Vent: My parents are annoying American tourists!

[GilliC]

Now that I'm back and rested from a week with my parents, I can start recalling some of their ridiculousness. My parents are some of the US tourists that give US tourists a bad name. They talk soooo loud on the subway. They block both sides of escalators (I know this varies by city/country, but couldn't they at least be observant enough to see when someone is desperate to get by to catch a train).

And they compare everything to "back home." Hiking in the Norwegian fjords, someone we pass says, "Nice hike?" "Yes, but it's definitely not like where we come from!" I swear every conversation began with "In Indiana..." or "Where we come from..." or "Back home..."

And I got really annoyed with their snap judgments. Everything had to fit into a little niche that they understood. Walking around in Aarhus, Denmark one of them randomly said, "This must be student housing," and the other one agreed. I was all, "Huh?!" so I asked how they could tell. "There's graffiti, and lots of bikes." Umm... you're in a city (hence the graffiti) in Denmark (that might explain all the bikes).

Unfortunately, I couldn't call them on this, because when we were at the bus stop to head to the port and had just realized that the bus we wanted only runs during rush hour, they said, "Oh, that couple must be going on the cruise, too! They have luggage and just asked that bus driver something and got off." I pointed out that it was a stop serving lots of suburban bus routes, so they probably just came up from the train station and were catching a bus to the suburbs. Then they came over and asked if we spoke Norwegian and then in broken English asked if we were headed for the cruise ship. D'oh. At least I could tell them that the bus wasn't coming, since I'd just pulled up the schedule on my iPad.

I always expect them to be more open-minded, because we hosted countless Japanese exchange students, and they encouraged my sister and I to be in exchange programs ourselves. But sometimes I think their worldview expands only to Japan and Honduras circa 1973 (when they visited some friends who were based there).

[travelingturtle]

I'm going to be experiencing some of this next week with the ILs and I'm not looking forward to it.

[NomadicMama]

I have to say that this is one of my fears--except I'm not worried so much about my parents, but me. I try to be aware and not clueless. . . But sometimes I wonder. . .

[crimsonandclover]

The first time my parents visited me in Germany I had a lot of problems just accepting them and got annoyed at every little thing they did that I thought made us stand out as tourists. I was also 18 at the time, but in retrospect I'm embarrassed at how I treated them. It sounds like you were much more graceful about it than I was! Anymore I just go with the flow, and if mom wants to go to a mattress shop to look for a more American-like pillow for her hotel room, then I just take her to one and help her look around.

[bugabean]

My mom is a really annoying tourist too. My dad isn't so bad because for one he has travelled more, and secondly he is just a quiet person by nature. She is SO loud all the time, and she wants to talk to everyone about everything. She can't wait in a line without small talking everyone around. When she came shortly before Obama was elected, Danes were all excited to tell Americans how they hoped Obama would win, and then my mother would give them an earful about how Obama is the anti-Christ. So fun on so many levels. And every time one thing happens, it's the Danish way. If she sees one person in a weird outfit, Danes dress weird. If one restaurant serves a sandwich without a pickle, then Danes don't serve sandwiches with pickles. If one supermarket doesn't have any lemons the day she goes in looking for lemons, then Denmark has no lemons. And even though she can't remember what she ate for breakfast today, she'll remember that a year ago she 'learned' that Denmark has no lemons, and when I say I bought some, she'll make a comment about how surprised she is, and I will have no idea what she is talking about.

[Deleted]

My MIL is the most ANNOYING PERSON EVER to travel with. It drives me crazy when we are out at restaurants, instead of having a nice conversation with us, she has to talk to everyone around us then talk about how "she makes friends where ever she goes." Meanwhile, the husband and I are like, "um, aren't we interesting enough to talk to? Didn't you come here to see us?"
It drives me crazy.

[CakeLover]

Hahahaha I love these posts. My mom is the same way as everyone else and it annoys the living daylights out of me.
She's the loud American. She can't wait to tell everyone she's from America and then she acts like the freaking American ambassador. Telling everyone to come visit again, like she gets some financial kickback from tourists. Drives me nuts. She introduces us to random people she's met and tells them our life story. The look on her face when we're out in public is priceless. She looks like the damn cheshire cat just waiting to tell random folks she's from the states.

[wise_rita]

This post has sufficiently scared the piss out of me for when my parents eventually come visit me abroad.

They are small town, Midwestern folks and they are going to slay me with embarrassment. FM(Future)L.

[mouseinlux]

Luckily most of the people we have over here don't fit into the annoying American tourist group but we did have my friends DH over for our wedding. He eats the way most people expect Americans to eat, hamburgers and pizza make up most of his diet. So when the girls went out for my bachelorette party the guys went for a pizza...they figured it's safe with him...nah he wanted a pepperoni pizza, we don't have those so they asked what he wanted he said pp, they gave him a strange look, he said he wants a pp, again strange look. The others try and help him, it ends in a bit of a mess with him getting a super spicy pizza with the closest things to pepperoni they had FAIL!

