Americans in Austria

[Mikkel]

AC1: I wanna shake! Nowhere does a shake! And I want that spaghetti stuff! Spaghetti? In Austria? A local speciality no doubt. Oh. Wait. That's Italy.

Spätzle perhaps? I was introduced to the wonder of Kässpätzle many years ago by a German girlfriend, I could see a child liking it and calling it spaghetti stuff.
Not that it help much.

[Victoria J]

Honestly, as an American, I was surprised when I saw a news report saying that the worst tourists are NOT Americans, but are the French.
.

That doesn't surprise me.

Rude tourists tend to be a combination of 2 things - people who are just rude and awful everywhere they go and culture clash. The first lot come equally from everywhere. The second can be more specific.

I think that American tourists have the great disadvantage that they can get too used to being catered for because they are such a large market, because the dollar is a stong global currency, because of the language. They have one great advantage though - the most insular are very very unlikely to be sucky tourists outside their own country. When my mother was in America and visited the Grand Canyon the guide told tales of stupid questions, and said almost all of them were from home grown tourists. But meeting Americans here - they tend to be frighteningly knowledgable and well travelled, often speak multiple languages etc. Plus it's generally a culture where people do engage with customer service workers (only the actual SCs are horrible).

I was horrified at my experience of French tourists when I visited Morroco though. I was waiting at the hotel desk to chekc my key in when a French guest walked up, cut in front of me, shouted at the man behind the desk (who was clearly just finishing some minor task) and as soon as he was looking just threw their key on the desk in his direction and walked out without saying anything. The person was probably sucky but some of it is cultural - lack of queueing, being much more curt etc.

It horrified me because I spent most of my time there feeling very rude. Because my culture is less into some of the courtesies than theirs - I don't actualy want to spend half an hour over a small purchase, drink a cup of tea and give the vendor a small present. (On the other hand I saw a complete failure due to English politeness when sent out to accompany a timid woman into the souk in Egypt which has similar rules. She felt hassled just being there but clearly felt it was rude to say she didn't want things, so she just kept saying that she couldn't afford things. Perfectly acceptable in an English shop as a way to indicate window shopping without disparaging the goods. There it was taken as an opening attempt to bargain and we were pursued the whole time by people desperately yelling lowered prices ). The French way of doing things seems pretty rude to me (though I fully accept it isn't in a society where those are the rules) but made me really really uncomfortable to see in Morroco, with the history of colonialism there.

Short version - some people are idiots. All people are confusing and appear to have incompatabilities.

Victoria J

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Honestly, as an American, I was surprised when I saw a news report saying that the worst tourists are NOT Americans, but are the French.

After this vacation I am not surprised one bit. By the end there, I was thinking "The next Frenchy to butt in front of me to look at the geyser or the furry animal is getting an elbow in the gut."

[Canarr]

The jokes on them, if they had been leaving tips everywher they had been. From what I remember from my German classes, tipping isn't very common in the German countries.

Tipping is common here, yes. But not to the extent practiced in America, since our waiters are paid minimum wage and above.

Food:
For small orders (less than 10 Euros), I'll normally just round up to the next full Euro or Euro.50 (say, 7.20 will probably bring it up to 8, 7.80 up to 8.50). Above that, I tip 10%, roundabout. Good service from an attentive waiter will double my tip, exceptionally great service (very rare) will triple it. I freely admit to being shallow enough that a pretty female waitress will more easily reach the upper tipping "categories" than a male counterpart, though a good-looking girl who ignores my dining needs is just as likely to get nothing as any guy.

Drinks:
Drinking is different. My motto is, if you can afford to go out and drink, you can afford to tip the people behind the bar. I've spent most of my teenage years barkeeping on weekends, I know how it is to be working at a time when others are drinking. So, here I normally start out at 20%.

Disclaimer: not intending to start a tipping debate, just a FYI on my perception of German tipping customs.

[Anakah]

I would have turned around and told them to STFU for not having some sort of book. I would NEVER go to a foreign place without an interpreter or those translation books. That was out of line. Its the same out here, we don't have menus in other languages. ATM's sometimes have spanish but thats about it. THough I have seen french and japanese on some too.

But those people were waaay out of line. That poor girl. How did they read road signs?

[LillFilly]

They were awful! Another example of the flaking-away of human decency, regardless of nationality.

Hee, you should have given them what-for in English and not have held back. Not like you're ever going to see them again!

[jedimaster91]

I understand a lot more German than I can speak. My sister is a German minor in college, so between the two of us we could probably decipher the menu. I do love German cuisine. I love cooking it, too. My potato pancakes are legendary. And Schwarzwaldtorte. Mmmmm.....

What jerk tourists.

[Mottom24]

I have two little tidbits related to this story. on the subject of worst tourist, my place was new yorkers, but that may have been by volume... so minus them, the worst tourists were french. they were always so picky and one guy yelled at me at 10pm (we close at 9pm but let them sit and have the last dinner) because the fried calamari was dark brown, meaning the oil needs to be changed. I just said "yea... they do that every day... but you came in right at closing time... I doubt they will change it for one order. sorry" he said something, that sounded mean, in french and I walked away.

the second tidbit is when I was in Germany. we loved every place we went and had friends who helped translate, to the best of their abilities, menus for us and we would just point for the server. simple enough and we tipped well, even though we knew we didn't need to. we just thought having to put up with tourists is tough, so they deserved a bit extra... this one time though, this other table kept glaring at us. it was a table of all old folks, no younger than 60 or 70. we weren't loud or annoying, but they just kept staring and glaring at us... I didn't know why. my dad says it may be because they hated americans no matter how nice we may be, because of WW2 and all... I thought that would be odd... but i had fun staring right back at them and waving happily at the mean old folk.

[Tiberious]

Umm, wow. Way to dispel the stereotypes there 'bout us American tourists. Keep up the fine work!

Although, in all honesty, if I'm visiting another country, I'd make sure to at least be able to say "I don't speak <language> very well" "Is there an english translation?" and "Do you speak english?" in the native tongue for wherever I'm at. Even if that's all you manage to be able to say, it shows that you understand you're a guest in the country and that not everyone should speak your language.

Unless it's Japan, where I'd probably try to improve my skills and use as much as I know (hey, I may not be in classes anymore, but I'm still trying to learn more when I can).

[mariamousie1]

Americans beat Austria in the war? Also, the war was 60 years ago. I don't think anybody cares anymore.

[ditchdj]

I love reading about WWII. I think history has proven enough that you can only benefit when your enemies become friends. Besides, there's some really cute German girls there.