Dear Euro-turds

The BBQ Pit
41

I always tip well (my starting point is 20% and it moves from there), but there is the converse: If you want a living wage, don’t be a waiter. I fail to see how your employment terms create an obligation on me.

Back on topic. The original OP does raise a valid point that Americans are viewed as particularly uneducated about the world while Europeans (and Canadians) are sophisticated world travelers.

I subscribed to this theory until my German relatives showed up for a week-long visit and wanted to see: cowboys and Indians, Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi and Washington, D.C. They also insisted on going to country/western bars so that they could listen to Willie Nelson music.

(And let’s not even talk about how they ate and the drugs they pumped through their eight-year-old to keep her from swingly wildly between constipation and diarrhea.)

42

Exactly what part of this did you not understand? Sensitive because we are currently kicking the crap out of Muslims, who apparently hate everyone not Muslim? Did you miss the point about bowing in Japan? Maybe he should have said ‘taking off your shoes before entering a Japanese home.’

To Other Nationalities who are now pissed off Bugger off! We read up on cultures before going to visit them so we do not offend, like we know it is against the law to even spit on the streets in Singapore, and never to sit with our feet propped up facing an Arab because he/she would find it offensive. The last time I took a cruse, aboard an Italian owned, American based liner, it was clearly understood that on the last day, ample tips were to be given to our waiters, cabin boys and anyone else who served us well.

I don’t think I have been anywhere where a tip of 20 to 30% of the meal price has been considered an insult (unless it was too low). Never has a bartender ever refused to accept a tip left in the shot grove of the bar top for him and in Mexico, where I declined to tip for poor service, it was brought to my attention by the waiter. (I still did not tip.) Even in hotel rooms it is often a nice thing to leave a few dollars on the pillow when checking out for the unseen maids who had to change your crusty sheets.

Up until around the 70s, Europeans loved American tourists because they made a large chunk of their incomes in many areas from the tourist money and the tourists tipped heavily. Not until the last 30 years has the tipping thing popped up and that only since Europeans have decided they want to visit the USA in droves. They forget the American tourists who tipped even for a glass of wine, tipped bellboys, baggage handlers, taxie drivers, waiters, waitresses, cooks and maids. They even tipped the then available shoeshine kids and tour guides.

Americans tipped their way through Europe. I have old, old books of fact, telling about travels through Europe by various real people and tipping is mentioned in them. In many American circles, to not tip was considered rude and it took a serious breach of etiquette for someone to not tip a server.

Europeans are just tightwads. Not all, but most. :smiley:

43

Bugger off, I will say, sounds so much better than the American Fk-off! Doesn’t it? :slight_smile:

44

Americans not taking their shoes off in a mosque, doing something with their left hand they they shouldn’t according to local practice, reading a USA Today at a sidewalk cafe, asking for more ice in a drink, asking for directions awkwardly while referring to a translation guide = typical ugly American.

Europeans forgetting to tip, talking about their superior knowledge of world events, commenting about how so many Americans seem fat, complaining about U.S. foreign policy, assuming all Americans are cowboys or gangsters = somewhat misguided but well-intentioned tourist.

Is there a double standard here?

45

Accents tend to go over big with American women (and men for that matter), so, yeah, Americans might be “easy” to Europeans…

Course, it works the other way around most of the time too…

46

Point-Counterpoint: European Men Are So Much More Romantic Than American Men vs. American Women Studying In Europe Are Unbelievably Easy

47

Hmmm, a post by an American complaining about European tourists.

Is that overwhelming roar the sound of a glass house smashing? Nah, it couldn’t be, far too loud. Or is it? My god, it is, it is!

48

You mean, aside from the fact that three quarters of the European Union is, what, like 75 years behind America? (Brits excluded.) Plus a great big chunk of the Middle East is still trying to cling to traditions and beliefs from when, oh 200 years ago, while everyone else in the world has moved on? You need to take a real close look at India these days, where some sections are as unchanged as when the British first landed there, aside from the enormous selection of cheap aluminum cookware.

In Arabia they’re having a real good time trying to mix traditional dress, foods, traditions and religion with gobs of money, technology they have little grasp of and a loose cast system.

Did I forget to mention the Cast System still, after all of these years, in place in India?

I’m still having some problems grasping the Irish war that has been going on apparently for a century or so over two parts of the same religion! Israel, well, they’ve been warring for so long that I suppose doing anything peaceful would screw up their constitutions but then, that whole area has this tendency to just take what land they want or start a holy war at the drop of a dime.

