really worked up over it. "I'll never come back here!" Is that a threat or a promise?
There was a tripadvisor review by some British people in Malta, complaining that taxi driver and others spoke Maltese. Apparently they had picked Malta because we speak English here, not bothering to read the second line of the Wikipedia article or guidebook to find out Malta is a bilingual country with 2 official languages. OK so you have some kink against any other language, but actually to air your prejudice in public - some monolingual people are just weird.
In Finland, we were accused to be racist because we talked Finnish, not English. Because white Americans are a special race, I guess. Those were expats, though, not tourists.
@@NoName-pd7uf My friends American relatives, on a first time visit from the US {their first international trip}, to Australia, called Australia a "communist shithole" because our friend was rushed to hospital and it didn't cost anything....
@@sergevereecke680They generally just use their driver’s licenses as IDs. Most don’t travel outside their area, and obtaining a passport or ID card is often very difficult, especially in rural areas. They also don’t have a lot of days off to go on a vacation trip, unless they either saved their “personal days”, as they call it, save a lot of money and take a sabbatical or are retired. So they don’t bother even getting IDs. Passports would only be required if they do intend to travel, and, depending on where they’re travelling to, the same applies to a visa.
@@jimmunro4649 Even then they very often don't take those days off for fear of losing their jobs. An American co-worker from our US subsidiary once told me they got 5 sick days a year. If they weren't sick, they could take them over to the following year. I had just returned to work after breaking my foot so badly that I was laid up for 7 weeks and had to stay home a further 3 weeks after the cast had been removed because the swelling wouldn't go down. I asked my co-worker what they would do in a case like that and he told me "You'd be lucky if you still have a job".
I remember on my first trip to the UK, and I was standing in a queue for a myseum opening. This woman in front me of was pissing and moaning about the British don't "do anything like what we do in Indiana. " I politely asked if you want everything to be like it is in Indiana, then why did you leave home? Shut her up quickly. 🙄
Before online reviews, I worked on board cruise ships. One American passenger came back on to the ship in Copenhagen, Denmark, ranting that her day had been ruined because she’d planned to go shopping. I told her there were shops everywhere to which she replied “Yes but they didn’t take US Dollars!”
to all you shopowners out there. When a 'murican comes into your shop and starts wawing usd around and demand that this is the only real money......Short change them, and do not forget to factor in the exchange fee at the bank into what you will demand of usd to cover the purchase. Do not overcheat. Pay her back in the local currency, preferably in coins!!
There's a couple of funny anecdotes from American tourists to Norway. One American was very impressed by our nature and especially our waterfalls, and apparently they asked a tour guide how we "made" the waterfalls because they "looked so real". Another American had supposedly asked a tour guide where all the polar bears were. They apparently thought there were polar bears in our capital, Oslo.
About polar bears there are "jokes" about how tourists expects and complain About " You don't have polar bears on streets in Poland?" We do have some mooses nowadays wandering about, but mostly deer, wild hogs or foxes but mostly in villages near forests.
I have been asked how we got the snow to stay up on the (year-round snow-capped) mountains, whether the mountains are real, whether the bears with tags on them are tame, whether the bears in the National Park were tame, why they can't see the Northern Lights in mid summer when it does not get dark out....
Yonk years ago, I was a receptionist in Spain. One client complained that it really was too hot ... in Southern Spain, in August! I told him that I'd heard on the radio that morning that it was pouring with rain in Paris ... and offered to organize his repatriation ... That shut him up! I once saw a cartoon showing 2 tourists before Athen's Parthenon. One was saying: "With all the money they make from tourism, you'd think that they could've rebuilt the thing! :o))) But the top of the top is, in Spain again: I was enjoying my aperitive at a terrasse. Sitting at the next table was a middle-aged British couple. The lady was telling her husband how pleased she was that the local TV was featuring "Fawlty Towers" (a hilarious British comedy series) but, deploring that it was dubbed in Spanish (how odd, in Spain!), she concluded "We should have brought our own TV" ...
I mean...what's so absurd about restoring a destroyed historical site? The Parthenon has been destroyed fairly recently in history, so it's not like you would erase a lot of accumulated history of it being destroyed. Many historical sited in Germany have been destroyed in WW2, and were being rebuilt, and not left as ruins. Quite famously the church in Dresden, only a few years ago. So, yeah, why not rebuild the Parthenon, if it can be done in an appropriate way, with mostly original materials? Especially of it could lead to...er....certain countries returning parts of it to its original site?
@@drsnova7313 well the Brits would have to return all the artefacts they stole from that site that are still sitting in the British museum. Good idea!!!!
There was a story recently about people on a cruse ship visiting the Faroe Islands getting disturbed by the sight of whaling. Not the gentlest foray into foreign cultures, admittedly, but nonetheless.
I want to turn this on it's head and tell a story of a beautiful moment I had when travelling. I few years back I was going from Sweden to England to see some friends I met streaming. I think it was my first time travelling alone outside the country and I was quite nervous. There was an older couple sitting next to me and apparently the wife was afraid of flying. I chatted to them and made them think of other things, which was helpful for me too. When we got to our destination, one of Londons massive airports, the went with me through the entire process of getting my stuff together and finding the right bus to continue my travels. Even though it was getting dusky and they had a long car ride ahead of them, they helped and reassured me as if I had been a relative or friend. We took a picture, hugged and they were on their way. Just before we left the man pressed something into my hand and they disappeared into the crowd. I opened my hand to see a crumpled 20 pound bill, which I still have to this day. I sat on my long bus ride thinking about that couple, and it set the mood for the rest of my trip. We had never met before and we'll never meet again, but even though they helped me, the man still felt like I was somehow doing them a big enough favor to give me money. Just a reminder that people out there are usually kind, helpful and warm hearted, if you come in with the right attitude. The rest of the trip was also wonderful and I had a similar experience with a lady on the train back when I was leaving (she didn't give me money but shared her food with me). Everywhere I went people did their best to help me, many going out of their way to send me on the right path.
nah, I think he gave you the money as he was worried you will need it for a ride to whatever destination. It was a fatherly gesture not payment for your friendliness. If I met a young person who was a bit anxious I would have done the same. Like caring for a son/g-son (in my case). I travelled abroad alone when I was 14 and 16, very confident but it was 60 years ago.
@@SilverionX He just meant 'bills' is the American word. In the UK we call them 'notes'. It's one of those confusing things with multi-centred languages like English. Also to us Brits a 'bill' is what you ask for to see how much you owe. Americans would probably call that a 'check'.
About ten years or so ago I went from my cold, rainy home in Yorkshire to the sun-kissed Cóte D'Azur in the South of France. On arriving in Nice, it started raining almost immediately. It was cold and wet for the whole week. On flying back to Leeds I discovered that it had been, along with most of England, in the grip of a heatwave. You can't book the weather.
Ouch, what a bummer! 😯 I've heard more similar stories like this. Even if it's not fun at the time, afterwards it is kinda funny, the bad luck you can have sometimes.
My husband and I would deliberately book holidays in SE Asia at the end of the monsoon/beginning of the tourist season just so we could have the chance of a couple of days of monsoon rain sometime during our two weeks holiday we loved it. I think we are unique 😂
I am an American and had an opportunity to travel to Italy with my Italian friend. We were in Europe for 5 weeks. We went to Paris for several days and had a blast. I was raised to be polite to everyone and, oh boy, did this pay off. I pulled out my high school French and this paid off, as well. Everyone one we ran into was really nice. Making an effort to speak the language always pays off. One day we had lunch at the Paris Hard Rock Cafe and I told the waiter (he did speak English) that the Mac and Cheese was outstanding. The next thing I knew the chef was at our table. I raved to the chef it was soooo good. English mixed with French. We all laughed and got a comped dessert. Attempting the language and being polite and respectful can make for a fantastic experience.
Agreed....be a gracious visitor.....make an effort to observe and reciprocate customs. I was in Malaysia swimming where a couple of Europeans swam next to us topless. I'm no prude (far from it, free those ta tas!!!) but I had to swim away. Complete disrespect.
Being french, the one thing that strikes me is that there are actually people in this world who may need the things you talk about to be spelled out for them, because it does not strike them as being obvious... I have no idea what it means to "try and be polite". I was raised to be, and hence, i am. It appears to me that this extreme individualism in the USA is the source of many problems. Kids who are not taught from a young age to mind their manners and not bother others won't be able to learn respect once they reach adulthood. It's too late.
I'm pretty sure the people who thought the Spaniards didn't speak English were getting treated that way BECAUSE they were jerks. My daughter traveled to France and Spain when she was 14 with a group and we called a few times just to ensure she was doing okay. The French weren't terribly cooperative BUT when I telephoned Spain, I asked IN SPANISH if they spoke English and was immediately told, Si, I speak and they proceeded to give me detailed info about where my daughter was in her trip, when she would arrive, and were basically delightful. Seriously. My Spanish is rudimentary but it's customary to at least learn a TINY bit of the language before traveling to a different country. Why are you traveling for goodness sake?
In Western Europe, most youngsters know at least a bit of English and those working in tourism usually speak English to some degree so that's probably true. However, a lot of people are also bad at "speaking English" or are not comfortable with it because their mastery over another language is low. Moreover, if the individual(s) assume you speak English and are annoying, it's easier to say you don't speak English.
I learned that if I was willing to make a fool if myself mangling the local language while apologizing for not speaking it better, locals would almost always dredge up their English to work with me. I think it was mainly because I was acknowledging that I should be speaking their language, not assuming they should speak mine.
Friendly reminder: north Spain's weather is so similar to Ireland's weather. We also have cliffs, some lakes, fogg, wind, grey skies, mountains, green grass and forests. And rain. Yep. Oh, I almost forget it: we speak spanish 😜
Incluso en el sur de España, la "costa del sol" no es sol todo el tiempo, también llueve y hasta nieva. Creo que explotarian algunas cabezas si intentas explicarles eso 😂
Yes, that is a true story. A couple from CA complained they had been mislead to believe that the midnight sun was a different sun than the one they could see in California. Apparently they even tried to sue the Norwegian Tourist Board in order to get their traveling expenses reimbursed.
Just until recently, I thought people are making these things up. Until recently: I've been in a steakhouse in Mainz, Germany with an american group seated at the table next to me. A young lady was yelling at the waitress because no one told her that her beef steak is not vegan and she will be sueing the restaurant because Texan law would reqiuire every non-vegan item on the menu to be clearly marked as such.
Since when are the laws of Texas vslid anywhere else in the world?? Same thing with civil rights. They disappear when the wheels of the plane carrying you leaves the runway, or maybe even when the door to the airplane is closed
I am an American who has lived in Britain and traveled extensively in Europe. I have witnessed enough of these to have my own asshole American abroad stories, but many of us are quiet, polite and knowledgeable about our surroundings. Unfortunately we largely pass unnoticed for those very reasons.
I've met some nice Americans while traveling, but I refer to those as travelers not tourists. They are usually ones who enjoy history, different cultures and travel with an open mind. The tourists on the other hand are obnoxious, entitled and ignorant.
I'm (a swede) married to an American who also passes under the radar for the same reasons. He also has plenty of stories. And don't get me started on the things I heard when we lived in the US.
A lot of people who see the Mona Lisa for the first time are shocked how small it is. I don't know why that should result in a complaint, though. Maybe they can mail this Leonardo guy and tell him to make a bigger version for the museum?
I thought it was bigger than I expected. I've heard so many complaints of it being small and dark, I expected it to be about a postcard-size and completely black... no its a sizeable painting, for a portrait of the era, you just can't get very close, because of the crowds.
I went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and in the galerie with the famous paintings you have the milkmaid from Vermeer. Also very small and cracked. Nothing like the foto's online. Museum is very beautiful with much nicer paintings.
I went to the Louvre and did not expect to be as impressed by the Mona Lisa as I was. It is a small painting, but it gave out a vibe, so to say. But if one is not into looking at paintings, maybe they can use their time in a better way and go shopping or whatever they are into. Not everyone can appreciate art. Or good food...
@@Sander-zj3wi Maybe because it is over 360 years old? Maybe because the photos can be modified with Photoshop? Visiting museums and seeing the original objects helps you understand reality and distinguish it from fakes on the internet. If you like spectacular images, bright colors and glossy surfaces you don't have to visit museums, turn on your computer... it's cheaper, less tiring and gives you more satisfaction.
I was surprised too at how small it is but lol that did not make my seeing it any less special. It really is small. :) but still impressive. And actually 21x30... just looks small because you are so far away from it.
I have an Airbnb in Sorrento, Italia, right next to the beach and last year a couple of Americans booked it in October. Usually October is a good period to visit Sorrento but it can be rainy and it indeed rained for all the three days they stayed at my house, I was sad for them but then they left me a bad review saying that "the beach was horrible and it rained all the time" like how can it be my fault??? I'm sorry but I can't control the weather???
I'm British and a few years back had an argument with a friend. They only wanted to holiday in places not ruined by tourists visiting. I tried to point out they were ruining the place they were going to then by going there as a tourist and making it what they hate. They didn't understand
No, they meant just other tourists. Other tourists ruining the authenticity for him, deserving of an untainted full immersion, that they will then complain about when no one understands their English speaking ass.
