Heartspark:
In Canada, 'tomato sauce' is something entirely different from tomato ketchup (which we simply call 'ketchup,' since nobody's ever made ketchup from any other fruit or vegetable). 'Tomato sauce' is a coarser, seasoned mixture of tomato paste, oregano, and suchlike, suitable to serve on spaghetti. So it's not unreasonable to be wary of something labelled 'sauce', as there are many things made of tomato which could be termed 'sauce', but aren't ketchup. Mexican-stye tomato 'salsa'(spanish for 'sauce') comes to mind, as does (naturallly) Italian marinara sauce.
(spazdor, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 16:06, Reply)

Jack the Ripper tour, London
Okay, this isn't actually anything a tourist said but it was a bit of fun me and my friends use to indulge in when we lived in Brick Lane.

We used to frequent a pub on Commercial Street in Spitalfields called The Ten Bells. Weird place... by day a strip club for jaded city types and by night a stop off point for coachloads of tourists, all on the Jack the Ripper tour.

So you'd be sitting, in the evening, in a very empty pub. Suddenly the door opens and in pile 40 to 50 tourists. They each have a drink, usually a half of something, take loads of pics of the tiled walls (The Ten Bells is famed for its interior dec) then they'd bugger off. In all it takes about half an hour. Then the place is empty again. Ten minutes later the door opens and another load of tourists arrive. Cameras flash, half pints consumed. Then they leave. Empty. Ten minutes later... and so on.

So we started to infiltrate tourist photos. We would spot someone about to take a pic of their mates and we'd leap in and position ourselves at the back. We waved, gave the v sign, grinned, snogged. And then we'd sit down as though nothing had happened.

Later we started doing it in other London locations like The Tower and The British Museum.

Ah, happy days.

After my degree I got a job in press monitoring. It's shit but it pays the rent.
(kevon45uk, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:54, Reply)

@Manchester
It's almost impossible to set fire to diesel especially in the open...
(HoBag (TM) <-- Fookin' legend, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:41, Reply)

on a train on my way to peckham...
sat next to an american family. It was dusk and the train rattled past the dark silhouette of the battersea powerstation... que american dad... "look guys... parlament!"

for real
(angelabutton, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:40, Reply)

Not exactly stupid tourists...
Last year me and some friends went to Thorpe Park and decided to buy samurai swords. So we went to the little model village thing and had a big sword fight. Then some Japanese tourists came along and took photos of us.


I won that sword fight too.
(WaffleMonster, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:39, Reply)

Embarrassed girlfriend
She's Hungarian and she had her friend visiting us in Spain. Hungarian, of course, is a language not frequently spoken abroad so my gf and her friend would constantly gabble away about anything and everything out loud in public.

One day they were standing on a bus going into town when a person of dubious gender got on. Androgynous is the word, I think. So of course they start debating whether this person is male or female. A few stops later "it" made to get off, but not before saying in perfect Hungarian, and a little bitterly, "Actually, I'm a woman."

Cue instant desires for holes to open up beneath them...
(roysin, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:38, Reply)

spaz map reader!
I was once asked the way to can-es-borooog

Should have been: Knaresborough

The arse biscuit of an American was actually in Knaresborough town centre at the time of asking.
(mcparty, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:36, Reply)

Beware who may speak English....
While at a festival in Belgium a friend of mine went to a burger to stall to buy one their particularly questionable burgers.

He went up the guy, assuming he was Belgian, and asked for a Ratburger, the guy turned round, got him a burger and then with a smile and an American accent in perfect English said 'Enjoy your Ratburger mate'
(goldfish_memory, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:27, Reply)

stupid or misinformed...
I live in Sweden.
A few years ago an american (sorry) exchange student spent a year at school with my class.
You'd think that if you where going to live for a year in a foreign country you'd open a book or two and read about the place before going. Apparently she had arrived expecting Polar bears roaming the streets, frequent blizzards and freezing temperatures. True, we can have some cold winters, but she arrived in august and came ill-equipped for the ongoing heat wave.
Needless to say she made no effort what so ever to learn more than a word or two of swedish.

I could also go on about Germans with their strange fettish for moose. They actually steal warning signs from the side of the road if it has the silluette of a moose on it!
( The little pink animal is mostly harmless, except on, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:05, Reply)

Big Sign, With English
A friend and I were sat on a pier waiting for a ferry to Koh Toa in Thailand.
I'm looking at all the other people and I noticed a middle aged lady perched on top of a diesel pump, I thought nothing more of this and started chatting to my friend.
A minute or two later I look up again and see that the lady has pulled out a cigarette and started happily smoking away. Now fearing for my own safety and everyone else's I ran over and asked if she realised she was sat on a diesel pump.

