Edit.

Sorry, I got too anxious there.

I have found the exact opposite to be true, at least among my group of friends. Mostly educated women in their 30's, they do not talk about anything political(except for my 3 lesbian buddies) or anything really personal. Of the Russian men I know, only one is vocal about politics and he is your typical ultra-nationalist Putin lover. Americans on the other hand will tell you their life story in the first 30 minutes of meeting them. Maybe my friends are the weird Russians

If the Americans you are meeting are afraid to speak of negative things or suggest a class system, stop hanging around liberals! When I am in Russia I don't talk shit about Russian leaders, but, I will discuss them with you. And I have had Russians talk shit about America to my face, and I simply tell them not come here if they don't like the US.

I've had more or less the same experience. I've been to 22 countries and have found once I spoke, I'm from Arkansas, the locals faces lit up. I had about a two hour conversation with an older Venezuelan gentleman in Caracas after he heard me order a Coke. I was all but mobbed in Sweden and Norway after I ordered a beer at a bar. The Greeks I've worked with on cruise ships treated me like I was the captain.

Crazy how far just a Southern accent combined with manners and some redneck humor will get you. That's not to say I didn't click in some places, but my experiences have been far more positive than negative.

my parents said the same thing. They got kicked out of their cab during a cabbie strike like 10 miles from their hotel. Carrying a bunch of luggage through the subway was not a pleasent experience.

One of my favorite things about going to vegas is meeting so many foreigners at the tables and welcoming them to the USA.

It's happened several times already where an Australian would tell me how surprised he/she is at how nice Americans are.

They seem kinda scared knowing that any American psycho or cowboy around them might be armed to the teeth.

Then I show them phone pics of a sampling of my collection and they're super surprised that I seem "normal" even though I'm "extremely" armed.

You are french? Well that explains your purse fecal etiquette.

I will have to remember this. My accent has gone further south recently, but most think I'm from Iowa or somewhere in the Midwest... note to self: drawl.

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The Americans I've encountered have always been respectful and polite, sure. On the internet well...:



But I wouldn't say it's exclusively an American thing, it's a global thing other than the few real genuine dicks (which again isn't really an exclusively American problem) you can normally get a good conversation going.

There's all the simple etiquette like table manners and greetings. What do you pick up with your fingers, what do you say upon entering a small stores...

And then there's how familiar you can be with different people. If someone tells you something personal, do you touch their shoulder and reciprocate? Do you change the subject, because they shouldn't have? Who do you discuss politics with? Was that just a lively debate or an embarrassing fight?

Then there's asserting yourself vs graciousness. How firm do you have to be with friends and family to make sure you get enough to eat? Or is it the opposite and you have to press people to do you the honor of accepting a gift or food item?

How loud or quiet should you be? How clean does a thing have to be?

Most Americans I've met have been pretty average. Most people, regardless of origin, are decent people once you get to know them.

With Indians/Pakis, and Gypsies being notable exceptions IME.

A few years ago my mom and sister went to Europe. Italy, France, and England. They said the people in Paris were very friendly to them, and it was their favorite destination on the trip.

 

i've never noticed anything particularly off-putting about indians.

perhaps they considered you a social inferior? they always kissed my ass, but i was "professor" or otherwise in a position to tell them what to do.  

or maybe they just didn't like you?

They get too drunk, they disrespect women, and they have a poor grasp of personal hygiene.

I'm not surprised that you identify with them.

so you didn't like it when they got drunk and made fun of you?

They seem to be really different, based on whether they're sober and working to impress you or letting their hair down with friends. Just an impression, YMMV.

I take it that English is not your first language?

sure, but french seem different too. that by itself doesn't make them impolite.

 

I'm an American and I think Americans are horrible people... except for me, of course.

Back in the late 90's I met a pair of sisters from Australia who were hitchhiking across the United States. They had traveled this way across most of Europe already as well as parts of South America. They could not stop talking about how much more open and kind most Americans were compared their experiences in other countries. While hitchhiking outside Phoenix they got a ride from a middle aged woman who invited them to stay the night at her home. The next morning when they got up the woman had simply left a note asking them to lock up when they left to continue their journey. They had similar stories from all over. I do recall them saying that Americans were somewhat cocky or something along those lines but they did not seem to see it as a bad trait, just a bit different. This was just after the whole Monica Lewinsky thing broke in the news, I remember them being somewhat amused that the country was so scandalized over a blow job. All in all, they loved the USA and were very complimentary of our people and our way of life.

Yeah, but we back up what we say.

Well, we used to anyway.

A German was visiting us and the U.S. for the 1st time. On a trip to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, the thing that he couldn't believe was how clean the road sides were. He had been told his whole life how wasteful and polluting Americans are. When I told him people volunteer to pick up trash from the road side, his head about blew up.