Not trying to pick an argument but l think that is perfectly reasonable. There are a lot of places l visited years ago and would not want to go to now because of over tourism. And the UK is packed with things most tourists do not visit or are really visited by locals.
Sounds like those people who go down to Cornwall in high season, maybe on a Poldark pilgrimage, and then get annoyed because the narrow lanes are packed, and the car parks full. How dare other people go to the same place at the same time ! Also - similar to the lady who wondered out loud why the fishing harbour was muddy, as it had been full of water last time they visited.
My Portuguese friend on a discord server once got banned because he told the owner of the server that Portugal was in Europe, he got accused of gaslighting and trolling, the owner was convinced Portugal was in south America
@@gabrielesolletico6542 So, there are Americans that don't think that Spain exists, Mexico is the only real Spanish speaking country, I'm guessing that some American mod on that server just made the same mistake about Portugal and Brazil. Wouldn't surprise me anyway!
@@rjmac3095we got that, lol. As a friend lately put it, talking to muricans, you sometimes think they are from another planet. So from now on, I will ban any American claiming they are human on my discord servers, ok? After all, we do not care about facts, and google is really hard to use, right?
Some years ago, I was walking in the "Ile de la Cité" in Paris when a family of American tourists approached me. They were looking for the “Sainte Chapelle”. I explained to them that it had been built by St Louis around 1245 to house the Holy Relics: the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the Cross. They neither understood nor believed me because I think that for them the history probably began with Independence Day!
They don't have a national system, that's part of the problem each state decides it's own curriculum without any national oversight, that how some states can require schools teach "science" that aligns with the bible i.e. no evolution, geology, etc basically banning anything that contradicts the bible (very much Taliban style)
I once heard an American woman unironically complain about the Forum Romanum being "nothing but a bunch of rocks" (reminiscent of that Stonehenge review), and that it was really bad service, that they (presumably the Italians) hadnt replaced those old uncomfortable paths with proper modern walking paths.
@@dfuher968you cant make these things up. I remember when traveling in Tunisia, we visited an ancient site. One visitor complained that there were nothing than rocks. The guard was visibly upset about this ignorance and let us in for free. The visitor was french
My favourite review is the guy who visited the "National Railway Museum" in York and complained that there were too many trains. That he expected to see aeroplanes too 🤦🏻
Yeah, and where are all the skyscrapers in York anyway? We especially not went to the new one, but to the original, and it's too small and doesn't even have a statue of liberty!
@@christophstahl8169There's actually a New York in England near RAF Coningsby that's so small the entire population could fit into a small apartment block in NYC.
Let's also remember the brave and brillant Brits who retired to Spain and voted for Brexit. And then discovered a few months later that _they had to apply to a visa to stay_ and who could not understand how suddenly they had become foreigners to a country when they voted for it to be that way. Many of them were eventually deported as _illegal immigrants._ Some of them still don't see the connection...
@@richard6440 Non... Je suis français. Je me fous simplement de la gueule des Anglais assez idiots pour voter pour le Brexit alors qu'ils vivaient peinard en Espagne...
@ I'm French... You have no idea how your departure from Europe is such a relief for us... England was the just this American lackey that prevented Europe to reach its full potential... Good riddance... Do not come back...
When on holiday in France my daughter remarked “Daddy, when these people (French) get home will they then talk normally again?” I explained the concept of different countries and languages to her, she was 3 years old! We still get a good laugh out of that remark now that she’s 30.
Okay... 3 years old... first time encountering the concept of different languages and cultures... that's excusable. Young children really don't know anything and they try to fit all experiences into concepts they have already figured out.
Being french, it is still pretty interesting that a 3 years old american girl would say such a thing. I have worked in kindergartens and grade schools, and i am pretty sure no kid would say such a thing here. It goes to show how kids grow up in a bubble in the USA, and how the problem starts pretty early.
@@nox8730 eh? What problem, a toddler experiencing a foreign language for the first time, is that a situation that doesn’t happen to French kids? Maybe not as French are notoriously insular and barely travel.
@@abbofun9022 No. No kid would say such a thing here. I don't know why. Maybe it is because the USA is protected up there, and so, people may end up more secluded, hearing only english. Maybe it is because the US TV and people are only about the USA, while our TV presents the whole world, and interviews people in many language all over the world depending on what happens on Earth... Maybe it is because France is the most visited cuntry in the world and hearing many languages in the street is pretty normal even in my small town. But at the end of the day, i can tell why some americans end up being so confused that there is more to the world than just the USA, when i hear that a 3 years old may react this way. If she hadn't traveled at all... she may have a ended as one of these "ignorant americans". How easy is it to turn out like that in the USA? This is a problem.
In a nice beachside restaurant in Koh Samui Thailand. An American stood up and made a scene complaining that Thai food in Thailand was just not as good as Thai food in California.
In a similar vein a flight attendant shared a story of an American lady who asked for the engines to be turned off, mid flight, as the noise from them was keeping her awake !!!
An Avianca flight did run out of fuel after being diverted (and a number of mishaps) and the survivors said that the silence after the engines lost power was absolutely terrifying.
Sadly, it's not just Americans who can't accept Greek Food in Greek hotels. Whilst staying in Corfu about 20 years ago, the hotel evening meal was 'Roast Lamb and roast potatoes' This was GREEK STYLE roast lamb and GREEK STYLE roast potatoes - but we heard an English couple complaining to the receptionist that it wasn't 'proper' roast potatoes. When she said "We're in Corfu- this is how we do roast potatoes" They countered that they'd managed top get 'proper ones' the night before at another establishment, and she pointed out they'd been at an Irish bar the night before...... The hotel's versions were delicious by the way!
I think over time, there's more interest by Americans in terms of getting to experience other cultures in a way that's a bit more authentic, but I'm sure that is a long ways off. I wonder how many of the "Canadians" that people see abroad are just Americans that have manners and don't want to deal with the guilt by association of the jerks.
“It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt”. Mark Twain, one of the other many intelligent people from 🇺🇸. Love ya wrocker
“ Many intelligent people “ ??? 😂 I think it likely that Mark Twain wrote that quote as a warning to his fellow American citizens…and boy was he right.. 🤨
Can only imagine. A couple of the worst/funniest things I've heard from fellow travellers. Complaints and mystification about Venice being very awkward and inconvenient to get to from the surrounding area. Yep, that's exactly why it's there. Anne Frank House being underwhelming because they "hadn't done much with it" and they "should have made it bigger in the first place for the visitors."
@@jimb9063 Really? Otto Frank should have thought about the future of his families hiding place to accommodate f*t American or British tourists? The audacity of some people. Should the builder of the building be sued for not building it to the standards of a modern American 400 years or more into the future
I remember someone for a laugh going to a travel agent asking for a trip to climb Olympus Mons, the travel agent tried to sell them a holiday in Greece... Olympus Mons is on Mars...
@@FPVisnotacrime Yeah people do that all the time. It's not a big deal, but it's still wrong. It's not like the word for "colour" or "chair," the unit of "Metre" was invented and named. It'd be like writing "Moaner Liza" or "Eyeful Tower."
@@callicordova4066 AND would have the authority to make them build the castle somewhere else (of course, then it wouldn't be Windsor castle, because it wouldn't be in Windsor, but that's a minor detail...)
@@callicordova4066 should actually be why did they build heathrow airport so close to windsor castle. windsor castle was there long before heathrow airport existed lol
My family took a long vacation in Europe in the early 70s to visit relations and to see Europe. My father bought a Volkswagen bus to be picked up at the factory in Germany, and we traveled around in it. Wonderful memories. I helped lay out the itinerary, researching different places of interest. History and culture was important in our family, so we understood that many sites would be older than our country, that the food and customs would be different, and that we would have to learn about exchange rates. We were actually able to walk among the stones of Stonehenge. It was hard to resist clambering on the fallen stones. But you could also see the damage caused by those not so careful. It was a magical two months.
Apparently when Mark Clark was entering Rome in WWII a Private was heard to remark as they passed the Coliseum "Jues the Air Force must have really hit this place".
Overheard at Blarney Castle in Ireland (in a thick Southern accent): "sign says it was built the 15th century... can't be right, that's older than America, and we invented castles!" Can't make this stuff up
These people are out there, they live among us, don’t worry we have our fair share of them here in England. I overheard a couple on a flight back from Spain once saying “I’ve had enough of Spanish food, I can’t wait to get to Mac Donald’s to get some proper English food” While on a trip to the US way back in 1981 I got talking to someone in Washington DC about history, he was telling me how old and historic the capital building was, which let’s face it isn’t that old. When I told him I had a friend here in England that lived in a house that was built around 1250, that’s just over 200 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America he just could not comprehend that, he really didn’t believe me. Let’s face it back then the capital building wasn’t quite 200 years old, so hardly an ancient monument!
After my grandfather visited the UK, he told me how the pub in a village where he stayed was still called "the new pub" by the locals because it was only 400 years old.
Odd comment as there are plenty of McDonalds in Spain. In fact, in tourist resorts you have to go out of your way to find local Spanish food. Maybe they were just joking and being ironic.
@@infohippie You know it's a /really/ old pub when you have to duck to get through the front door because when it was built centuries ago people were shorter... 🙂 (Source: Personal experience of a lovely old pub near Arundel, West Sussex)
Hello from Australia! Back in the 80s I spent 12 months travelling around the US (3 months) and the rest of the time in Europe from the UK to Turkey and back to London through Eastern Europe. Too many stories to mention but two stand out. I was in a pharmacy in rural Italy with some Canadian friends. You could tell they were Canadians because they were wearing T-Shirts saying "I am Canadian NOT American". A middle-aged man with his wife wearing identical outfits walked up to the counter, didn't say hello or anything and went straight into an act where he kept running his hand over his head. We watched for a while and the the young shop assistant said to us (funnily enough in Italian) "What is this idiot doing?" He wanted to buy a comb - walked saying "Why can't these people understand what I want?". Yep you got that one right. Another time I was at a VERY famous landmark and a tourist complained "We came all this way and the damn thing's falling down". No prizes for guessing the place or the nationality'. I always found the majority of Americans to be very friendly but boy were they ignorant - as in un-educated. There was also a LOT of arrogance from tourists along the lines of "we do everything better".
Well, technically not, here in Spain we have a big problem at buying houses, and some people think that the problem are the tourist living in apartments like Air-bnbs but the real problem is the inmigration and sqquaters.
4 місяці тому
@@nicope2486 that's just not correct, you're missing the forest for the trees.
@@nicope2486 The Spanish don't want to rent or sell property to their own people, they prefer to rent and sell to the foreigners. (Reasons for this: Occupas, not paying rent on time, not paying rent at all, destruction of property, changing terms and conditions of property sale at the notario, asking for cash as part payment of property sale, etc. etc.) It seems to me the problem is the Spanish people's treatment of their own people and not the foreigners.
I read a few one-star comments here in Scotland, on climbing Ben Nevis. "Too steep"..... "Should be a lift or a tram"... ... "There was snow at the top... I don't like snow!"....... I couldn't see, there was mist!"...... I sincerely hope it puts these people off from coming back here....;-)
I always find this the funniest one. Americans seeing Europe in 14 days..?!?!?!? Then bragging about it that they saw everything that Europe has to offer. They spend more time in a bus and/or hotel then in the country for crying out loud.
I once spent a long day near the Pont du Garde, a 2000 year old stone block, three tiered Roman aqueduct in the south of France... Amazing place and a fantastic riverbank to walk along... The American couple I had met, spent just over 20 minutes there... Seen it, done it, missed everything, moved on... 😂
@@neddyseagoon9601 "Pont du Gard". "Gard" is a french department in the south. "Garde" means something else, and i was confused for a second. "Pont" is "bridge". Despite aqueducts not being bridges. I find it interesting that it is called "pont" anyway. Well, just some trivia in case you are interested in it.
I live in London and one of my favourite places here is Highgate Cemetery, one of the largest Victorian cemeteries in London full of amazing monuments and some very famous 'residents'. Once i went on a guided tour and there was a family of very loud Americans and when the guide had finished the tour and asked if anyone had any questions the older man turned round and said why don't they just bulldoze the site and build on it. Why was he even there!
I live in Odense, Denmark. It is the birth town of H.C. Andersen, the worldwide famous fairytale author. I live nearby the house where he spend his young years and often walks by on my way to the center of the city. One day I happened to overhear one young american man (16-18 years old maybe) standing with a group of 7-8 people say, that this Mr. Andersen couldn't be very important if he lived in such a small house without swimming-pool! I was floored inside of laughter🤣
@Audulf-of-Frisia It stems from the heathen name Odin's Vi, which basically means "Town of Odin worship" Vi or Hov in old norse, was names dedicated to places who tended to only worship one god. In Odense's case, that was Odin. Odense is also home of one of 5 viking fortresses, named Nonnebakken and the last danish viking king lays buried here (King Canute 4th, or Canute the Holy as the christians called him)
I once went to holiday on a Spanish island and it was generally super hot every day. But one day it rained the entire day and everyone really loved that. In Germany we say there is no bad weather, only bad/inappropriate clothing.
