New York City Subway
I was a with a French girl (who was an absolute stunner) and we were sitting there across from what appeared to be a Hispanic family...father, mother and ONE BUTT-ASS ugly kid in a stroller(pram).

The French girl says, slightly loud to be heard by me over the noise of the train "Oh My God! Zat is ze ugliest baby I have ever seen!" but the train wasnt moving any longer...and it wasnt making any noise. I stared open mouth at the father...all I could do was doff my cap, shrug my shoulders and turn away.
Truth be told, that WAS the ugliest baby I had ever seen.

No apologies for length...the kid had to have SOMETHING going for him.

Sean
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 15:06, Reply)

New Zealand
My brother came over from the UK to visit me in New Zealand. When he arrived in Wellington after driving down from Auckland he expressed his utter dismay at a parking ticket he'd been given. It turned out he'd arrived in a town, seen a sign with a big 'P60' and left his car there for 3 hours. I eventually convinced him it didn't mean there were 60 parking spaces.
(nickstan, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 15:05, Reply)

Whilst living abroad, Amsterdam used to be my weekend residence, about an average of once a month with workmates and friends who also enjoyed partaking of it's well known green refreshment.
Occasionally, a friend from England would come over to join us and be shown the sights. We would notice certain patterns of behaviour oft repeated that would have us quietly rolling our eyes at our fellow countrymen's stupidity.

Firstly the hilarity and confusion at using 'funny money'. All you need is the ability to read numbers and count, it's really not hard!

Then the horror that people talk in a different language and generally don't speak English (although most vendors know enough for you to manage fine). One idiot even getting paranoid that everyone there was discussing him! Well after you kept pointing at them and yelling 'Yeh, fuck you too, fuckin Kraut!' they probably were.

The need for them to see the red light district and their stupid wide eyed big headedness when the prostitutes would tap on the window and blow kisses at them and such. Yes mate, but it's their JOB, you have to PAY them!!??

No one EVER believes you that the shit they smoke in Amsterdam is WAY stronger than the green stuff you get in England and to be cautious, 'cos obviously they are FAR too butch for that! Then proceed to buy the strongest stuff available, make a pure joint of it, take two drags of it, and spend the next hour pukin hard outside the cafe. Everytime. Without any exceptions. They all learn't bloody quickly though!!

Then, if they stay for more than a few days, NEVER leave the house unless accompanied. 'Cos it's full of foreigners don't ya know! Who knows what might happen....

I once spent an entire evening apologising for my fellow countrymen when a group of football wankers trolled about the place getting furiously pissed and trying to pick fights with every male local for 'being fookin hippy fookin bastads, c'mon, y'bastad!'. They were generally ignored, but my god was I embarassed.
Actually, they have an excellent policy for that in Amsterdam, they just keep serving them until they pass out, then take the money off them for the drinks (and possibly a bit more for their trouble) and leave the cnuts in the street outside. I passed most of them dotted about sitting in their own urine later. I'm sure everyone was suitabley impressed.

That is all....
( ..wil, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 15:04, Reply)

I despair sometimes...
Again, not a tourist, but I was just out in Poole High Street's Thursday market, and I spotted a stall with some of those lovely outdoor terracotta wall thermometers...confusingly labelled "Temperature Clocks"...I'm amazed some of these people made it to adulthood at all...
(AlohasRyk, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 15:01, Reply)

In Liverpool Cathedral
American Dad "Ah, the smell of new Cathedral." Like it was new Nikes in a box.
(Country_Fox, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 14:39, Reply)

Edenmonster..
If you're an English teacher and you spell pharmacist as 'pharmasist', then it's little wonder the kids of today are such imbeciles. ;)
(johnnymasterson, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 14:39, Reply)

Law of nations Page 26.
Bravo old chap!

And I'm With ya pal. Can we chant ING-GER_LAAND ING-GER_LAAND ING-GER_LAAND on the way just to stick to the sterotype in a jolly merkin-pleasing hollywood fasion?
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Thu 14 Jul 2005, 14:27, Reply)

Extra Cold Guinness
Overheard whilst at The Shakespeare pub in Victoria a couple of years ago:

American Tourist: Can I have a pint of Guiness

Barmain: Do you want Extra Cold Guiness?

American Tourist: Is that, like, colder than normal?