She replied no she hadn't seen any signs or indeed anything to tell her not to.
I then pointed to a spot behind her legs that had a large red and white sign with the international symbols for "Fiery Death if ignited" and "Do not smoke" on it and the English words (for that was where she was from) DO NOT SMOKE in huge red letters (The smell of diesel fuel was fairly prevalent but I can excuse that because there were boats everywhere and all boats smell of diesel).
Anyway she looked at me funny and continued to smoke away.

I walked onto the nearby beach and waited for the ferry there.
Crazy Middle aged English women.
(A bit Manchester, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 15:04, Reply)

Americans *sigh*
Im sure you've noticed how americans (and members of other countries too i guess), will pronounce everything they say at double volume and at half the pace when in a non-english speaking country.

I am guessing that this is probably due to the assumption that everyone in the world speaks "american"(because how else would they talk?? right?) and that the failure to communicate has arisen from the other parties inability to hear.

For example:

SPANISH GOLDFISH VENDOR: 'Buenos dias Senor'.
AMERICAN BUTT FACE: 'Hello, I would like to buy this goldfish'.
SPANISH GOLDFISH VENDOR: 'Que?'
AMERICAN BUTT FACE: '*SIGH* I WOOOOUUUULLLLLDDDDDD LLLLIIIKKKKEEEEE TTTTTOOOOOOO BBBBBBUUUUUUYYYYYYYYY TTTTTHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSS GOOOOOLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH.'

SPANISH GOLDFISH VENDOR: 'Que?'
(Mr Moo Cow - HairyBeef, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 14:42, Reply)

Dobre Den! It was me. I was a stupid tourist
I visited Prague in 1995. While drinking in a bar in Malstranska Namesti, I asked the Czech barman what the Czech for "Thank you" was. He told me the phrase, got me to repeat it several times until I 'had it right' then happily sent me on my way.

I visited Prague again in 2001, this time I bought a phrase book before I went. I therefore found out that the barman had (doubtlessly deliberately) taught me to say "Enjoy your meal" instead of "Thank you".

So the last time I went to Prague, for five days I had wandered around Prague saying "Enjoy your meal" at every opportunity (except the right one).

I have the utmost respect for that barman, if you can't be bothered to do the research, you deserve to be ridiculed.
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Tue 12 Jul 2005, 14:34, Reply)

Emerald Isle
Visiting Blarney Castle, we all took turns at kissing the famous stone. On the way down, we convinced a whole busload of Merkins that they "never, ever wash the stone" and they were ripe for all kinds of "hepatitis... herpes... AIDS" if they even so much as puckered up to it. They fled in terror, flared checked trousers flapping in the breeze.

It was only in the pub that night that we were told that the local kids take great pleasure in breaking into the place in the dead of night and pissing against the stone.

GARRRRRGH!

Stupid tourists? Yup, that's us.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 14:09, Reply)

General knowledge
I was on holiday in Mexico, and the hotel held a quiz night. We were at a table next to some apparently rather dim-looking girls from Chicago.
So when the question was asked 'How many legs has a spider?', I felt surprised and a little chastened by the speed with which one of the girls buzzed and said '8'.
Until she turned to her friends and said, 'because spiders are insects and /all/ insects have 8 legs'. :]
(arml, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 14:06, Reply)

Where the Hell do I start?
I work in the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth, and have heard every single one of the following;

Just inside the Dockyard, visible from the bus station, railway station and road, is a large black metal steam ship with a sign next to it saying "HMS WARRIOR 1860". This , apparently, isn't enough, as I've been asked if it's the Mary Rose ("Yes, they built it in 1860, sent it back in time to 1511 where it served in Henry VIII's navy before sinking in 1545 and being raised in 1982"), the Rose Marie (?) the Victory (The wooden ship from the Battle of Trafalgar, which happened in 1805), and most irritatingly, The Titanic ("It funking sunk you twot!") or a replica of it ("It's got fucking masts!")

And you'd think the HMS Victory would be famous enough to be known by it's proper name, rather than as the HMS Nelson (It's the name of the Naval base, so I send them down the road to the main military gate and imagine them trying to get in!), HMS Trafalgar (which is a submarine), the HMS (that's just the HMS), and most stupidly of all, "The Nelson Ship".