This from Iowa? I'll have to go there someday and see what's so fuckin peachy about Iowa!

To those that are extensively traveled, how important are mild to moderate foreign language skills when vacationing in Europe? I'm thinking of a two month driving vacation through the continent, and have found French, German, and Italian in Rosetta Stone levels 1-5. Will that be enough?

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Any amount of language skill is useful.  Depending on where you go some of the people will speak English as a second or third language.

IME, it never hurts to try to blend in and it helps cut the ice with the locals.

Detroit was one of the most polite cities I have ever been in

My sister in-law is French, and acts as if she's never heard of waiting in a line. She is the absolute rudest, pushiest, most entitled acting cunt I have ever met. I've seen her walk straight to the head of lines and push her way in many times. She acts as if everyone waiting in the line either does not exist, or hasn't decided if they are ready to be served.





FWIW, I've just spent a week at Disney World (where it seems English is a foreign language.) Anyone who believes Americans are even among the top 100 most rude people needs to go there. We're F'n saintly.  

 

This is a very much dated comment but if you get stuck in France GO TO NORMANDY.

Fuck Parisians!

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but ya can't fool me.

You know, BES if I had an opportunity to ask you out I would offer to take you to the Kodiak, Alaska city dump.

Don't bother with German, they speak English.

I spent some time in 2004 living with a friend outside Rota Naval Station in southern Spain. We traveled all over Spain and the UK, France, and Holland

I will have to say, during that whole six months of living and traveling over there, I had never had so many people try to fight with me or generally fuck with me, in my entire life. Highlights include
- a Spanish guy outside a club saying "fuck George Bush, fuck America," after I gave him a smoke - even lit it for him.
- guy in a London pub shaking my hand and pulling on it hard, causing me to spill my beer on his shoes, then he and his friends tried to take it outside. We played them at pool instead and won. At least most Brits accept defeat well enough.
- we accidentally got off of the train from UK in Lille after passing through the chunnel, and found out it was the last train of the night, so we had to get a hotel room. We went into a nice but cheap hotel, and began booking a room. The front desk was polite until we displayed our passports, then all of a sudden they had no rooms. We ended up staying in an hourly hotel instead, which was kind of fun when we met three scottish girls - except the fatty third wheel cockblocked us and guilted her friends into not leaving her behind
- we ended up in a whorehouse by accident and had a pair of Romanian whores threaten to kill us... Long story

My wife and I did basically the same trip in 2011 for our honeymoon, and received none of that BS treatment. We had a great time. However when we went to Morocco for a day trip, there was a German family with us. First of all, the mom and daughters wore super revealing butt shorts and low cut tank tops, to an Islamic country. I have never seen so many hard glares from men and women alike. They then refused to eat and sneered at most of the food that was served at the restaurant we all went to. Shit was delicious, lots of buttery flatbread, cous cous, chicken, and mystery beef.

I know this was directed at foreigners but figured I'd get my input. When I went over to Europe to visit my brother I was amazed at how polite and helpful everyone was - France, Germany, England, Scotland, Czech Rep., and a couple more. The Italians were a little different than the rest haha. Overall it seemed like society over there was much more polite than the people I have dealt with here in the U.S. I'd love to make another trip over there again. I'm not one for the public transportation systems. I grew up in the middle of KS so that explains that.

Which is funny because we have visitors in our office from Europe all the time.  They constantly say how rude we are and go on and on about how much better it is in their country.  All the while we are buying them food and drinks out at nice restaurants and being courteous.  All they do is complain for 5 days straight.  America sucks, so and so is better in xyz country, their tax system is better, can we take them to the mall so they can buy a bunch of stuff for their kids at roughly half the cost that it would be in Europe.  They buy the shit out of clothes here because it's half price, but they complain that we have a stupid tax system and that everything sucks.
Though the people in our NJ office are pretty bad too, so it could just be based on where the American is from that foreigners base their opinion on us.

Some countries have mandatory English classes and it shows. The younger set in places like Norway and Sweden speak better English than most Americans. You will find that quite a few folks will want to speak a English to you for their own practice or to be cool.

I meant that they were lovely in the former context and something other than lovely in the latter.

I loved going to the dump as a little kid, my favorite doll was from there.

Are the bears polite?

Depends on location.  Suburbs.. yes.

On my last trip to Ireland we were at a museum in Dublin and I thought I was going to come unglued. The rudeness I witnessed from some Italian tourists was unbelievable. They did not make a very good impression for me to like Italians henceforth.

Americans are very polite in comparison to most countries.

You're.French?! ;)

Friends of mine, a couple in.their early 60s, just got back from a 3 week trip to France, mostly.spent outside Paris. They both speak fairly decent.French. They told me the French, especially in the countryside, were astonished to encounter Americans who.spoke any French.

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