Think I was a-gog at this man's stupidity for hours.
(mynanlovessocks, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 14:18, Reply)

Bugger all to do with tourists
but it made me laugh. Doing a placement test (I'm an english teacher, and have to speak to students to ascertain their level of english and put them on the right course) today, I asked a woman what her job was. She answered "I sell drugs". Turns out she's a pharmasist. Took me ages to stop laughing. Very professional.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 13:57, Reply)

Japanese boy
Met a Japanese boy in New York who wanted me to help him with his English homework. He was up to the expression 'As soon as' in his book, and was reading the sentences to me.

"As soon as I get home, I'm going to take a hot bath."

Unfortunately, he prounounced 'bath' as 'bitch'.
(Pachey, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 13:20, Reply)

Yo heartspark
In the USA there is a difference between tomato sauce and ketchup. To the merkins, tomato sauce is what we in the UK call tomato puree.

Presume it's the same for candians, not sure.
(Biscuit Boy - aka - mcvpjd3, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 13:16, Reply)

My brother used to work as a croupier on a cruise ship.
He was once asked by an American:

"Do these stairs go up?"
( Dirty Bob hasn't been here for ages, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 12:40, Reply)

I love...
the way that people are talking about how Americans etc are stupid, and in doing so display their mildly alarming inability to spell the most basic of words.
(littlebear, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 12:27, Reply)

On a flight from Singapore
to Heathrow I was sitting next to two English ladies of fairly advanced years (you know the type - leathery skin, thick specs, wearing short-sleeved knitted cardigans), who were having a discussion about time zones etc. They had two things that they couldn't quite resolve: how it could be one time in Singapore and another in London; and why it was quicker going out than coming home.

Well, after 12 hours of listening to this, I eventually said to them that I couldn't help but have overheard their conversation (which they got a bit embarrassed about!) and offered my services as a scientist to explain their problem.

Their main problem was how it could be 12 noon in London, but 8pm in Singapore. I had to explain that the actual time was the same everywhere in the universe, but the position of the clock hands was determined depending on local sunrise. (I left relativity out of the explanation, as I was having enough bother with the Idiot's Guide). I suggested getting a globe and a torch in a darkened room to demonstrate when they got home.

I think they must have thought they were time travelling or something - a Boeing 747-Tardis? - as they were trying to add up the number of hours in the air, and work out what time they left etc, and had no idea at all what was happening.

By the way, the reason it takes less time going east is because that's the way the jetstream goes, so you have a tailwind. That was an easier thing for them to understand.

Here endeth today's science lesson.

Ach, they were pleasant old dears but had bugger all idea about anything other than knitting and grandchildren.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 12:25, Reply)

oops
Not entirely tourist related, but hell...currently learning Dutch in preparation to move over to Belgium next year with wife and kid.

Learning the lingo is ok, I speak fairly good German which helps, although managed to make two rather giggly cockups in class...

Whilst explaning my preference of BnB's over hotels, my response was supposed to be:
"I find hotels too clean and unwelcoming"
my actually sentence was
"I find hotels make me sterile"

Whilst explaining my enthusiasm for a meal, I (silly me) used the word "Ravishing", apparently the Dutch use this word more commonly to mean "Rape", when my teacher (playing the waitress) stopped laughing and explained, I kept very quite and ordered to biefstuk met fritjes.
( timothy claypole, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 11:37, Reply)

coniston in the lakes (my inbred homeland)
is a haven for idiots, american or otherwise. My favourite summer prank was telling tourists that the trees in Grizedale forest were fake... "they're all made out of wood". always believed; over and over again :)

spent many a day ringing the payphone in the centre of the village and asking to speak to 'jason' or 'jamie' (theres a million of the fuggers) who'll be in the pub across the road... then when afforementioned jamie/jason got to the phone shouting "w**ker!! and hanging up). this doesnt include the reign of terror we inflicted on the campers (tentpeg thievery, food thievery, tyre deflating etc... ) and many other totally unwelcoming evil pranks that i shudder to think i performed.

a lot of the villages and farms are named from viking times, hence baffled tourists baffling locals with pheonetic pronunciation. of course if i tell them viking used to live there i just got laughed at... how ridiculous! vikings!

re: the actual question. i've been asked when the tide comes in, on the lake. freshwater, 20 miles from the sea. (actually they've now measured tides in a cup of tea, but still).
(unlawful odour i dunno..., Thu 14 Jul 2005, 10:59, Reply)

Grand Canyon
We were told by our tour guide at los Canyonos Grandos (eh?) that the three most common questions they get are "Is the donkey ride to the bottom air conditioned", "Is it floodlit at night" and "how long did it take to build".
He assured us this was true, and judging by some of the people there, I'm enclined to believe him.
( Fishcat Difficult difficult lemon difficult., Thu 14 Jul 2005, 10:41, Reply)

On a family holiday in spain...
about fourteen years ago now, we were staying a mate of my dads villa in classy Marbella. Now the sink upstairs didn't have a plug due to the spanish apparentley liking to wash in running water.