[ktkl09]

My Mom is from a small Midwest town, but she's not embarrasing. She's travelled a lot. My godparents though are another story.

Recently, my BFF's parents came to visit. Her dad was very cool, typical American but easy going. Her mom was easy going to but asked us things like "Can we drink the water?" and made a comment that the Hershey's chocolate (and chocolate itself) factory is much better than the Cailler chocolate factory. This is Switzerland, you seriously think the chocolate is better at Hershey's?! And I seriously hope we can drink the water!

[allibally]

My mom is pretty go with the flow when it comes to travel. Just usually ooos and awws over things. She complained about the cost of stuff in Switzerland. But so did we. Even the two German kids I babysat at a hotel were saying teuer teuer (expensive, expensive) when I took them to Media Markt. It's just an expensive place to live.

ktkl: Like the water from the sink!? haha

My mom thought I was crazy at first filling my bottle up with water in the fountains. Or when I would go right up and drink from the spout! But it took me awhile to get used to doing it myself. Now it's the second thing I miss most about Zurich. You never needed to buy water just look for one of the 1000 water fountains.

[travelingturtle]

I think some of our visitors do the same thing as Bugabean mentioned. They experience something once and all of the sudden, that's just how things are in Germany. Plus, anytime we mention our personal experiences good or bad from the past two years, they'll tell us that we're wrong in our generalization because they've been here for 3 days and haven't had that experience.

[clogged]

My dad was the American tourist who threw the HUGE fit in the grocery store, complete with demands to see the manager because they didn't carry Ritz crackers. Which led into a tirade on how we saved their asses during WW2 and without their help... Which led to my awesome husband cutting him off by saying "What help would that be? Operation Market Garden?" Thankfully that shut my dad up who left to go grumble in the car.

Sadly my mom took over and began squealing how we had French cheese. Imported all the way from France (yeah, that 3 hour drive must be rough. Amazing it got here). And wanted to buy like 600 kilos of Dutch cheese because it was cute and quaint we "try" and make our own cheese here. Then asked the cheese counter dude for some real cheese- like jack or cheddar. In English with a fake Swedish accent. So he would understand her better.

Last time I EVER took them shopping with me.

[anna7602]

Le grand sigh. Your parents and mine sound very similar and mine were just visiting for two weeks. So, I feel your pain. I'm also really surprised at my parents' "go, go USA, everything is better in the land of plenty" attitude since neither of them was actually born in the U.S. and they've traveled a lot in their lives.

[dulcemariamar]

May 29, 2012 1:27:53 GMT -5 clogged said:

My dad was the American tourist who threw the HUGE fit in the grocery store, complete with demands to see the manager because they didn't carry Ritz crackers. Which led into a tirade on how we saved their asses during WW2 and without their help... Which led to my awesome husband cutting him off by saying "What help would that be? Operation Market Garden?" Thankfully that shut my dad up who left to go grumble in the car.

Sadly my mom took over and began squealing how we had French cheese. Imported all the way from France (yeah, that 3 hour drive must be rough. Amazing it got here). And wanted to buy like 600 kilos of Dutch cheese because it was cute and quaint we "try" and make our own cheese here. Then asked the cheese counter dude for some real cheese- like jack or cheddar. In English with a fake Swedish accent. So he would understand her better.

Last time I EVER took them shopping with me.

Wow! I have no words for that story.

My parents are actually really good with traveling. My mom gets really excited about things and they sometime like to stick to the really touristy things but they love to see different things and they never compare the things with how they are back in the States.

[anna7602]

May 29, 2012 0:20:30 GMT -5 @ktkl09 said:

"Can we drink the water?"

Eh, at the risk of sounding unworldly, this actually seems like a legit question. You won't get a parasite from the drinking water in Paris and we drink it directly from the tap, but I do warn visitors that it has a very particular taste. There are a lot of minerals in it and some of my visitors have preferred to buy their own bottled water.

And, I have been to places that are not too far off the beaten track where I have been advised BY LOCALS not only to not drink the water, but to not even brush my teeth with it unless it has been boiled.

To pp who mentioned the Danes' lack of lemons assumption, my mother does the same thing. It drives me insane. But she does the same thing in the States, too. "All Americans" do and think whatever my DH and my SIL do/think regarding their own families since they are the only Americans who have married into our family so far.

[ktkl09]

But Anna this is Switzerland, there's no issues with thé water anywhere here :-)

[klingklang77]

My in laws are like that and they are Australian. They are here right now and any opportunity they get they tell people they are from Australia. They also bring clip on koalas to give to people they meet. At the moment if we see an animal, she's quick to tell us to stay away because they have rabies and Australia doesn't have rabies. For example, we went to a market in Bruges this weekend, and DH saw some bunny rabbits. He went in to pet one, which was stupid, and it kind of bit him, not hard. My MIL got all worried about rabies. We saw a cat walking around and she was really quick to remind us about rabies.

My American mother can also be annoying but she's getting better. I think all people from all over can be like this, not just Americans. Or maybe I just have really strange in laws .

