55 Shocking Moments When American Tourists Took Cultural Clashes to a Whole New Level
Worked at a gift shop at a Canadian tourist site. Americans actually tended to be nicer and politer than our Canadian customers, so I liked when they visited, but they always wanted special favours and exceptions. If I told a Canadian, Asian, or European tourist of a store policy or rule, they’d usually understand, cooperate, and try to work *with* me. But if I told an American it was always, “Oh, but c’mon, can’t you do it for me? I have somewhere to go!”, like asking me to do a lengthy return while I’m working with a school tour group, trying to cash out 58 different six-year-olds buying opened candy with nickels. The Southern grandmas were the worst for this.
BF worked in an adjacent nature preserve doing canoe & kayak tours. He said Americans expected it to be like a zoo, where you come in and the tour guide shows you X amount of animals. It’s actually pretty uncommon to see something “Canadian” like a beaver or moose, and Americans often left deflated and annoyed while Canadians/Europeans/Asians were happy to see some cool plants and bugs and birds.
In Dublin, Ireland. I saw two American tourist getting annoyed at a ticket machine. They turned to me, royally p***ed off and said “How do you get this thing to convert dollars?”.
Getting on a train at London Liverpool Street to go to Stratford, “to see Shakespeare’s birthplace”. This is Stratford, east London, a journey you can make without getting off the Tube, not Stratford-upon-Avon. It was also pre-2012, before the Olympic build started and certainly before Westfield was there; these poor folks were about to get off a train and be faced with ungentrified E15.
I didn’t tell them.
While in the cafeteria, I heard these Americans having a heated debate about climbing table mountain.
I just want people to know, that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT HAVE TO climb table mountain if you do not want to.
He bought a whole bunch of plaid, and a flap hat. Started walking around with Tim’s coffee and saying “eh” and apologizing. Asked him where he was from and he said “LA”. He was asking me where the snow was and I was like “It’s the middle of June, bud. Sorry”.
American here. Was in Paris and these women were complaining about the number of steps and how narrow it was walking up to the top of Notre Dame.
Southern child was amazed at our bagged milk (Canada). He also thought our milk was blue because the inner bag was blue and was showing through the outer bag (for the uninitiated, bagged milk comes in 3-packs so there’s an outer bag). I was like “sorry to disappoint kid, but that’s just the plastic. We do not have blue milk.”
American lady walking down the street in Montreal going “it’s so European, like all the bakeries are called *boulangeries.*” Uh yes, we speak French in Quebec, you clearly knew that before coming here, so why is it surprising that our bakeries are literally called “bakery” in French???
My mother used to work at a tourist bureau here in Nova Scotia. So this one time a couple comes from down south. Louisiana or Texas I do believe? Anyways so they come here fully decked out with ski gear, parkas and everything. Which would be fine… If it wasn’t *JULY*. They thought it snowed and was below 0 all year round in Canada. How? I have no idea. But they did. And apparently they were very determined to find a ski hill.
An American woman and her mid twenties daughter came into my shop where I was a sales assistant. She tried on panties in front of me and asked my opinion how they looked (this was a general homestuff shop that sold home accessories, wallpaper, kitchen stuff and a few clothes and one set of two pairs of knickers). She then took off her current thong and gave it to me to hold (I was shocked into stillness,the thong was warm) while she put on the panties she hadn’t even paid for yet and goes “honey it feels so good to have panties that aren’t getting all up in my crack”
Not sure that was all due to her being American, just a nutjob. I sanitised my hands so much afterwards.
I live in Ireland, quite near the famous Blarney Castle (of Blarney Stone fame).
About 3 of my friends (So far) have been in car accidents caused by American tourists in rental cars.
Pretty wierd.
I live in South Africa. I had some fat dude with a goatee and an American accent ask me where all the lions are :/
I’d try the game reserve..?
Talking to random people on the underground.
Notice how 90% of us on it aren’t talking to each other and are more focused with our phones or books. There’s a reason for that.
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