Dad doesn't like it, Dad wants a plug, so one morning the folks head into town, leaving my sister and me back at the villa to lounge around. Several hours later, my mum staggers through the door in hysterics closely followed by one sheepish looking pops.

What had transpired was they had inded found a hardware shop, and my dad not speaking a word of spanish and the spanish hardware shop owner not speaking a word of english, had spent an HOUR trying to ask for a plug, even with the aid of diagrams. My dear old dad either through frustration or sheer linguistic genius (bearing in mind he's born and bred Yorksher) resorts to adding an o onto the end of words to make it sound spanish. Hence my dad says "please-o can I have-o a plug-o, senor". Genius

While he was ther he did manage to buy a metal lawn sprinkler thing (wtf?!) which went into his hand luggage on the way back. Hand luggage goes through X-ray machine, lawn sprinkler looks like a cross between a gun and a huge knife. Well done dad. Now can you imagine how the following conversation with the officials went?

There are loads more of these from this one particualr trip. It was the funniest two weeks ever
(northern seth back is giving him jip again, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 10:33, Reply)

Bollocks to America vs UK
Try East London vs Home Counties...

I was in the 24 hour bagel place on Brick Lane - in the East End of London for those that don't know. I had my lovely posh girlfriend of the time with me.

"Could I have a I diet Coke, please?" she asks in her plummiest tones.

The guys behind the counter looked at her as if she'd started speaking Klingon.

After a few more attempts during which she got more embarrassed, and the whole place looked on in amusement, I leant over and said "She'll 'ave a diet coke, mate"

Drink appears instantly to light applause from gathered customers.
( String Theory sometimes feeds the sparrows too, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 10:29, Reply)

Bad Scotch Tourist
While on a girls trip to London (ok being from Scotland doesnt quite make us Merkins, but probably still quite amusing andforeign to the cockneys) we were sat wondering what next to visit whilst in trafalgar square, when i jokingly made a suggestion we could go visit Albert Square. My rather retarded mate asked "OOh whats there?" so i replied "a Laundrette, a pub and a street market. Wasnt funny until she tried looking it up on the map as she quite fancied going to a street market. Arse.
(wilma_wonka, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 10:07, Reply)

for BRH
I made the "Tak" mistake in Poland too (previously learnt Norwegian, with endless confusion) Just to remind you, the Polish "Thank you" is "Dziêkuje" (jen-koo-yah) COmbine that with the "prosze" (prosher) and you get a language based mainly on elegant sneezes.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 9:28, Reply)

When I went with friends to London in 1994 we fell in love with Covent Garden.
Maybe if you life there, it's a tourist trap with a lot of not-so-funny cunts, but we loved it. So imagine our excitement went we found out (looking at a map of London)that there wasn't just Covent Garden but even "New Covent Garden"! I our tiny minds we imagined "New and improved" Covent Garden being even better than the thing at St. Paul's. It was a bit difficult to get there, though. You had to take the tube, get a bus and then even walk a bit. We even went to look if it was behind this HUGE GROCERY STOREHOUSE before we finally realised our mistake.
( Wurst Puns Inc. Back in the future., Thu 14 Jul 2005, 8:42, Reply)

Limited Polish vocabulary
About ten years ago my parents packed the family car and we all drove to Poland for summer vacation. We had made the assumption that we could probably get by in English (improbable) and German (more probable) but in the end we resorted to playing charades and using a handfull of Polish words that we picked up along the way.

I probably misspell these words but I think you will all agree that the words "pivo" (beer), "voda" (water) and "lody" (ice cream) will take you a long way.

Also, we picked up that "prosch" means something like "here you go". Not knowing how to say thank you in Polish, we would reply in German at first, but eventually my father resolved that he might as well reply in our native tongue (Danish). However, this word ("tak") just happened to mean "yes" in Polish.

Before I figured this out, we had puzzled many a waiter by the following conversation:

Waiter: Here you go
Tourist: Yes

Not a very polite reply. Not really stupid either, but it did give me a good laugh in the end.