[GilliC]

May 29, 2012 1:27:53 GMT -5 clogged said:

My dad was the American tourist who threw the HUGE fit in the grocery store, complete with demands to see the manager because they didn't carry Ritz crackers. Which led into a tirade on how we saved their asses during WW2 and without their help... Which led to my awesome husband cutting him off by saying "What help would that be? Operation Market Garden?" Thankfully that shut my dad up who left to go grumble in the car.

Sadly my mom took over and began squealing how we had French cheese. Imported all the way from France (yeah, that 3 hour drive must be rough. Amazing it got here). And wanted to buy like 600 kilos of Dutch cheese because it was cute and quaint we "try" and make our own cheese here. Then asked the cheese counter dude for some real cheese- like jack or cheddar. In English with a fake Swedish accent. So he would understand her better.

Last time I EVER took them shopping with me.

Holy crap! That's beyond words! (And even as a kid I could have pointed out that Edam was Dutch. ...but I did salivate all over the pages of the Hickory Farms gift box catalogs when I was a kid. I have a cheese & sausage addiction.)

May 29, 2012 0:51:33 GMT -5 allibally said:

My mom thought I was crazy at first filling my bottle up with water in the fountains. Or when I would go right up and drink from the spout! But it took me awhile to get used to doing it myself. Now it's the second thing I miss most about Zurich. You never needed to buy water just look for one of the 1000 water fountains.

Hehe! I had the opposite with my parents! I can't recall seeing a drinking fountain (bubbler, whatever) anywhere in Norway. I'm not even sure they have them in the airport. So when my parents came upon a little fountain in the Folk Museum, they said "Ooh! I could use a drink." Uh... I have no idea if it was clean water or not, so I didn't know if I should stop them. They knew about the Swiss fountains, and I think they just thought that all fountains in Europe must spew clean water! To be fair, the thing did look a lot like a drinking fountain. I figured what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, but then my mother commented on how it was wasting all that fresh water, and I couldn't bite my tongue, so I said, "I think it might be recycling." My mother got a little wide-eyed and turned a tiny bit green, but to her credit she took it in stride!

[GilliC]

May 29, 2012 3:37:47 GMT -5 klingklang77 said:

DH saw some bunny rabbits. He went in to pet one, which was stupid

I think it's instinctual. I cannot resist a bunny rabbit.
"Must. Touch. The. Bunny!"

[allibally]

May 29, 2012 3:19:49 GMT -5 @ktkl09 said:

But Anna this is Switzerland, there's no issues with thé water anywhere here :-)

It takes about 10 minutes in Switzerland to realize the water is not a concern. And once you are in a rural area you probably drinking it straight from the steam.

[oneslybookworm]

My parents don't travel and will never come to visit. After reading this post, I'm even more thankful for that!

[Deleted]

This thread is hilarious!
My parents are pretty easy going tourists, they go with the flow, are accommodating and brush off the little daily mishaps with a laugh. I'm very happy they're not the typical Italians that HAVE to trave with their olive oil and pasta - WTH!

My MIL on the other hand... is NEVER happy. Maybe it's her french-ness. The first time she came to NY to visit us we ran into someone we know who asked her if she was having a good time; she shrugged and pulled a "meh" face as if she had been freaking dragged here in chains or something. NEVER. HAPPY.

edited for mistakes and typos

[clickerish]

I'm sorry, but some of your stories made me laugh. My parents are always good at travelling (but my dad isn't American which might explain it)--it's my grandparents who make me hide in shame. They tell their friends how they visited us in Africa (yes, the WHOLE continent) and how those black people are "just so happy about life" as compared to their kin here in the US (the ones who got here thanks to slave boats). It's disturbing and horrific how paternalistic the whole thing is. At one point, I was dating a Spaniard, and my grandmother asked him point blank if he was dating me for the green card because a lot of Mexicans do that and she wouldn't like that to happen to her granddaughter...yes, he would totally be doing that given that he's a member of the EU and NOT MEXICAN. Now that I think about it, they're not Americans behaving badly. They're just racists.

[bail229]

I love these stories!
I never travelled overseas with my parents but I'm guessing they would have been ok since they both travelled a lot and my dad lived overseas for a while.
My uncle on the other hand hated Italy because the food was not the same as home. Luckily I was not in Italy with them but we all heard about if for ages. I think my aunt was embarrassed.

[GilliC]

Do you think this is a generational thing? After all, my parents grew up in the 50s and 60s when the US was still the promised land of opportunity.

...Maybe not. I'm sure there are just as many people my age who would do the same kinds of things.

[anna7602]

May 29, 2012 10:00:43 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Do you think this is a generational thing? After all, my parents grew up in the 50s and 60s when the US was still the promised land of opportunity.

...Maybe not. I'm sure there are just as many people my age who would do the same kinds of things.

I feel like it just gets harder and harder for my parents (who are in their 70s) to be out of their comfort zone as they age. They have a lot of complaints about visiting me in NYC, too, and that's the same country they live in!

Also, I guess I'm a moron now for not understanding the water thing in Switzerland. I would actually love it if the most "ignorant" thing visitors did was ask me about the water here.