The French get all upset over Americans but love our dough, especially since they refused to pay back the couple of billion in war debts they incurred from us. I guess they figured we owed it to them for all of the Syphilis our guys brought back from there.

Naw. There is nothing wrong with foreign attitudes. The French are still wondering why we got irritated over their sinking of a Green Peace ship by them and cannot understand why we get further irritated when they trade regularly with Castro in Cuba and ignore our No Deal Policy with him. Then again, they don’t hold much for UN edicts either, or Global Nuclear testing bans and did we not stop a couple of their oil ships sneaking oil from Sadaam?

The Germans still have not quite gotten it through their heads as to just why we are still so pissed over the slaughter of a few million Jews and the Swedish banks still feel that the blood money they got from the Nazis, who ripped it from the Jews, is theirs to keep because the Nazis are dead or dare not try to claim it.

Nope. I don’t have a problem with foreign attitudes. I just love it when some towel wearing, woman enslaving, knife sporting, other religion hating fellow tells me that I don’t know what the world is about and he’s still trying to figure out just what, exactly, is electricity.

49

That’s Swiss banks, dear.

Enjoy your electric-trickery.

pan

50

Y’know, I just don’t know how to describe J248974’s post. Xenophobic? Over-generalised rant? Or simply as inaccurate as hell in parts.

Decisions, decisions …

51

Unless you think furt is lying, he evidently did come across some ignorant European tourists, so why shouldn’t he complain about it even if there are thousands of ignorant American tourists in Europe? I admit, American tourists seem to be worse than European tourists, but I have a suspicion that this is partly because American tourists are more noticeable than European tourists. Here in Paris, there are bound to be tourists from all over the world at all times, but the only ones we notice are the Americans (and occasionally Germans) because they have more noticeable mannerisms, they often talk loudly and tend to travel in large groups. Those who don’t are not so obvious, which is a shame as these are usually the less-ignorant American tourists.

I will readily admit that Americans are in general quite ignorant, but there are startling degrees of ignorance in Europe as well. I just recently watched a British quiz show in which one of the contestants was asked: which American city has a baseball team called the White Sox, a basketball team called the Bulls and a football team called the Bears? The contestant hesitated, then replied, “Michigan?”

52

I’ll go with ignorant thankyouverymuch.

I find it strangly amusing that ol’ J here managed to work a factual error into every single scentence.

It must be difficult sheltering onself from the cold hard truth like that.

Good luck J. I hope you learn something on this board.

53

above post was in responce to J248974 and Ice wolf’s post.

54

I know! It’s tough isn’t it.
I was playing with ignorant ,* uninformed* , pathetic.
I then thought perhaps pathetically uninformed ignorance
I decided the pit propabaly warranted a Fucking pathetically uninformed ignorance

and I was going along those lines when I had to go and kill me a protestant. Weve been at war with them for over a century see and he might have clued in some dictator about the fact that even though my country is 75 years behind yours that I seemed to have some magic box with lights that connectes to to an orbiting platform in the sky which surely must make me some cabalastic evil Tech lover.

So he’s dead.World’s a better place for having one less Non-American in it right ?

Now lemme see…

Fucking pathetically uniformed ignorance from a bigoted fucking xenophobe

Hmmmm I think I’m getting there .
Check back with me later willya ?

55

Yeah I love the new Cast System in India :slight_smile:
Apparently you must now audition to be in a caste.

56

I like it, it has a beat. T-shirt slogan, maybe?

57

I thought the Cast System was a sly reference to the studio system used in Hollywood before the '60s.

Where an “A” list actor (like, say…Jimmy Stewart) would be a Brahmin, a “B” list actor (Dick Powell, for instance) would be a Sudra and a Z-list actor like Dudley Manlove (really…“Plan 9 From Outer Space”) would be an Untouchable.

Fenris

58

I don’t like to say this - and I don’t say it very often - but Fenris, what in the name of bloody braces are you talking about?

pan

59

There you have it neatly articulated by J248974 … ain’t the American Innocence just the most wonderous concept?

60

Um … minor question. Just out of interest, like, but 75 years behind in what? Please try to answer without referring to anything that may be deemed to be mass-market American popular culture. They’re probably going to be a bit behind in that, they have their own cultures you know …