Imagine the reaction of these same people if you said to them “America is a beautiful country, unfortunately it’s full of Americans”. 😂 you could insert any country here but I used America because they are known for this sort of thing lol. Tourists come to Australia and don’t leave the city and then complain they didn’t see any kangaroos or koalas 🤦🏻♀️
I, a Canadian, met an American tourist once who didn't understand why we were all driving cars. She asked me where I kept my dog sled team. She was from North Dakota. Could not have travelled more than 275 miles to be where I was, yet she thought she'd crossed the Arctic Circle? I just don't know....
This is a common complaint of Paris, and given that I have heard it from French citizens who do not live in Paris there is some justification for it; you understand what if You have been to Paris - in July -August in particular.
@@peregreena9046 I have had long discussions with US citizens about the word "America They think it is the name of their country. When you point out to them that is is a continent, they say that there are 3 continents: North, Central and South America. The idea of a whole continent called America does not enter their geographical concepts. They are a lost cause. The French are to blame, they started to call them "Americans" The confusion will persist until they give a better name to their country and their people, because "unitedstatadians" is not very pretty!
There's no ocean beaches anywhere in the UK, it's an island with many beautiful beaches but none of them is in an ocean as the UK is surrounded by seas
There are many tale about when American tourists met the late Queen on the Balmoral estate and not knowing who she was. Bless her, The Queen just played dum, including once when an American couple, not knowing who she was, handed her thier camera for her to take a photo of them with someone who had met The Queen (it was her security person). The Queen obliged and when they had left she asked her security person 'do you want a bet on how long it takes them to work it out?'
There are Mexicans who speak in their native language in addition to Spanish. Just as in the US there are some who speak their native language, whether Inupiat, Na-Dene, etc.
Travel agency in Norway got a complaint that the advertised "Midnight sun" was a hoax, it was the same sun, and not the separate sun she expected. She wanted a refund.
@@betacam235 I'm american and don't even go to those places when I'm in the states. I certainly won't go to corporate owned fast food places overseas! Why would the Montmartre district even allow those disgusting places to be built there?
When I was waiting at the airport to return home from Italy ( I had been a nanny for a year) I had a group from the US near me. I'm American. One seat was available so I asked if it was taken in English. No response. So I asked in Italian. No response. So I sat down. They got mad that I sat there and were telling each other how awful Italians were and I was a rude Italian. I looked at them and that I asked in English and I'm from California. One looked at me and 12:29 said she couldn't understand my nonsense and should learn English.
I had the misfortune of meeting a group of American tourists in a small hotel just outside Florence who were complaining that most of the staff were rude as they 'pretended not to speak English' .
regarding the Mona Lisa thing... we have a " similar" situation here in Copenhagen with the LITTLE Mermaid..lot's of tourists are, when they meet her, disappointed about her size...
People who complain about the size of the _Mona Lisa_ could just spin around and look at Veronese's _The Wedding at Cana_ on the opposite wall. It's enormous but I'm the only person who bothers to look at it. Actually, people often don't even look at the _Mona Lisa_ they just take selfies of themselves with it in the background.
I am disabled (registered blind) and travel alone to visit Egypt on a yearly basis & always fly Egyptair because the airport staff and especially the cabin crew on the aeroplane are unfailingly kind, helpful and friendly, as are the passengers sitting next to me. This does not surprise me as having lived 6 years in the country I know this is typical of the Egyptian people. I am so grateful to receive this unfailing kindness.
Best one I ever heard that tourist complaint they didn't have a view on Uluru/Ayers Rock from the town Alice Springs it's 468 kilometers away or 4 hours 53 minutes drive.
As a Spaniard I can somehow understand her. For many decades, Mediterranean Spain has hosted large communities of British expats & tourists having ZERO.ZERO interest to know anything about Spain, except for getting our guaranteed sunny weather and cheap alcohol.
Where they the ones who said they voted for Brexit because there were too many Spanish people speaking Spanish where they lived........ In..an English community.........in Spain? I too was ashamed.
This kind of stupidity, ignorance and disregard of other cultures is not exclusive to Americans... This summer, 2024, I was told by an refugee that worst thing in Finland is that there are so many Finns here and no one speaks Arabic, women don´t wear hijabs and nobody bows to the east five times a day. In her opinion, no one respected her religion or values here. I was told later that she even made a UA-cam video about it. Could there be a correlation Finland - Finns, Finns - Finland. HMMMM
Actually it is a very serious matter as that view is widely held. It is causing strife and riots in modern western democracies now and will get a lot worse.
@@philiptownsend4026 👩🏼🌾🏞️🌅🇫🇮 Hello, Philip! I agree. It is a very serious matter, and growing, in Western Europe, in this case in one of the Nordic welfare states. In all of the Nordic countries, the people are well-educated, the societies well-organized and well run. In some ways, ahead even of many other democratic countries. The Nordic societies couldn't be more different from strict, autocratic and religious parts of the world if they wanted to. Recently, some U.S. citizens have begun to realize that they have also been victims of a kind of indoctrination by the state and various religious groups. (Daily pledging of allegiance to the flag and pressure to conform to outdated moral rules as repeated by different religions.)
@@MJCourie This is a common occurence in Europe. Especially in my country (France). A few years ago, i was working for the national education and teaching french to a young refugee girl from Irak. Then another kid (meant to be french), 4 years old, approached me and told me: "the heck are you teaching her?" "What?" i said. "As long as she speaks like us, she doesn't need shitty french" (needless to say, he was from a maghrebine family. One needs to understand where a 4 years old kid had heard this from). I was so depressed, i immediately got to bed when coming home after work, and struggled big time to go back being useless as work the next day, teaching such a dead language as "french" to people coming to France.
How would you break it to someone that dense that are lots of religions around the world that don't practice the Islamic religion. There are even people that don't observe any religion.
American woman on the Tube in London “You gotta know where one of these things is going before you get on. Yesterday we got on one and it took us someplace we didn’t want to go.”
I remember staying in an Airbnb in Hong Kong where an American guest had left a bitter review, angrily complaining that their holiday was "ruined" because the plugs (sockets) were different and they couldn't charge their phone and take any photos so Waaaaahhhhhh... What kind of gobshite heads across the world without checking out basics such as electricity differences and any need for travel plugs or, having arrived there without buying any adapter at the airport in either country, doesn't then have the cop-on to just go to a nearby large supermarket or find an electronics retailer and just buy the right plug?!
No. The problem here doesn't lie with the fact that he neglected to look up this kind of information. Being oblivious of something can happen to anyone. No, the real problem is that instead of acknowledging his mistake and trying to adress the situation at hands, he decided to blame others for it. Without ever considering that he made a mistake in the first place.
@@nox8730 This is a good point. It's not the lack of knowledge. It's the lack of willingness to admit it and to learn. I don't get annoyed when I have to explain to a foreigner something about my country. I get annoyed when they tell me I'm wrong and argue. I recently had an argument online with a Swede who was telling me that England is not a country. I, an Englishman, tried to explain to him the difference between a sovereign, independent nation and a country. He was having none of it.
I once heard a tourist complain that the beach was too sandy. Some people are not meant to wander off beyond their own town/village yet imagine them going to a different country. I really think that some people pretend to act ignorant because either they think its cool or a defence mechanism due to realising there is an actual world beyond their micro bubble.
One evening, when walking on the beach in France with another American couple, the woman looked up and said, 'Hey, I didn't know they had a big dipper in France. Do you think Governor Schwarzenegger (Governor of California at the time) knows about it?" Her husband said, "I married her for her looks, not her brain."
I live in France and have worked on canal hire boats for nearly 50 years. A few years ago we had customers from the Lebanon on a boat for a week. It rained the whole time and when they handed the boat back at the end of the week I mentioned what a shame the weather had been so bad.
"Not at all. It was wonderful. It never rains where we live."
They were so happy to have spent a week in the rain. Lovely people and what an amazing attitude.
In Australia we use the term, “A good rain”, which means we’ve had a worthwhile amount, usually greatly appreciated in a country where droughts are common. However, I discovered while visiting Ireland that they were bemused by that phrase - it rains there so often that there’s no such thing as a “good” rain!
While travelling through Europe on a coach tour with mainly fellow Aussies, we stopped at a hotel which was a former palace. As we walked in, many of us stopped to “Ooh” and “Ah” - not at the building, but the fact there was a sprinkler watering the green grass in front of the hotel. After 3 years of drought and no watering of lawns at home, seeing such a sight impressed us all!
@@heatherjay8802 in Spain we also use the term "a good rain(or whatever)" wich means that is raining A LOT, but as a bad thing, f.e. "my mother gave me a good scold"
Its curious.
@@jibrilnoflugel1702 I understand what you mean, though here we usually appreciate the rain, as droughts are common.
@@jibrilnoflugel1702No, that's not true, it also means positive.
@@williamgeorgefraser We (Netherlands) had friends over, from the Hopi nation in Arizona. We went to the famous Keukenhof gardens, an abundance of tulips, colours and green. It rained the whole day. My friends had bought their first ever umbrella. But we (always complaining Dutch…) said "oh, isn’t it a shame; all that rain!" They didn’t think so, they wanted to take all those clouds with them, to their arid corn field…
Calling spaniards foreigners in Spain is a certified USA moment
A esa clase de gente les quitamos rápido la tontería aquí, por eso escriben reseñas enfadados prometiendo no volver 😊
I think it's older Brits that tend to have that problem, they basically treat Spain as part of England for holidays and retirement.
I recall they got upset when Brexit meant they couldn't as easily go to Spain for a holiday anymore, just didn't register to them that it is an entirely separate country.
Their shock would be to realize they’re in Europe and not south of Mexico.
It is not just Americans and Brits. It's just that a lot of people speak English, and can understand how stupid the reviewers have been.
It's people from countries which were Empires, or still pretend to be. Russians, Chinese, Turks....
I sometimes see Russian reviews of Bulgarian and Serbian tourist attractions. I wonder whether they are being sarcastic when they do not know that one of the countries above was NOT liberated by Russians, that Cyrillic is not a "Russian" alphabet (The one developed for Russia was the Glagolitza) that when a sign with a dozen words has a single letter out of place does not mean there is a typo, but is in a different language, and most words happen to be spelled exactly the same way as in Russian.
Or when they look at medieval books, and say that they are not really Bulgarian or Serbian, because they are in Old Church Slavonic, "and that is just archaic Russian".
@@Yesnaught So you take a tiny minority of Brits and apply it to the entire population....
Answer a question to yourself, and try to do so honestly. What does that make you?
If you see the ocean in London then RUN!
or swim?
News flash: when South Pole get melted down to mere rocks, London would be mostly under water
There might not be an ocean in London, but there is a beach around Tower and London bridges. During the early part of the 20th C, Londoners, not able to afford to go to the coast, would go to the beach on the Thames. Not really recommended, and definitely not to swim in.
@@andmos1001best news all day
Too late by then, lol.
Spanish girl here 🙋. I sincerely apologize for the rain and for being too spanish in Spain. 😂😂😂
I should hope so! It's outrageous! All those Spaniards in Spain! I want my money back!
No se de que se quejan, si la lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla.
@@albadure And so you should! Stop being so Spanish immediately and do something about that rain! Seriously, a few years back I went on holiday in N Spain where there were no tourists except Spaniards escaping the heating of Madrid. No one spoke English and I don't speak Spanish but between a bit of French and a lot of miming everything was fine. And I couldn't help wondering if someone with zilch English rocked up in England whether hoteliers, restaurant owners bus drivers etc etc would show them the same amount of patience good humour and courtesy that we received.
@@andressigalat602 Does the rain in Spain stay mainly on the plain?
@@buddys_dad Not really, it stays mainly in the northwest, that is a pretty mountainous region.
If you are not prepared for different places to be different from where you live - stay home.
Agreed. It reminds me of the time I visited friends in South Africa (I'm English) and as we approached Jo'burg airport one of them nudged me and said with a smile "It's not going to be the same as home y'know." I replied "It had better not be, I've just spent twelve hours on a plane". 🐘🦁🦓🐊🦒
Americans don't even know there is more then the US.
I say go and learn. If you're still that way next time, then stay home.
Yeah, people travel 6000 miles to get here and they're pissed off it's not like home. They've spent thousands and thousands of dollars to get to New Zealand, but they don't like that New Zealand isn't America. It just does my head in.
Of all the remarks from Americans (to me or overheard) over the years on my travels all over Europe, the worst was a redfaced middleaged American guy very loudly complaining, that since they singlehandedly defeated the Nazis for "these lazy pr*cks", the least they could do was make it proper American. While he was sitting at an outdoor cafe in a medieval town with a magnificent view, being served really good (local) food. Every single other person there, regardless of nationality, visibly cringed.
These people vote, breed, even "educate" their children. Lord help us.
Think about how stupid the average person is. Now realise half of the population are even stupider than that.
Most of these people BELIEVE in "our Lord Jesus Christ" ... and daily post citations from a book that was written 1600 years ago and translated several times.
Yo creo que nos extinguimos😂😂
@@Muck006 Stupidity knows no bounds
@@Muck006 They are usually Trump voters too 🤣
My daughter worked a phone complaints line for a major tour operator - actually received a Health & Safety complaint from a woman on return form an African Safari holiday - horrified that none of the animals were caged, and were in her words "just allowed to run free, wherever they wanted !" They live among us - and they breed!!
