Here on the coast of middle Norway, the land of the almost midninght sun and rain, we are invaded by german tourists every summer.
They come up here to do fishing, the noble art of catching as much fish you can and fill you campervan as much as possible, and everything from the top notch seaside villa to the shabbiest boathouse is occupied.
Makes it sometimes difficult to find a place to stay when going for a diving trip, resulting in an outragoeus pricing, and all the places have cable TV installed with RTL. And, quite a few of the local stores have german speaking clerks (insert questionable intercourse)?
Also, when they go fishing, in a (insert haemal fluid ending with y) 14 foot boat or somesuch, they are at least six people, and they are all standing in the boat when fishing.
Why, when going to place to do such a natural thing as fishing, can you not do as the locals do? Why the (insert very hot place) do you have to shun everything called sea sense? And why do you try to fish in the fish farms (lots of not nice words)? And why is this not in the Pit, I had to lay off the swear words (insert more of them)?
They say it’s an irregular verb: I am a world traveller; you are on holiday; he/she is a tourist.
From a London perspective, I can sit here now and dispassionately acknowledge that tourists only ever cause me minor, passing aggravation. But when I’m trying to get back from work on a hot and sweaty summer’s day only to find the bottom and top of each escalator playing host to four or five backpack-toting visitors, having a long and complex discussion about a) where they are on the Tube map, b) where they want to go next and c) which of the coloured lines they need to follow to get there - well, I can become a little shirty.
Happily, I can state with hand on heart that at no time have I visited a strange city and found myself needing a few moments to get my head round its public transport system. No indeed not. I am, you see, a world traveller.
My office is near the big Tsukiji fish market and not too far from the upscale Ginza shopping district, so we get lots of tourists from Japan and overseas here. The vast majority are just fine, and if I see them (the western langauge speaking ones, anyway) looking particularly bewildered when they try to decipher the train maps, I’ll ask if they need help.
Being a fairly obvious foreigner, I’m probably more critical of foreign tourists than the locals, since there’s the feeling that their behavior reflects on me. The only ones that tick me off are the occasional obnoxious loudmouths who act like they’re sitting at home watching a Japanese movie on TV, and the slightly more common clueless ones that haven’t grasped just how crowded things are (the guy wearing the huge backpack in the train, unaware he’s taking up real estate for 10 commuters).
Is that a general “I’m superior to you ignoramuses” attitude, or an “oh my god, I’m feeling ashamed to be a (person from the same country as that obnoxious person) right now” sort of thing? There were Americans I saw and wanted to disavow on a couple trips to Italy, especially one woman walking up to the McDonalds at the Spanish Steps and yelling, “I’m home!”
By that standard I’m not, but does it count if the posted signs are in a language you’re non-fluent in? I did pretty well on the trains in Italy otherwise.
I haven’t had a problem with the tourists around here. I seem to look like someone who knows where they’re going, as I get asked for directions a lot, and so far I haven’t run into anyone who’s being difficult. Then again, I don’t work in a tourist-related industry.
I’ve always consciously tried to avoid causing an obstruction nuisance when travelling and unsure of directions. I thought a thread cataloguing handy generic tips for travellers might be interesting.
I get annoyed at the increase in traffic due to tourists. It annoys me that most good restaurants have long waiting times during tourist season. What really annoys me is the condescending attitude exhibited by many of the tourists from a very specific area north of the USA.
Do you know if she then proceeded to demand BBQ sauce? I once spent about half an hour in the McD in Plaza del Sol, explaining to a befuddled Texan that yes, he was in a Mickey Dee, but in Spain Mickey Dees don’t have any sauce except Ketchup. You can get either Ketchup (hold up sachet), Ketchup (second sachet) or Ketchup (third sachet), no other sauces are available. No BBQ. By the end his wife was barely holding her laughter and the kids were saying “Dad, cut it out, it’s getting cold!”. The attendant told me they got people like that every day.
Australia and the United Kingdom have a mutual arrangement whereby each sends the other planeloads of drunken twenty-somethings who cause trouble in pubs, urinate in doorways, and fall asleep in their own vomit on busy footpaths.
It’s worked well for decades, and the locals are very understanding.
I can’t believe you left Kiwis out of that agreement! We have very successfully puked all over Sydney and London! Experts we are!
The Loaded dog is right though…Kiwis go to Aussie (mostly Sydney to drink and puke) them we all all go off to London to be awesome bartenders (and drink and puke ).
Travel is done because you have to; tourism is done because you want to. (But then you wanted a job that required travel, so the issue becomes confused.
What I’ve found funny are tourist towns where, if a local woman goes to a club and then goes with a tourist to his hotel room she’s a slut, but if she goes home with a local guy she’s a player.
Hey women are seen as sluts whenever they hump away from home. Sometimes the title is HIGHLY offensive, sometimes they had to much fun to worry what anyone thinks!
Ah, I’m afraid our experience says that:
Americans are the loud ones yelling in English.
Canadians are the ones speaking in English who sound like lower-voiced Americans and hate being mistaken for them. Nice guys. Apparently, this team has in recent years included some Americans who don’t want to risk having to talk politics (this, I understand) or being lumped with the last loud moron from Potatoville who went through.
Brits are the ones who are already drunk by the time they get into town.
Aussies are the ones who drink as much as the Brits but who don’t start until they come in, so they puke less than the Brits and are more likely to reach the bathroom on time. Nice guys.
And kiwis are the ultra-nice buff ones who camp in La Vuelta del Castillo, do Maori dances and drink as heavily as the Brits or Aussies but generally stop before puking. Nice guys. And we realize there may be other kiwis in town but the ones in Vuelta’l Castillo count as eye candy for the women walking dogs
In my experience, San Franciscans find tourists kind of baffling. It’s a great city, for sure. But the things tourist do are very segregated from anything actually in the city. It’s like there is a seperate little tourist world living on the outskirts of a fun, beautiful, liveable city. When you run into a tourist, it’s a big like running into someone from another world. Not bad, really, just bizarre.
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