(I later looked up how to say "thank you", it appears that the correct word is something in the lines of the Russian "spaziba". Oh well).
(spinoza, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 8:23, Reply)

Not strictly a tourist but his first time in London
On a trip to London with a friend of mine from Birmingham, we decide to tour the National Art Gallery. Upon walking in, we spy the big sign giving the dates of paintings from different centuries.
Gallery 1 1500-1600
Gallery 2 1600-1700

My friend: 'That's handy, they've numbered the paintings.'
I believe the laughter stopped approximately 4 hours later.
(chrisdalby, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 7:44, Reply)

across the centuries
London, 1951

My father, while staying in a hotel in the center of London, comes downstairs one morning to find the clerk being confronted by a furious little old man who was literally jumping and down with rage. He was railing about the fact that it was intolerable how the clerk did not speak German. My father, speaking the language fluently, offered his help. He translated and was able to get the man served but his fury was unabated as he keapt leaping up and down. Detecting an odd accent, my father asks him where he came from. At the height of another leap of anger, the man shrieks: 'AUS ISRAEL!!!!!' Remember this occurred in 1951.


France and Austria, 1995
Much more recently, we were visited by some American friends of ours. The husband was a delight but the wife did suffer from some stereotypical misgivings. We met them in Paris as they returned from a trip to China. Beverley, the wife, railed against Paris and asked my very French mother: 'Why does nobody hear speak the language?' (meaning English). A week later, crossing from Liechtenstein to Austria, her husband's passport seemed to have some trouble. Four plainclothes policemen stepped forward to inquire as to the trouble which sent Beverley reeling back, shrieking GESTAPO! Bless our American cousins!
(chrisdalby, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 7:25, Reply)

Re:Mrhakenbacker
Surely the time to be careful in Thailand is when saying that the shellfish tastes good. I had a friend who made the mistake of trying to say it in Thai, and to the delight of me and all the Thais around the table he managed to say "cunt tastes good", to those who don't speak Thai, it really does translate as that, to those who do you can guess what he said. I konow what you mean about the banana thing though, a girl once told me I looked like Beckham, for some reason I thought she was speaking in a mixture of Thai and Engisk and telling mw I had a big dick- Big ham.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 4:02, Reply)

Toronto this time
I had a French woman once ask me how to get to Parliament Hill. She insisted it was located in Toronto, and insisted that Toronto was, nay, HAD to be the capital of Canada. (It's Ottawa, in case you also don't know...)

I sent her to Queen's Park via Nathan Phillips Square... I'm hoping she was abducted by some hungry homeless people...
(Ecclesia, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 2:24, Reply)

Fairbanks Again
One summer, I had a few Londoners ask me where they could see the igloos.

And you thought only Americans asked the stupid questions.
(Ecclesia, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 2:21, Reply)

Fairbanks
From Fairbanks you can take one of two highways, Parks Highway or the Alaska Highway, to get to Anchorage. They meet in Fairbanks, and both head south, from different parts of the city. There are... 4... highways in Alaska, think of a letter Q with a bit at the top, where each half counts as a highway, and each line counts as a highway...

I once had a German tourist with a German-English dictionary come to me with a Denny's touristy placemat map point at the two arrows leading out of the city that said "To Anchorage" and ask me how to get there, and then point me at a map of the state which CLEARLY showed the Q-like highway formation.

"Leave the city, follow the road."

PS. In the winter, take the Parks Highway, it's a better drive :P
(Ecclesia, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 2:19, Reply)

"Clear"? Not really...
My ambulance was sent to an American tourist who was in cardiac arrest. As you may well know, defibrillation delivers electricity through the heart in an attempt to restart it and this must be done quickly. The amount of shock you deliver is measured in joules and whilst the amount varies for kids, all adult patients receive the same joule amount.
My partner was managing the patients’ airway and I was at the stage of delivering a 360 joule shock.
I verbalised this to my partner and on shouting the warning “All Clear?” – an urgent American voice shouted “Wait!”

Thinking a dangerous contact with the patient had been spotted I stopped and asked what was wrong.
The American replied “The patient is an American”.
Me: “Yes I know. What’s the problem?”
American: “I heard you say you were going to shock him with 360 joules.”
Impatient me: “That’s right…”
American: “Surely that should be 180 joules then?”
Me: “No.”
American: “But our voltages in the states are half of yours, so surely…”
I stopped listening to him at that point.

I truly wish this story were not true, but I would mention that I could hear the rest of the tour group, to their credit, berating the guy who interrupted me.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Thu 14 Jul 2005, 0:22, Reply)