@paulrutter5330 and vote!!
😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂
The only animal who shouldn't breed is her.
Dumb and dumber! Really? Hope that woman didn't breed!
That is why in the US the shampoo carries instructions and a warning not to drink.
No way
that's BS
really?
🤣🤣🤣
😂
yeah. do other places not have those warnings? if so that's a real bad look for us...@@TheEmperorBear
The US, the land of frivolous lawsuits. 10 pages of disclaimers before getting to the instructions of the item purchased. Stupid people.
@@TheEmperorBearAnd McDonald’s has to post sign that coffee is hot. 🤦🏼♀️
It's actually quite strange how so many Americans don't understand they're the foreigner when they travel outside the US...
the comment means that spabish people should be able to speak english for the many foreigners' convenience
the problem is .............usa think are the only american in the continent and usa is the entyre world ,no joke !
Totally!
They comprehend ,little, who voted for an insane convicted criminal to run their country
It comes with the ignorance they have for the rest of the world. Foreign politcs only matter as far as it concerns their direct interests. And it also shows if you show an american a map of another continent and he has to guess where which country is. It's not that people in other parts of the world know every country, but at least they have some clue.
There are many videos on that. Like an american vs. a european. The give the european the name of a US state and he or she has to say where on the map the state is. and the american it's european countries on the european map.
And one of the most funny answer was regarding switzerland. That it can't be that small country within all those mountains! 🤣 According to him it was somewhere in Scandinavia! 😂
Well, if there is 1 thing you should have heard about switzerland: The landscape is ALL about mountains!
I'll never understand why people go on holiday expecting it to be like home. If you want home, stay home. Much cheaper.
A fellow Brit once moaned to me while on holiday in Spain that she couldn't get 'a decent cup of tea'...why do these people even leave home?
@@richardbarnard9110 And expect to find a Full English breakfast everywhere :D
... and less disappointing? ;o)
Believe me , the mayority of tourists want everything to be the same as at home , but with sun.
My Mum: I will can eat at MC Donald. (Cause Restaurants are so expensive in London, no Mum, there are also affordable Restaurants there. She is European. I always wonder..why don't you try something New? Who needs MC Donald..in freaking London when there are other Options. My Godness. Who wants to eat fat Burgers all the Time ? Being somewhere else. I don't get it.
These people need themed amusement parks, not actual foreign countries.
Yeah, and then we will hear, they know XY country, because they were in it's theme park. Not sure which is better. At least we get many laughs.
A bit like that Dutch themed park or something they have in the USA where they do Klompendans etc. It's funny/sad
Many probably think the hotel lobbies and such in Las Vegas were actually brought from Europe, Egypt, et al.
Epcot.
That's what Venice is turning into slowly but surely. It's losing it's identity as a city where people live and work, and becoming a theme park for the insane amount of tourist that come every day of the year. Nothing is done for its citiziens anymore, it's all for the tourists.
An American I met in London told me he was a European history major at university and had travelled all the way from Seattle in Washington State to England, to see the Battle of Waterloo. He said "So what do I need to get there?" I told him "A cross channel ferry, a visa for Belgium, and a time machine." He didn't believe me.
You should have directed him to the Waterloo tube station.
@@jespernielsen8549 I did! 🤣
@@cmhf5776 Great! Have you checked if he's still there? 🤣
@@jespernielsen8549 🤣🤣🤣
@@jespernielsen8549 Wating for the battle to start 🤣🤣
overheard a woman (shock not an American)
"why are the lions not fed a vegan diet?"
look of shock on guides face
i said to her "cant find enough vegans to feed them)
guide then said to me "i am so stealing that line"
👍😂
😂😂😂😂😂
Definitely one to keep in the back of the brain for future use.
Brilliant 😊
So very old.
"Too many foreigners abroad". I suggest to let that one marinate for a hot minute. That's a LOT of "we got flat earthers all around the globe" energy!
somehow they do not get that when they are in another country , they are the foreigners. lol
"flat earthers around the globe" energy😂😂😂😂😂 thanks for that line. Best!
This sentence (too many foreigners live abroad now) really broke my brain for a minute there😂. Like dude.... WHAT are you saying???
I think his/her thought process had to do with the fact that he/she was convinced that we were all Mexican people living in Spain 🤡
@@MAYO20092010 I guess the fact that the language is called SPANISH isn't a good enough clue to its origin.
Funny side story: Once I was at a movie theater watching some Penelope Cruz movie that's actually 100% in Italian (yes, NOT Spanish). Two people walked out because they kept complaining that the whole movie was "in Mexican"! 😂
I work in a touristy place and I SWEAR people from the US are so.... Entitled? (idk if that's the word). I've seen them looking at me with a disgusted face bc I was SPEAKING SPANISH WITH MY COWORKERS and one time an American woman came to us as we were talking about some technical issues we had and straight up told us "You know that we can HEAR YOU????? RIGHT????? And we can't understand you, you should be speaking a common language" and I swear I can't make this shit up it's happened multiple times in different set-ups😭😭😭
lol, Spanish isn't a common language? I live in a part of the US that's nowhere near Mexico and I'll sometimes hear people speaking in Spanish. I'm genuinely confused as to where one could go in the US where that's not going to be the case.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade i forgot to mention I'M I SPAIN 😭😭 And they complain we speak Spanish bc they "can't understand what we say". They want us to speak exclusively in English so they can understand everything😭😭 Obviously it's not everyone it's like some specific people (yeah, the well known Karens) And the there's people from the US amazed because I can speak like 4 languages in the span of 10min but lol it's always so funny to me how some people look at us 😭😭 Also happens sometimes with old German couples, I ask them if they speak Spanish, English, French or Italian AN THEY GO "German 😤" bruh
Sadly, the Americans that can most afford to travel abroad are insulated from reality by their money.
@@sofiavillarroel4354 Oh yes, the old Germans here are either the nicest or the most racist people, there is nothing in between
One time my sister, her three children, my father and I were walking to our car and an old man screamed
Be quiet, we are here in Germany and not in Arabia
We are not Arabs and we weren't even loud, the children were laughing and running but that's what kid do, you can't force them to be silent and it wasn't even 8 p.m.
Had similar epxerience in car rental and I told them it is racist to force us use english in our own country while we speak to each other...they shut up, took their paper work, keys and left. They were served by other guy that spoke english to them the rest of us had our country clients. Mental.
I recently returned from a vacation in Spain. The car rental lady asked me if I could drive a with a manual transmission to which I replied: I'm not American. We had a laugh.
I’m an American and I’ve driven manual transmission most of my life.
@@DanaTheInsane Of course I'm referring to a general tendency. Usually there'll be exceptions. For manual/automatic transmission many. It doesn't change the general picture that Americans are notorious for complaining about manual transmission whereas most Europeans wouldn't lift an eyebrow.
@@DanaTheInsane
As a Dane, i can respect the fact, that not all americans are the same.
The tendency to lump all people into one group, is typical, but not universal.
Respect and hope from Denmark.
We call manual transmissions "Millennial Anti-theft devices" here.
@@DanaTheInsane good for you! Fact is, most American learn to drive in an automatic and never master a manual car
The problem is, that most stupid people are too stupid to know they are stupid.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect.
That was me in the past
The same with dead people. They too do not know that they are dead.
"Just think about how stupid the average person is... and now think about that half of mankind is even stupider!"
Ignorance is bliss... I guess?
I'm in the UK (Scotland)and have lived here all my life. Whilst working in a hotel, I spoke on the phone to an American lady who was asking for general information about the hotel and local area. At the end of the call, she remarked on how well I spoke English. I simply thanked her and wonder how she reacted when she arrived in Scotland to find we're all pretty fluent in our first language 😄
Really? 😁
Your way to speak English is quite different... 😊 I do love the scottish accent, but as a non native English speaker, you are mostly hard to understand...
I can comprehend it.
I come from Germany and my school English is Oxford English.
But anything outside the city limits of London...????🤔
@kiliipower355 when speaking with anyone whose first language isn't English, I always speak slowly and pronounce words properly. I have a basic knowledge of French and German and find it helps me if they speak slowly and clearly (although, their language skills are usually much better than mine).😊
@@kiliipower355 Does that mean you have not been to Oxford?
@@roderickmain9697
Ha,Ha...😂
No, seriously, my English teacher at the time was very ‘Anglophile’. The ‘BBC English’, which is really nothing else, is marvellous for me to understand. Sorry again, dear Scots, Welsh and Irish, but when you open your mouths, I can't understand a word.
But when a foreigner who has gone to a lot of trouble to learn the (High German) language. Then, when he comes to Germany and meets Saxons, Lower Bavarians or Frisians, he probably feels the same way.
With every day I am getting more convinced that "Idiocracy" is not a comedy, but a documentary.
An already fulfilling prophecy?
@@mogaman28Only just now? Didn’t that happen a long time ago already.
I don't even think Idiocracy exists. What happened was, several million people all had the same vision of a grisly future. Unfortunately, it appears we were unable to avert or fate.
Fact established long time ago :)
Well...many are now wearing Crocs...so that's one box ticked
I had one US tourist tell me that I should drop the weird accent and learn to speak English properly. This was to me, a Scot, in my home town of Edinburgh, (And just in case the ignorance is catching, Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and we are part of the United Kingdom. )
😂😂
you first you should have told him.
You should have given them directions to Govan. I think their 'education' attempts on the natives of Govan would give them something like a 5 minute life expectancy.
L'anglais américain est affreux à écouter, c'est vulgaire
O can imagine what a scot would say....x you
The simple use of the word "attraction" creeps me out. Stonehenge and a ton of other tourist spots are popular because they're relevant to humanity, not because somebody thought to attract some entitled slob like some American roadside attraction.
@@tonchrysoprase8654 that’s a good point
I've been there. It's the kind of place where you have to just be in the moment and contemplate. That's not the strength of the stereotypical American, longing for bells and whistles. There was an audio guide at the time, but I turned mine off after the intro.
It's because americans think the world is Disneyland and only made for their entertainment. I met americans in the mountains in flip flops, no water no sun protection nothing. And that was in several situations, in europe: the alps, and even in the US: Kauai (Hawaii), Rocky Mountains. etc.
The Stonehenge comment was from an actual Brit...... NOT american! Notice the last sentence: ".....but that can be said of other, far better attractions that OUR country has to offer...." definitely NOT american! That Brit must've missed history classes often to NOT know about this...... like an american complaining about an old piece of paper with something unreadable scribbled onto it behind thick safety glass which is the Declaration of Independence. Or a german writing about that boring huge stone gate in Berlin that doesn't even have some kind of hotel inside.....
@@320iSTWEdition Maybe he compared UK with US with this OUR?
I think my favourite is a woman who wrote of a beach holiday, “There were fish in the sea, the children were startled.”
once upon a time we bathed on a sandy beach. in the water I suddenly stepped on something alive!! I called for help, and we discovered that I had stepped, and stood on a sole. we somehow netted it, killed it, and ate it for dinner at home. great experience
There is a video of a woman in a motorboat surrounded by whales , phoned the police from the boat because she felt they were attacking her ? Nationality : USA .
And meanwhile we made a sport of jumping over beached jellyfish and swimming through mudplains without cutting our feet on mussles.
Somehow, it sounds English.
If there were fish in the sea , it sounds that you actually had a clean beach. In Italy there are little squids thst come up to you and say hallo; try not to be too startled.
I used to work on cruiseships some years back as an engineer, and we had to deal with alot of different pax complaints. One classic was that at the start of a new cruise, there were a number of pax cabins that complained that the "microwave oven" didn't work. There were no microwave ovens in the cabins but there was a safe in each pax cabin. When we went and opened the safe again, we would find some junk food waiting to be heated up inside. This was on a 5*++ cruiseship where the pax could find really top tear food 24/7 at no extra cost. They had room service so they didn't even need to move from their cabin to get the food. Another classic complain was they were so disappointed becase they were promised ocean view, but all they could see was houses. WELL the ship hadn't moved yet, that was the reason...
I love when they complain they cant see the Aurora, at day, in summer, often not even in the North yet.
Or when they ask when the Midnight sun is coming up. 🤭
I assume that is was inherited money 😝
@@JoriDiculous 😁 Yup, those are also golden !! 😆
@@ingegerdandersson6963 😄 Your probably correct !! 😄
I worked on cruise ships for many years, and we heard all the classics...
"Do these stairs go up ?"
"Does the crew sleep on board ?"
"Does the ship generate her own electricity ?"
"Does the ship stop overnight when the Captain is sleeping ?"
An American once told me it was a shame we didn't dress for the period here in Bruges. I mean for one, which period ? Our city was founded in 800 A.D. so which period exactly. 1.200 years isn't "a period," and secondly this isn't Disney Land...
😂😂😂😂😂
Rotterdam (the (Netherlands) is about the same age, and I bet if we ‘dressed for the period’, they would be very shocked. It would be furs, leather, and some coarsely woven linnen. Oh btw, no sewage system of any kind, nor toilet etiquette, in those days. Now there’s an attraction for you!
@@margreetanceaux3906 Here they'd meet Vikings who'd probably introduce them to the Blood Eagle if they acted up. Brugge was founded by Vikings.
@@margreetanceaux3906 And no A/C either!
@@olivierserve6372 The Netherlands has not changed a whole lot in that regard… No AC in my home. That’s what astonishes most US visitors.
Part of the reason we can't get close to Stonehenge anymore is because tourists kept chipping pieces off to take home.
Same thing around Carnac, Brittany. Less impressive than Stonehenge since it's "just" rocks standing up, but on hundred of meters.
Well in the past 20 years the city council fenced every field where they are and you now need to be part of a group to enter, because people would chip parts of the rocks, or write on them, etc... probably many French and British tourists really given the location. Stupidity is universal.
I was so fortunate: when I was a kid my family drove from London to Cornwall several times a year to visit family. We usually took a detour to go to Salisbury Plain and stop at Stonehenge for a picnic. ( we were very careful to leave no trace )The cordoning off didn't happen for a long time, and can only be blamed on the stupidity of humans. Dad like to drive at night and we were there in the dead of night many times, including under the full moon. The place has such a powerful vibration I feel sorry for those who regarded it as just a bunch of rocks.
Or carving their names.
Just like sir Christopher Wren.
I'm guessing Americans won't know who he is 🙄
Yes, I can remember walking round the stones several times as a child,, over 50 years ago now (hardly believable to me). You touched the stones of course, you wouldn't be human if you didn't, but it was in a sprit of reverence, thinking back across thousands of years to the hands that touched them when they raised this thing. Such a shame children can't do that now.
@@markharris1125 Yes of course, there is a difference between just touching and trying to carve your name in or using a stone to take a stone chip.
Wear and tear from regular human use is an issue with touristic sites, but it's not a voluntary thing at least.
My sister and I went to Italy. There was a beautiful local restaurant next to our hotel. We sat down and the staff said no, no no Americano. We said (in Italian) that we weren't Americans. We are Australian. They were so happy when we looked at the menu, happily ordered and ate. We got free dessert. I hate to think what the Americans from the hotel had done because they were adamant they wouldn't serve Americans.
on some game server I and some other guy thought by a mistake that other one is from USA, it was so offensive for both of us :) Fortunately we happy at the end, when we found out that one is from European country and other one from Philippines
As an American trying to learn some Italian in preparation for a bucket list trip to Italy, that makes me so sad.😊
I had a similar experience, not at a restaurant, but at a military checkpoint in Sri Lanka. While I was waiting outside for my travel papers to be checked, a few soldiers came up and said "American?" When I replied I was Australian, their faces lit up and they called all their friends over to ask my opinion of the upcoming Cricket World Cup.
I can tell you for sure, when you are surrounded by men carrying automatic weapons on the edge of a war zone, it is good to have them smiling and talking with you about cricket.😁
I was once on the train from Rome to Bari. The Bari football team had just had a miraculous win in Rome and the fans on the train were celebrating. Despite that, the 6 American tourists at the far end of the carriage were by far the loudest and most disruptive group. Well know tip for Americans traveling in Europe is to don a Canadian flag somewhere.
I'm surprised, usually Americans aren't treated like that here. Such discriminatory attitudes might be seen near military bases where your soldiers are stationed: unfortunately, they don't have a good reputation, and it's often the case that wherever they go, they start fights. Some time ago, the mayor of Vicenza was forced to ban Marines from the city center during the tourist season because some of them had beaten up tourists.
We live in Tasmania. My wife is a goat's Milk Soap maker and seller at local markets. We had a cruise ship arrive and they did a bit of shopping . My wife had to tell several Americans that she didn't take U.S. money to which one traveller said she couldn't believe it, especially with how much stronger the American dollar was compared to Australian dollar. I stood up (my wife is married to moi, a Canadian) and told the woman that she would sell her the soap but on par. Which ment she'd really be paying 2 times what my wife sells her soap for. She was not happy with that, turned and walked away mumbling something. She should have been happy l was speaking English (hindsight l should have jumped in speaking French). Sorry to any Americans reading this, but internationally ya'll are hated and the world would be a much happier and safer place if you just stayed at home.😅 wow, that felt good getting it off my chest.
Typical bloody Americans. Think the world revolves around them. If America is "the best place in the world"- STAY THERE!!
I totally agree with you. We don't want them! 🇭🇲
We don't want them here either!!!! Old U.S. retired guy speaking.........
Goat's milk soap? She probably thought she could eat it!
totally agree!! (mexican here)
même problème de l'autre coté du globe, me retrouver dans un restaurant (plutôt chic mais pas étoilé non plus) a Nice a expliquer que non nous ne cuisinons pas de mac and cheese et que non, le client ne peut pas aller se plaindre au chef
Many years ago - late 1970s, I think - my recently-widowed mother went, from England, to the Netherlands, to visit various museums. The second time she went to the Rijksmuseum lived in her mind for ever more. As she wandered round, guide book in hand, following a suggested itinerary at her own pace, she noticed a few group tours. Later, in the museum gift shop, she noticed people from one of the groups in there, realised they were American and thought no more about it.
Mum was looking through some of the reproductions to buy me a pretty card I might like to keep, when an American voice said to her, Say, do you understand these prices? Mum turned to see an American lady of about her own age (late 50s) speaking. Yes ... said mum, and proceeded to work out how much, in US $, the things were that this lady wanted. Good thing mum was good at, and enjoyed, arithmetic, mentally calculating conversion rates from guilder to pound sterling, then from pound sterling to US$!
The American lady then picked up an item, and asked my mum 'Is this a gen-yoo-ine original, then?'
My mother told me that she hardly knew how to answer, it was a ready to hang reproduction on a board, a little larger than A4 size, of The Night Watch, which at the time was the last thing you saw before emerging into the giftshop/cafe.
She told me she found herself blurting out loudly 'Good gracious, woman, don't talk nonsense! Of course it isn't - you've just seen the original and it's fifteen feet square!'
Later, when she went to the cashier to pay for the card she'd chosen, the cashier said that my mum had expressed what all the staff wanted to say, every single day, but of course they couldn't - and handed mum a voucher to use in the cafe, as a small way of saying thanks from all of them.
do any of these people know anything about where they are going? Spain is too Spanish and there's curry in India? wtf did you expect?
only white Italians in Italy
I don't get the Yanks' hatred of the Spanish language.
@@JamesDavy2009 The Spanish complaint in this case happened to be a British woman, if I recall the context correctly. Morons come from all countries, you just can't understand the ones who don't speak English.
I think those people complaining about people not speaking English in Spain may have another problem as I have visited Spain a couple of times and found that most people there speak at least some English and many people speak English very well.
We get that shit in New Zealand all the time. Either we're not "American" enough for them, or they're angry we don't live in tiny Maori villages, living an indigenous lifestyle.
I've seen tourists come to New Zealand and become angry when hearing Maori being spoken. I was yelled at for giving the traditional greeting, while HELPING the lost tourist. The second time it was two young boys talking on a bus, to each other, not the tourist.This lady got really worked up over it. "I'll never come back here!" Is that a threat or a promise?
Chill bro.
Meant as a threat, but hopefully they'll keep the promise!
There was a tripadvisor review by some British people in Malta, complaining that taxi driver and others spoke Maltese. Apparently they had picked Malta because we speak English here, not bothering to read the second line of the Wikipedia article or guidebook to find out Malta is a bilingual country with 2 official languages. OK so you have some kink against any other language, but actually to air your prejudice in public - some monolingual people are just weird.
In Finland, we were accused to be racist because we talked Finnish, not English. Because white Americans are a special race, I guess. Those were expats, though, not tourists.
@@NoName-pd7uf My friends American relatives, on a first time visit from the US {their first international trip}, to Australia, called Australia a "communist shithole" because our friend was rushed to hospital and it didn't cost anything....
People often laugh at the fact that most Americans don't even own a passport. Videos like these prove that's a good thing!
Do you mean an identity card or a visum ?
@@sergevereecke680They generally just use their driver’s licenses as IDs. Most don’t travel outside their area, and obtaining a passport or ID card is often very difficult, especially in rural areas. They also don’t have a lot of days off to go on a vacation trip, unless they either saved their “personal days”, as they call it, save a lot of money and take a sabbatical or are retired. So they don’t bother even getting IDs. Passports would only be required if they do intend to travel, and, depending on where they’re travelling to, the same applies to a visa.
Most world get 4 weeks Holiday a Year and USA luck get 7 days that land of FREEDOM for you HAHA
@@jimmunro4649 Even then they very often don't take those days off for fear of losing their jobs.
An American co-worker from our US subsidiary once told me they got 5 sick days a year. If they weren't sick, they could take them over to the following year. I had just returned to work after breaking my foot so badly that I was laid up for 7 weeks and had to stay home a further 3 weeks after the cast had been removed because the swelling wouldn't go down. I asked my co-worker what they would do in a case like that and he told me "You'd be lucky if you still have a job".
ABSOLUTELY!
I remember on my first trip to the UK, and I was standing in a queue for a myseum opening. This woman in front me of was pissing and moaning about the British don't "do anything like what we do in Indiana. " I politely asked if you want everything to be like it is in Indiana, then why did you leave home? Shut her up quickly. 🙄
Before online reviews, I worked on board cruise ships. One American passenger came back on to the ship in Copenhagen, Denmark, ranting that her day had been ruined because she’d planned to go shopping. I told her there were shops everywhere to which she replied “Yes but they didn’t take US Dollars!”
Yanks and foresight don't mix.
When they get off the ship in Alaska and ask what the elevation is....uh sea level?
Germany had a woman in politics who complained she wanted a handbag she saw in a shop in an African country and they wouldn't take Euros.
to all you shopowners out there. When a 'murican comes into your shop and starts wawing usd around and demand that this is the only real money......Short change them, and do not forget to factor in the exchange fee at the bank into what you will demand of usd to cover the purchase. Do not overcheat. Pay her back in the local currency, preferably in coins!!
XD seriously? Danmark are using kroner or crowns as it’s main form of coin exchange. Basically 10 danish = 1$.
There's a couple of funny anecdotes from American tourists to Norway. One American was very impressed by our nature and especially our waterfalls, and apparently they asked a tour guide how we "made" the waterfalls because they "looked so real".
Another American had supposedly asked a tour guide where all the polar bears were. They apparently thought there were polar bears in our capital, Oslo.
And there are no polar bears in Oslo? I'm disappointed ! 😂
About polar bears there are "jokes" about how tourists expects and complain About " You don't have polar bears on streets in Poland?"
We do have some mooses nowadays wandering about, but mostly deer, wild hogs or foxes but mostly in villages near forests.
Americans tourist in Norge: "why not be leaving in igloos"
I have been asked how we got the snow to stay up on the (year-round snow-capped) mountains, whether the mountains are real, whether the bears with tags on them are tame, whether the bears in the National Park were tame, why they can't see the Northern Lights in mid summer when it does not get dark out....
Yonk years ago, I was a receptionist in Spain. One client complained that it really was too hot ... in Southern Spain, in August! I told him that I'd heard on the radio that morning that it was pouring with rain in Paris ... and offered to organize his repatriation ... That shut him up!
I once saw a cartoon showing 2 tourists before Athen's Parthenon. One was saying: "With all the money they make from tourism, you'd think that they could've rebuilt the thing! :o)))
But the top of the top is, in Spain again: I was enjoying my aperitive at a terrasse. Sitting at the next table was a middle-aged British couple. The lady was telling her husband how pleased she was that the local TV was featuring "Fawlty Towers" (a hilarious British comedy series) but, deploring that it was dubbed in Spanish (how odd, in Spain!), she concluded "We should have brought our own TV" ...
The sad thing about your last story is that i can beleive you. How do these people do jobs and just get by in the real world?
I mean...what's so absurd about restoring a destroyed historical site? The Parthenon has been destroyed fairly recently in history, so it's not like you would erase a lot of accumulated history of it being destroyed. Many historical sited in Germany have been destroyed in WW2, and were being rebuilt, and not left as ruins. Quite famously the church in Dresden, only a few years ago.
So, yeah, why not rebuild the Parthenon, if it can be done in an appropriate way, with mostly original materials? Especially of it could lead to...er....certain countries returning parts of it to its original site?
@@drsnova7313 well the Brits would have to return all the artefacts they stole from that site that are still sitting in the British museum. Good idea!!!!
@@westaussieeggs8867How about returning all the land stolen from the Aborigines then?
@@B-A-L Or kicking out the descendents of the illegal immigrants who came to North America after 1492? That was the white replacement.
Went to the Faroe Islands and was extremely disappointed .. there wasn't an Egyptian in sight!
😆😆
Giggle!
@@Mr_Spock512 😂😂 .. couldn't mate, nobody spoke Egyptian
You're baiting us again , don't be in the Nile .
There was a story recently about people on a cruse ship visiting the Faroe Islands getting disturbed by the sight of whaling. Not the gentlest foray into foreign cultures, admittedly, but nonetheless.
I want to turn this on it's head and tell a story of a beautiful moment I had when travelling. I few years back I was going from Sweden to England to see some friends I met streaming. I think it was my first time travelling alone outside the country and I was quite nervous. There was an older couple sitting next to me and apparently the wife was afraid of flying. I chatted to them and made them think of other things, which was helpful for me too.
When we got to our destination, one of Londons massive airports, the went with me through the entire process of getting my stuff together and finding the right bus to continue my travels. Even though it was getting dusky and they had a long car ride ahead of them, they helped and reassured me as if I had been a relative or friend. We took a picture, hugged and they were on their way. Just before we left the man pressed something into my hand and they disappeared into the crowd. I opened my hand to see a crumpled 20 pound bill, which I still have to this day. I sat on my long bus ride thinking about that couple, and it set the mood for the rest of my trip.
We had never met before and we'll never meet again, but even though they helped me, the man still felt like I was somehow doing them a big enough favor to give me money. Just a reminder that people out there are usually kind, helpful and warm hearted, if you come in with the right attitude.
The rest of the trip was also wonderful and I had a similar experience with a lady on the train back when I was leaving (she didn't give me money but shared her food with me). Everywhere I went people did their best to help me, many going out of their way to send me on the right path.
nah, I think he gave you the money as he was worried you will need it for a ride to whatever destination. It was a fatherly gesture not payment for your friendliness. If I met a young person who was a bit anxious I would have done the same. Like caring for a son/g-son (in my case). I travelled abroad alone when I was 14 and 16, very confident but it was 60 years ago.
Just for clarity, we do not call our 'paper' money bills. They are notes.
@@westaussieeggs8867 I was like 35, I guess I look pretty young for my age but not that young. :P
@@doughunt9621 I've heard both, whether it's correct or not is up for debate I guess. Thanks for the reminder though. :)
@@SilverionX He just meant 'bills' is the American word. In the UK we call them 'notes'. It's one of those confusing things with multi-centred languages like English. Also to us Brits a 'bill' is what you ask for to see how much you owe. Americans would probably call that a 'check'.
About ten years or so ago I went from my cold, rainy home in Yorkshire to the sun-kissed Cóte D'Azur in the South of France. On arriving in Nice, it started raining almost immediately. It was cold and wet for the whole week. On flying back to Leeds I discovered that it had been, along with most of England, in the grip of a heatwave.
You can't book the weather.
And that's how the Dutch came up with rain insurance 😂
Ouch, what a bummer! 😯 I've heard more similar stories like this. Even if it's not fun at the time, afterwards it is kinda funny, the bad luck you can have sometimes.
That's why we here in Ireland praise all kinds of weather.
We have a saying.
Don't make fun of the weather as it has a tendency to follow you.
That's how the rain gods pester you .
My husband and I would deliberately book holidays in SE Asia at the end of the monsoon/beginning of the tourist season just so we could have the chance of a couple of days of monsoon rain sometime during our two weeks holiday we loved it. I think we are unique 😂
I am an American and had an opportunity to travel to Italy with my Italian friend. We were in Europe for 5 weeks. We went to Paris for several days and had a blast. I was raised to be polite to everyone and, oh boy, did this pay off. I pulled out my high school French and this paid off, as well. Everyone one we ran into was really nice. Making an effort to speak the language always pays off. One day we had lunch at the Paris Hard Rock Cafe and I told the waiter (he did speak English) that the Mac and Cheese was outstanding. The next thing I knew the chef was at our table. I raved to the chef it was soooo good. English mixed with French. We all laughed and got a comped dessert. Attempting the language and being polite and respectful can make for a fantastic experience.
Same or rather similar Paris experience (Irish) of course it pays to address people like you have leant manners.
exactly
Agreed....be a gracious visitor.....make an effort to observe and reciprocate customs. I was in Malaysia swimming where a couple of Europeans swam next to us topless. I'm no prude (far from it, free those ta tas!!!) but I had to swim away. Complete disrespect.
Being french, the one thing that strikes me is that there are actually people in this world who may need the things you talk about to be spelled out for them, because it does not strike them as being obvious... I have no idea what it means to "try and be polite". I was raised to be, and hence, i am. It appears to me that this extreme individualism in the USA is the source of many problems. Kids who are not taught from a young age to mind their manners and not bother others won't be able to learn respect once they reach adulthood. It's too late.
@@nox8730 indubitablement.
I'm pretty sure the people who thought the Spaniards didn't speak English were getting treated that way BECAUSE they were jerks. My daughter traveled to France and Spain when she was 14 with a group and we called a few times just to ensure she was doing okay. The French weren't terribly cooperative BUT when I telephoned Spain, I asked IN SPANISH if they spoke English and was immediately told, Si, I speak and they proceeded to give me detailed info about where my daughter was in her trip, when she would arrive, and were basically delightful. Seriously. My Spanish is rudimentary but it's customary to at least learn a TINY bit of the language before traveling to a different country. Why are you traveling for goodness sake?
In Western Europe, most youngsters know at least a bit of English and those working in tourism usually speak English to some degree so that's probably true. However, a lot of people are also bad at "speaking English" or are not comfortable with it because their mastery over another language is low. Moreover, if the individual(s) assume you speak English and are annoying, it's easier to say you don't speak English.
I learned that if I was willing to make a fool if myself mangling the local language while apologizing for not speaking it better, locals would almost always dredge up their English to work with me. I think it was mainly because I was acknowledging that I should be speaking their language, not assuming they should speak mine.
Friendly reminder: north Spain's weather is so similar to Ireland's weather. We also have cliffs, some lakes, fogg, wind, grey skies, mountains, green grass and forests. And rain. Yep.
Oh, I almost forget it: we speak spanish 😜
Incluso en el sur de España, la "costa del sol" no es sol todo el tiempo, también llueve y hasta nieva. Creo que explotarian algunas cabezas si intentas explicarles eso 😂
I heard about tourists up north in Norway, who complained about the midnight sun. It was just the ordinary sun, no extra special one.
Yes, that is a true story. A couple from CA complained they had been mislead to believe that the midnight sun was a different sun than the one they could see in California. Apparently they even tried to sue the Norwegian Tourist Board in order to get their traveling expenses reimbursed.
The monuMENTAL ignorance of some people never ceases to amaze me.
Americans in Finnish hotels: I cant find the thermostat/AC! Sir, just open the window..
Just until recently, I thought people are making these things up. Until recently: I've been in a steakhouse in Mainz, Germany with an american group seated at the table next to me. A young lady was yelling at the waitress because no one told her that her beef steak is not vegan and she will be sueing the restaurant because Texan law would reqiuire every non-vegan item on the menu to be clearly marked as such.
Oh, to be there and be able to call that person an idiot...
@@drsnova7313Seconded. The opportunity to tell them to sit down and shut up and stop acting like a rude foriegner, it would be hard to stay silent.
Since when are the laws of Texas vslid anywhere else in the world?? Same thing with civil rights. They disappear when the wheels of the plane carrying you leaves the runway, or maybe even when the door to the airplane is closed
You guys have no compassion. Obviously this lady travelled while sleeping and didn't realize she's not in Texas anymore😂😂😂
@@buschhuhn9197 Nah, we just have more compassion for the Fraulien in the waitress outfit.
I am an American who has lived in Britain and traveled extensively in Europe. I have witnessed enough of these to have my own asshole American abroad stories, but many of us are quiet, polite and knowledgeable about our surroundings. Unfortunately we largely pass unnoticed for those very reasons.
We assume all the good ones are Canadian.
I've met some nice Americans while traveling, but I refer to those as travelers not tourists. They are usually ones who enjoy history, different cultures and travel with an open mind. The tourists on the other hand are obnoxious, entitled and ignorant.
@@Era515 In the Yukon, everyone I knew in the service industry made a distinction between tourists and travellers.
I'm (a swede) married to an American who also passes under the radar for the same reasons. He also has plenty of stories. And don't get me started on the things I heard when we lived in the US.
Yes, Spain is full of Spanish people. I know it because I am one of them.
❤❤❤ich liebe Spanien, auch alle seine regionalen Besonderheiten.
Hmmm, I'm suspicious - you might be lying! Perhaps you are one of these Spanish foreigners who have moved to Spain :)
@@danyoutube7491 😂😂😂
You are part of the problem 😊
@nicholasturner5146 and I am proud of it.
A lot of people who see the Mona Lisa for the first time are shocked how small it is.
I don't know why that should result in a complaint, though.
Maybe they can mail this Leonardo guy and tell him to make a bigger version for the museum?
I thought it was bigger than I expected. I've heard so many complaints of it being small and dark, I expected it to be about a postcard-size and completely black... no its a sizeable painting, for a portrait of the era, you just can't get very close, because of the crowds.
I went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and in the galerie with the famous paintings you have the milkmaid from Vermeer. Also very small and cracked. Nothing like the foto's online. Museum is very beautiful with much nicer paintings.
I went to the Louvre and did not expect to be as impressed by the Mona Lisa as I was. It is a small painting, but it gave out a vibe, so to say. But if one is not into looking at paintings, maybe they can use their time in a better way and go shopping or whatever they are into. Not everyone can appreciate art. Or good food...
@@Sander-zj3wi Maybe because it is over 360 years old? Maybe because the photos can be modified with Photoshop?
Visiting museums and seeing the original objects helps you understand reality and distinguish it from fakes on the internet. If you like spectacular images, bright colors and glossy surfaces you don't have to visit museums, turn on your computer... it's cheaper, less tiring and gives you more satisfaction.
I was surprised too at how small it is but lol that did not make my seeing it any less special. It really is small. :) but still impressive. And actually 21x30... just looks small because you are so far away from it.
I'm convinced that some people think the rest of the world is an amusement park made for them.
My very same exact feeling!
They the USains certainly provide us with 'amusement'
People - both east and west - think Dutch traditional wooden houses must be a museum. They press their nose against the window…
I have an Airbnb in Sorrento, Italia, right next to the beach and last year a couple of Americans booked it in October. Usually October is a good period to visit Sorrento but it can be rainy and it indeed rained for all the three days they stayed at my house, I was sad for them but then they left me a bad review saying that "the beach was horrible and it rained all the time" like how can it be my fault??? I'm sorry but I can't control the weather???
I'm British and a few years back had an argument with a friend.
They only wanted to holiday in places not ruined by tourists visiting. I tried to point out they were ruining the place they were going to then by going there as a tourist and making it what they hate. They didn't understand
No, they meant just other tourists.
Other tourists ruining the authenticity for him, deserving of an untainted full immersion, that they will then complain about when no one understands their English speaking ass.
Not trying to pick an argument but l think that is perfectly reasonable. There are a lot of places l visited years ago and would not want to go to now because of over tourism. And the UK is packed with things most tourists do not visit or are really visited by locals.
You can go as a traveller or a tourist. They are not the same.
I try to avoid overly touristy places. I hope I don’t ruin where I do go.
Sounds like those people who go down to Cornwall in high season, maybe on a Poldark pilgrimage, and then get annoyed because the narrow lanes are packed, and the car parks full. How dare other people go to the same place at the same time ! Also - similar to the lady who wondered out loud why the fishing harbour was muddy, as it had been full of water last time they visited.
My Portuguese friend on a discord server once got banned because he told the owner of the server that Portugal was in Europe, he got accused of gaslighting and trolling, the owner was convinced Portugal was in south America
Well, they do speak Portuguese in Brazil, kind of like the Spanish in Mexico...
@@rjmac3095 So?
I hope you told the discord server's owner that your Prtoguese friend was right...
@@gabrielesolletico6542 So, there are Americans that don't think that Spain exists, Mexico is the only real Spanish speaking country, I'm guessing that some American mod on that server just made the same mistake about Portugal and Brazil. Wouldn't surprise me anyway!
@@rjmac3095we got that, lol. As a friend lately put it, talking to muricans, you sometimes think they are from another planet. So from now on, I will ban any American claiming they are human on my discord servers, ok? After all, we do not care about facts, and google is really hard to use, right?
"They're adults"
Physically? Maybe
Mentally? Hell nah
Go get some Canadian healthcare lol
Some years ago, I was walking in the "Ile de la Cité" in Paris when a family of American tourists approached me. They were looking for the “Sainte Chapelle”. I explained to them that it had been built by St Louis around 1245 to house the Holy Relics: the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the Cross. They neither understood nor believed me because I think that for them the history probably began with Independence Day!
Some Americans need a burger joint next to any historical site to find them interesting. Shame on the American education system.
System?? there is no system in the US
They don't have a national system, that's part of the problem each state decides it's own curriculum without any national oversight, that how some states can require schools teach "science" that aligns with the bible i.e. no evolution, geology, etc basically banning anything that contradicts the bible (very much Taliban style)
I once heard an American woman unironically complain about the Forum Romanum being "nothing but a bunch of rocks" (reminiscent of that Stonehenge review), and that it was really bad service, that they (presumably the Italians) hadnt replaced those old uncomfortable paths with proper modern walking paths.
@@dfuher968you cant make these things up. I remember when traveling in Tunisia, we visited an ancient site. One visitor complained that there were nothing than rocks. The guard was visibly upset about this ignorance and let us in for free. The visitor was french
Can't be all on the education system, curiousity comes from within - maybe just me being a history nerd
Went to Rome...visited the Pantheon....no panthers....very disappointed....and it had a hole in the roof
Didn't that leave you panting and short of breath ?😁
... and it was clear they should fire the housekeepers!
You mean Coliseum i presume?
😂😂😂
Rained when I was last there.
My favourite review is the guy who visited the "National Railway Museum" in York and complained that there were too many trains. That he expected to see aeroplanes too 🤦🏻
Yeah, and where are all the skyscrapers in York anyway? We especially not went to the new one, but to the original, and it's too small and doesn't even have a statue of liberty!
@@christophstahl8169 😂
They would complain about RAF museum not having enough trains too.
@@christophstahl8169There's actually a New York in England near RAF Coningsby that's so small the entire population could fit into a small apartment block in NYC.
@@B-A-LTheres a New York on Tyneside...
Let's also remember the brave and brillant Brits who retired to Spain and voted for Brexit. And then discovered a few months later that _they had to apply to a visa to stay_ and who could not understand how suddenly they had become foreigners to a country when they voted for it to be that way. Many of them were eventually deported as _illegal immigrants._ Some of them still don't see the connection...
Ah , another remoaner.
@@richard6440 Non... Je suis français. Je me fous simplement de la gueule des Anglais assez idiots pour voter pour le Brexit alors qu'ils vivaient peinard en Espagne...
And a brainexiteer
YAWN
@ I'm French... You have no idea how your departure from Europe is such a relief for us... England was the just this American lackey that prevented Europe to reach its full potential... Good riddance... Do not come back...
When on holiday in France my daughter remarked “Daddy, when these people (French) get home will they then talk normally again?”
I explained the concept of different countries and languages to her, she was 3 years old! We still get a good laugh out of that remark now that she’s 30.
It’s funny and understandable coming from a 3 year old. 😂But not when it’s some idiotic 30 year old.🙄
Okay... 3 years old... first time encountering the concept of different languages and cultures... that's excusable. Young children really don't know anything and they try to fit all experiences into concepts they have already figured out.
Being french, it is still pretty interesting that a 3 years old american girl would say such a thing. I have worked in kindergartens and grade schools, and i am pretty sure no kid would say such a thing here. It goes to show how kids grow up in a bubble in the USA, and how the problem starts pretty early.
@@nox8730 eh? What problem, a toddler experiencing a foreign language for the first time, is that a situation that doesn’t happen to French kids? Maybe not as French are notoriously insular and barely travel.
@@abbofun9022 No. No kid would say such a thing here. I don't know why. Maybe it is because the USA is protected up there, and so, people may end up more secluded, hearing only english. Maybe it is because the US TV and people are only about the USA, while our TV presents the whole world, and interviews people in many language all over the world depending on what happens on Earth... Maybe it is because France is the most visited cuntry in the world and hearing many languages in the street is pretty normal even in my small town.
But at the end of the day, i can tell why some americans end up being so confused that there is more to the world than just the USA, when i hear that a 3 years old may react this way. If she hadn't traveled at all... she may have a ended as one of these "ignorant americans". How easy is it to turn out like that in the USA? This is a problem.
In a nice beachside restaurant in Koh Samui Thailand.
An American stood up and made a scene complaining that Thai food in Thailand was just not as good as Thai food in California.
They were complaining about eating genuine real food?
That's weird.
easy to fix the situation,just mix some good spoons of sugar in his food.
@@gerardflynn7382 No, that's not "weird", it's American ... ;o)
I'm sure that pizza in Italy is much worse than pizza in New York 😅.
@@vitezslavnovak2077 Go find out in Italy then come back to tell us all about it!
In a similar vein a flight attendant shared a story of an American lady who asked for the engines to be turned off, mid flight, as the noise from them was keeping her awake !!!
,, mylady,if we turn off the engines,you will never wake up''
"Sorry, lady, it's against FAA and ICAO protocol to purposefully turn off the engines and glide to our doom."
An Avianca flight did run out of fuel after being diverted (and a number of mishaps) and the survivors said that the silence after the engines lost power was absolutely terrifying.
@@pablom-f8762 Was that the one that crash landed on Long Island?
@@JamesDavy2009 yessir
"too many foreigners now live abroad" is truly mind boggling
Sadly, it's not just Americans who can't accept Greek Food in Greek hotels. Whilst staying in Corfu about 20 years ago, the hotel evening meal was 'Roast Lamb and roast potatoes' This was GREEK STYLE roast lamb and GREEK STYLE roast potatoes - but we heard an English couple complaining to the receptionist that it wasn't 'proper' roast potatoes. When she said "We're in Corfu- this is how we do roast potatoes" They countered that they'd managed top get 'proper ones' the night before at another establishment, and she pointed out they'd been at an Irish bar the night before...... The hotel's versions were delicious by the way!
I think over time, there's more interest by Americans in terms of getting to experience other cultures in a way that's a bit more authentic, but I'm sure that is a long ways off. I wonder how many of the "Canadians" that people see abroad are just Americans that have manners and don't want to deal with the guilt by association of the jerks.
Just reading this made me feel hungry. Admittedly I like my roast lamb with mint sauce. ;-)
As an English person I would like to make amends by eating all the roast potatoes in Corfu. In fact I insist upon it.
“It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt”. Mark Twain, one of the other many intelligent people from 🇺🇸. Love ya wrocker
Ive always considered that quote to be evidence, that such rank stupidity is not a new thing.
You sure it was from Mark Twain?
@@gabrielesolletico6542 this version is, there’s many iterations
“ Many intelligent people “ ??? 😂
I think it likely that Mark Twain wrote that quote as a warning to his fellow American citizens…and boy was he right.. 🤨
@@Ionabrodie69 AnnQIder was careful enough to say "one of the OTHER (as opposed to those we're talking here) many intelligent..."
Working as a travel agent for 13 years now and the ignorance of some travelers never failed to impress me !!
impress? depress woulda been my guess.
Time to start a YT channel, "stories of a travel agent", and tell us all the funny stories (I bet you have heaps to tell)
Can only imagine.
A couple of the worst/funniest things I've heard from fellow travellers. Complaints and mystification about Venice being very awkward and inconvenient to get to from the surrounding area. Yep, that's exactly why it's there.
Anne Frank House being underwhelming because they "hadn't done much with it" and they "should have made it bigger in the first place for the visitors."
@@jimb9063 Really? Otto Frank should have thought about the future of his families hiding place to accommodate f*t American or British tourists? The audacity of some people. Should the builder of the building be sued for not building it to the standards of a modern American 400 years or more into the future
I remember someone for a laugh going to a travel agent asking for a trip to climb Olympus Mons, the travel agent tried to sell them a holiday in Greece... Olympus Mons is on Mars...
"Spain has typically pretty good weather" the south does, the north is like England with better food.
Wonderful description:)
Thank you :) 😊
If the picture is related to the complaint, it was definitely not the south of Spain :)
The south is the Arizonan equivalent of Spain, while the north is like England.
Fabada among them 😜
I agree even though I don't like Spanish food.
I don't think the Mona Lisa one was an American. They spelled kilometre correctly and used "A4" for the paper size.
Fair point, I think the Spanish Rain may have been a Brit, given mention of not being on the plain.
Actually, it's spelled Kilometer...
Oh, wait, that's the German way to spell it ;)
@@FPVisnotacrime Yeah people do that all the time. It's not a big deal, but it's still wrong. It's not like the word for "colour" or "chair," the unit of "Metre" was invented and named. It'd be like writing "Moaner Liza" or "Eyeful Tower."
😂
And to be fair, the Mona Lisa is small and extremely overrated. That complaint was just imho.
"Why do these spanish-people all speak mexican?!"
Why do these English people all speak American? 😂
@@101steel4 good question.
Why do Americans speak English and not American?
And why don't Canadians and Australians speak their own language?
Yo diría más: ¿cómo es posible que estemos en Europa y no al sur de México?😂😂
@@jensschroder8214 Colonialization is the answer to that question.
I wonder how many slaves the US imported to Africa
Why did they build Windsor Castle so close to Heathrow Airport?
Yep. I would think Queen Elizabeth would have complained about the noise.
@@callicordova4066 AND would have the authority to make them build the castle somewhere else (of course, then it wouldn't be Windsor castle, because it wouldn't be in Windsor, but that's a minor detail...)
@@callicordova4066 should actually be why did they build heathrow airport so close to windsor castle. windsor castle was there long before heathrow airport existed lol
@@callicordova4066nah, she wanted a quick drive home
My family took a long vacation in Europe in the early 70s to visit relations and to see Europe. My father bought a Volkswagen bus to be picked up at the factory in Germany, and we traveled around in it. Wonderful memories.
I helped lay out the itinerary, researching different places of interest. History and culture was important in our family, so we understood that many sites would be older than our country, that the food and customs would be different, and that we would have to learn about exchange rates. We were actually able to walk among the stones of Stonehenge. It was hard to resist clambering on the fallen stones. But you could also see the damage caused by those not so careful.
It was a magical two months.
I saw this in all seriousness... these people should get their "international" experiences from EPCOT at Disney World.
"There are too many foreigners abroad." So close and yet so far from understanding something.
Stonehenge is a bunch of rocks like the Grand Canyon is a huge hole and the Coliseum in Rome is in ruins.
Apparently when Mark Clark was entering Rome in WWII a Private was heard to remark as they passed the Coliseum "Jues the Air Force must have really hit this place".
Yes, and the pyramids of Giza are simply big heaps of stones 😅.
And America is just a huge pile of turds!
Ayers Rock / Uluru is just a big red rock in the desert.
And the Eiffel tower is just a big Meccano set . Yawn !!!
Overheard at Blarney Castle in Ireland (in a thick Southern accent):
"sign says it was built the 15th century... can't be right, that's older than America, and we invented castles!"
Can't make this stuff up
These people are out there, they live among us, don’t worry we have our fair share of them here in England.
I overheard a couple on a flight back from Spain once saying “I’ve had enough of Spanish food, I can’t wait to get to Mac Donald’s to get some proper English food”
While on a trip to the US way back in 1981 I got talking to someone in Washington DC about history, he was telling me how old and historic the capital building was, which let’s face it isn’t that old. When I told him I had a friend here in England that lived in a house that was built around 1250, that’s just over 200 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America he just could not comprehend that, he really didn’t believe me. Let’s face it back then the capital building wasn’t quite 200 years old, so hardly an ancient monument!
I've been to Greece twice for two reasons.
1.) The ancient history.
2.) The best salads in the world!
As an American, I am stunned at the number of fellow citizens that don't realize the US is a BABY compared to the rest of the world!
After my grandfather visited the UK, he told me how the pub in a village where he stayed was still called "the new pub" by the locals because it was only 400 years old.
Odd comment as there are plenty of McDonalds in Spain. In fact, in tourist resorts you have to go out of your way to find local Spanish food. Maybe they were just joking and being ironic.
@@infohippie You know it's a /really/ old pub when you have to duck to get through the front door because when it was built centuries ago people were shorter... 🙂
(Source: Personal experience of a lovely old pub near Arundel, West Sussex)
Hello from Australia! Back in the 80s I spent 12 months travelling around the US (3 months) and the rest of the time in Europe from the UK to Turkey and back to London through Eastern Europe. Too many stories to mention but two stand out. I was in a pharmacy in rural Italy with some Canadian friends. You could tell they were Canadians because they were wearing T-Shirts saying "I am Canadian NOT American". A middle-aged man with his wife wearing identical outfits walked up to the counter, didn't say hello or anything and went straight into an act where he kept running his hand over his head. We watched for a while and the the young shop assistant said to us (funnily enough in Italian) "What is this idiot doing?" He wanted to buy a comb - walked saying "Why can't these people understand what I want?". Yep you got that one right. Another time I was at a VERY famous landmark and a tourist complained "We came all this way and the damn thing's falling down". No prizes for guessing the place or the nationality'. I always found the majority of Americans to be very friendly but boy were they ignorant - as in un-educated. There was also a LOT of arrogance from tourists along the lines of "we do everything better".
And this is only one of the reasons why spaniards want laws to regulate turism
Well, technically not, here in Spain we have a big problem at buying houses, and some people think that the problem are the tourist living in apartments like Air-bnbs but the real problem is the inmigration and sqquaters.
@@nicope2486 that's just not correct, you're missing the forest for the trees.
Media España es un secarral sin nada, si que quisiese construir los bosques no serían un impedimento.
@@nicope2486 The Spanish don't want to rent or sell property to their own people, they prefer to rent and sell to the foreigners. (Reasons for this: Occupas, not paying rent on time, not paying rent at all, destruction of property, changing terms and conditions of property sale at the notario, asking for cash as part payment of property sale, etc. etc.) It seems to me the problem is the Spanish people's treatment of their own people and not the foreigners.
The main reason is the lack of affordable housing.
I will never understand americans
I'm canadian ffs, and it seems a single border is enough to suddenly make common sense vanish once you go south
I read a few one-star comments here in Scotland, on climbing Ben Nevis. "Too steep"..... "Should be a lift or a tram"... ... "There was snow at the top... I don't like snow!"....... I couldn't see, there was mist!"......
I sincerely hope it puts these people off from coming back here....;-)
I always find this the funniest one. Americans seeing Europe in 14 days..?!?!?!? Then bragging about it that they saw everything that Europe has to offer. They spend more time in a bus and/or hotel then in the country for crying out loud.
In any of the countries which comprise Europe (which varies depending on how Europe is defined)
I once spent a long day near the Pont du Garde, a 2000 year old stone block, three tiered Roman aqueduct in the south of France...
Amazing place and a fantastic riverbank to walk along...
The American couple I had met, spent just over 20 minutes there... Seen it, done it, missed everything, moved on... 😂
I saw a film years ago called "if it is Tuesday this must be Belgium"... quite amusing
@@mariuschka888, exactly that.
@@neddyseagoon9601 "Pont du Gard". "Gard" is a french department in the south. "Garde" means something else, and i was confused for a second. "Pont" is "bridge". Despite aqueducts not being bridges. I find it interesting that it is called "pont" anyway. Well, just some trivia in case you are interested in it.
I live in London and one of my favourite places here is Highgate Cemetery, one of the largest Victorian cemeteries in London full of amazing monuments and some very famous 'residents'. Once i went on a guided tour and there was a family of very loud Americans and when the guide had finished the tour and asked if anyone had any questions the older man turned round and said why don't they just bulldoze the site and build on it. Why was he even there!
That's as bad as telling an American that they should bulldozed Arlington National Cemetery. Only dead people are there. /s
I live in Odense, Denmark. It is the birth town of H.C. Andersen, the worldwide famous fairytale author. I live nearby the house where he spend his young years and often walks by on my way to the center of the city. One day I happened to overhear one young american man (16-18 years old maybe) standing with a group of 7-8 people say, that this Mr. Andersen couldn't be very important if he lived in such a small house without swimming-pool! I was floored inside of laughter🤣
Odense, city named after the God Odin :-).
@Audulf-of-Frisia It stems from the heathen name Odin's Vi, which basically means "Town of Odin worship" Vi or Hov in old norse, was names dedicated to places who tended to only worship one god. In Odense's case, that was Odin. Odense is also home of one of 5 viking fortresses, named Nonnebakken and the last danish viking king lays buried here (King Canute 4th, or Canute the Holy as the christians called him)
I once went to holiday on a Spanish island and it was generally super hot every day. But one day it rained the entire day and everyone really loved that. In Germany we say there is no bad weather, only bad/inappropriate clothing.
You steal a lot from Denmark as I say to my German friend😉
We have that same complaint here in Ireland.
And the same in the Netherlands
@@itsmebatman and it’s one of Billy Connolly favourite sayings about Scotland. Which I agree with.
Und es is der nervigste Spruch überhaupt.
Imagine the reaction of these same people if you said to them “America is a beautiful country, unfortunately it’s full of Americans”. 😂 you could insert any country here but I used America because they are known for this sort of thing lol. Tourists come to Australia and don’t leave the city and then complain they didn’t see any kangaroos or koalas 🤦🏻♀️
I, a Canadian, met an American tourist once who didn't understand why we were all driving cars. She asked me where I kept my dog sled team.
She was from North Dakota. Could not have travelled more than 275 miles to be where I was, yet she thought she'd crossed the Arctic Circle? I just don't know....
America doesn't span from Maine to California, but from Canada to Chile...
A complaint that our friends in Austria frequently hear, too.
This is a common complaint of Paris, and given that I have heard it from French citizens who do not live in Paris there is some justification for it; you understand what if You have been to Paris - in July -August in particular.
@@peregreena9046 I have had long discussions with US citizens about the word "America They think it is the name of their country. When you point out to them that is is a continent, they say that there are 3 continents: North, Central and South America. The idea of a whole continent called America does not enter their geographical concepts. They are a lost cause. The French are to blame, they started to call them "Americans" The confusion will persist until they give a better name to their country and their people, because "unitedstatadians" is not very pretty!
If you can get out of London and be at the closest ocean beach in less than 40 mins, you will be flying above the traffic.
You could get to Gravesend by train in that time.
There's no ocean beaches anywhere in the UK, it's an island with many beautiful beaches but none of them is in an ocean as the UK is surrounded by seas
@@Carlas-r2m Scotland borders the Altantic Ocean
@@Carlas-r2m Not even the Atlantic Ocean in Scotland , Ireland side ?
@@Carlas-r2m So, please explain to us what the difference is between a sea and an ocean, apart from naming conventions?
There are many tale about when American tourists met the late Queen on the Balmoral estate and not knowing who she was. Bless her, The Queen just played dum, including once when an American couple, not knowing who she was, handed her thier camera for her to take a photo of them with someone who had met The Queen (it was her security person). The Queen obliged and when they had left she asked her security person 'do you want a bet on how long it takes them to work it out?'
Can you imagine that in Mexico they don't even speak Mexican?
So disappointing.
Americans don't speak American either. So strange 😂
@@101steel4 And Brazilians don't speak Brazilian, like, whaaaaat?!
There are Mexicans who speak in their native language in addition to Spanish. Just as in the US there are some who speak their native language, whether Inupiat, Na-Dene, etc.
Some do. The Mexican language is also known as Nahuatl, the native language of the Mexica, also known as Aztecs.
Some Americans think they do AND that if you speak Spanish you can´t be anything else but Mexican.
Travel agency in Norway got a complaint that the advertised "Midnight sun" was a hoax, it was the same sun, and not the separate sun she expected.
She wanted a refund.
Last year in Paris, our tour group went to Montmartre, all the Americans walked past the out door French restaurants, and went to Starbucks!
yep because there they can use usd right?
🤢pearls before swine
Keeps them from lowering the tone in the French eateries.....I think Starbucks, MacDo and KFC should be compulsory for Americans in France.
@@betacam235 I'm american and don't even go to those places when I'm in the states. I certainly won't go to corporate owned fast food places overseas! Why would the Montmartre district even allow those disgusting places to be built there?
@@ashamed2Byt My sense of humour grates even on me sometimes.
It's a trend, glad to hear you aren't part of it!
When I was waiting at the airport to return home from Italy ( I had been a nanny for a year) I had a group from the US near me. I'm American. One seat was available so I asked if it was taken in English. No response. So I asked in Italian. No response. So I sat down. They got mad that I sat there and were telling each other how awful Italians were and I was a rude Italian. I looked at them and that I asked in English and I'm from California. One looked at me and 12:29 said she couldn't understand my nonsense and should learn English.
The complaint by some Americans about everyone speaking Mexican in Spain is pretty well known….😂
Do they not know that Mexico was originally called New Spain?
@@gerardflynn7382And New York was originally called New Amsterdam. So why the hell they don't speak Dutch? 🤔
@@vitezslavnovak2077Because the Dutch speak better English than Americans do!
@@B-A-L Everyone does.
Americans don't speak English 😉
@@vitezslavnovak2077 Weet ik veel , misschien omdat ze terug naar Europa gingen ?
I had the misfortune of meeting a group of American tourists in a small hotel just outside Florence who were complaining that most of the staff were rude as they 'pretended not to speak English' .
regarding the Mona Lisa thing... we have a " similar" situation here in Copenhagen with the LITTLE Mermaid..lot's of tourists are, when they meet her, disappointed about her size...
I thought it was common knowledge 😅
Like Manneke Pis in Brussel
@@daphnelovesL true
To be fair, the Mona Lisa is very small 😂🤷♂ The little mermaid on the other hand was about right size. 🇩🇰🇸🇪
People who complain about the size of the _Mona Lisa_ could just spin around and look at Veronese's _The Wedding at Cana_ on the opposite wall. It's enormous but I'm the only person who bothers to look at it. Actually, people often don't even look at the _Mona Lisa_ they just take selfies of themselves with it in the background.
I am disabled (registered blind) and travel alone to visit Egypt on a yearly basis & always fly Egyptair because the airport staff and especially the cabin crew on the aeroplane are unfailingly kind, helpful and friendly, as are the passengers sitting next to me.
This does not surprise me as having lived 6 years in the country I know this is typical of the Egyptian people. I am so grateful to receive this unfailing kindness.
I'm hesitant to travel because of poor eyesight.
Best one I ever heard that tourist complaint they didn't have a view on Uluru/Ayers Rock from the town Alice Springs it's 468 kilometers away or 4 hours 53 minutes drive.
Or the tourist who was disappointed that they couldn't organise a day trip to Uluru... From Sydney
@@steveredacted1394 Such a classic. One of the golden rules of the merry old land of Oz: everything is four days from everything in Australia.
@@JamesDavy2009 I remember learning as a child that kids went to school by plane in Aus. Blew my mind.
Since it has been a only few years since they banned climbing Ayers Rock, there are probably idiots who don't know or understand why it was banned.
@@capnkwick4286 I visit twice and respect the Aboriginal people for not climbing Uluru.
Not just Americans, a British couple complained that a Spanish resort had too many Spanish people in it! I just felt ashamed!!!😫
As a Spaniard I can somehow understand her. For many decades, Mediterranean Spain has hosted large communities of British expats & tourists having ZERO.ZERO interest to know anything about Spain, except for getting our guaranteed sunny weather and cheap alcohol.
@piofernandezlopez7376
I guarantee you those Brits voted for Brexit because they didn't want immigrants at home
English being English
Where they the ones who said they voted for Brexit because there were too many Spanish people speaking Spanish where they lived........ In..an English community.........in Spain? I too was ashamed.
@@piofernandezlopez7376 As a British person myself, I am ashamed of their ignorance.
This kind of stupidity, ignorance and disregard of other cultures is not exclusive to Americans... This summer, 2024, I was told by an refugee that worst thing in Finland is that there are so many Finns here and no one speaks Arabic, women don´t wear hijabs and nobody bows to the east five times a day. In her opinion, no one respected her religion or values here. I was told later that she even made a UA-cam video about it. Could there be a correlation Finland - Finns, Finns - Finland. HMMMM
Actually it is a very serious matter as that view is widely held. It is causing strife and riots in modern western democracies now and will get a lot worse.
Did that really happen? If so, atrocious!
@@philiptownsend4026 👩🏼🌾🏞️🌅🇫🇮 Hello, Philip!
I agree. It is a very serious matter, and growing, in Western Europe, in this case in one of the Nordic welfare states.
In all of the Nordic countries, the people are well-educated, the societies well-organized and well run. In some ways, ahead even of many other democratic countries.
The Nordic societies couldn't be more different from strict, autocratic and religious parts of the world if they wanted to. Recently, some U.S. citizens have begun to realize that they have also been victims of a kind of indoctrination by the state and various religious groups. (Daily pledging of allegiance to the flag and pressure to conform to outdated moral rules as repeated by different religions.)
@@MJCourie This is a common occurence in Europe. Especially in my country (France). A few years ago, i was working for the national education and teaching french to a young refugee girl from Irak. Then another kid (meant to be french), 4 years old, approached me and told me: "the heck are you teaching her?" "What?" i said. "As long as she speaks like us, she doesn't need shitty french" (needless to say, he was from a maghrebine family. One needs to understand where a 4 years old kid had heard this from).
I was so depressed, i immediately got to bed when coming home after work, and struggled big time to go back being useless as work the next day, teaching such a dead language as "french" to people coming to France.
How would you break it to someone that dense that are lots of religions around the world that don't practice the Islamic religion. There are even people that don't observe any religion.
American woman on the Tube in London “You gotta know where one of these things is going before you get on. Yesterday we got on one and it took us someplace we didn’t want to go.”
I remember staying in an Airbnb in Hong Kong where an American guest had left a bitter review, angrily complaining that their holiday was "ruined" because the plugs (sockets) were different and they couldn't charge their phone and take any photos so Waaaaahhhhhh...
What kind of gobshite heads across the world without checking out basics such as electricity differences and any need for travel plugs or, having arrived there without buying any adapter at the airport in either country, doesn't then have the cop-on to just go to a nearby large supermarket or find an electronics retailer and just buy the right plug?!
No. The problem here doesn't lie with the fact that he neglected to look up this kind of information. Being oblivious of something can happen to anyone. No, the real problem is that instead of acknowledging his mistake and trying to adress the situation at hands, he decided to blame others for it. Without ever considering that he made a mistake in the first place.
@@nox8730 This is a good point. It's not the lack of knowledge. It's the lack of willingness to admit it and to learn. I don't get annoyed when I have to explain to a foreigner something about my country. I get annoyed when they tell me I'm wrong and argue. I recently had an argument online with a Swede who was telling me that England is not a country. I, an Englishman, tried to explain to him the difference between a sovereign, independent nation and a country. He was having none of it.
The problem is that Americans think they are the centre of the universe and that everywhere else on the planet is supposed to cater to them.
I once heard a tourist complain that the beach was too sandy. Some people are not meant to wander off beyond their own town/village yet imagine them going to a different country. I really think that some people pretend to act ignorant because either they think its cool or a defence mechanism due to realising there is an actual world beyond their micro bubble.
One evening, when walking on the beach in France with another American couple, the woman looked up and said, 'Hey, I didn't know they had a big dipper in France. Do you think Governor Schwarzenegger (Governor of California at the time) knows about it?" Her husband said, "I married her for her looks, not her brain."
oof.