At HMS Victory, people seem surprised that you can't take a push chair around, what with them being so common during the Napoleonic wars. I usually tell them that if they want to complain that they should contact Sir Thomas Slade, although they'll have to contact him in 1758 before he designed the ship. They also seem surprised that we won't let them leave their bags outside the ship, which is based in a Naval base. I even had someone ask this last friday. Twot.

I was asked how you get to the Brittania, and I sent them to the railway station and told them to ask for a ticket to Edinburgh.

In the Car Park shop you would often be asked where you paid for your parking, and I would always point them in the direction of the massive (and I do mean MASSIVE) sign with "PAY HERE" written on it. It's much the same when they ask where the Mary Rose is when they're right next to the Giant sign saying "MARY ROSE SHIP HALL"

At the Mary Rose, you are given an audio guide, and all you have to do is press button 0 for the English version. Nothing else, just press button 0. Once. So simple, only a complete moron could get it wrong, you'd think. still, they're better than the ones who "don't need one" and procede to walk around the ship hall talking utter bollocks about the ships history and conservation. It's the "They were much smaller back then" that gets me, especially when someone short says it (FACT! Average Mary Rose crew member height according to the remains of the crew- 5ft 10inches. Who says b3ta's just fwapping and memes?) Oh, and one bloke though it was King Arthurs flagship, and got stroppy when I contradicted him.

And the worst one, which you get at every single ship, is "When does she sail?" Not a stupid question, just really irritating after the thousandth time some twot has said it, expecting you to laugh out loud and congratulate them on their wit. I managed to catch one out once, as the Warrior was being taken into dry dock the next day. That threw the stupid gobshite.

Surprisingly, very few of the people that have said these thing haven't been foreign...

Apologies for length, but I've been wanting to get this off my chest for ages!
(Sciuridae with Paridae How long has it been since I last posted?, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 14:06, Reply)

Oooh! First post!!!!
I live in Paris...

Middle aged American lady with dalek-sized wheely luggage: Do you speak English?
Me: Yes, can I help you?
Her: Where's my hotel please? Here's the address.
Me: Your hotel's on rue Faubourg du Temple. This is rue Faubourg Poissonière. It's quite a long way away. You'll have to take the metro or get a cab.
Her: But the name's the same!
Me: No, there's lots of streets call rue Faubourg something in Paris, because of the way it was built-
Her: But where's my hotel? It says here...

Even when I got her guide book and showed her the index page of rue Faubourg de whatever... she didn't believe me. And given she was walking towards the delightfully salubrious area of Gare du Nord I doubt she even has the luggage now... I tried!
(Mademoiselle_violette, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 14:04, Reply)

Blind leading the Blind
A mate of mine`s girlfriend was conducting tours of the Roman baths in Bath. One part of the tour requires crossing a busy main road so she stopped her party at the pedestrian crossing and pressed the button. When the lights changed and the beeping started, one particularly obnoxious american kid asked what the beeping was, she replied that it was so that blind people would know that the lights are on red. The reply? "Fuck! you let blind people drive over here?"
(Lowlife, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:57, Reply)

i was queueing to get to the top floor of the eiffel tower on sunday night....
there were a large group of morbidly obese red faced lard muching 'merkins possible from the small town of Dumbfuck, Texas. They came out with such great lines as "those Brits just dont care they just carry on as if nothing happened" and "how are they going to catch the terrorists, they dont even have guns".

it was only my extremely restrained english upbringing that stopped me from waxing lyrically and vitriolically about the british not haveing a need to fly their army half way round the world to bomb the fuck out a country that has a GDP of less than the average childs pocket money - at least we wait until someone else is going there first and then hop on the band wagon.

ps appologies for not rolling the fat cnuts off the side.

bert
( bertisfantastic bert is a sleepy bear, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:51, Reply)

Entirely appropriate...
JUST got back from work, happily teaching English to a load of Poles. We were talking about phrasal verbs (for the ungrammatical, thats where two words fit together to make a verb.) Asking around the class for examples. Take off, put on, turn out, blow up; all came up.

"I don't know if is good English," came the smooth, deadpan voice of Piotr, a typical Pole," but, err... how to say... fuck off?"

Speechless. Utterly speechless.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:44, Reply)

The Stupid Locals
When I a teenager Growing up in Galway on the west coast of Ireland. Every summer the city would be mobbed by spanish and french neon yellow backpack wearing students teens.
Of course they would mate and fight with the less attractive but significantly harder locals. One young man from my school who was to put it mildly an utter cock took offense to one french lad snoggin his ex and proceeded to have a go at him to 'burst him like'. Anyway the kid spends about ten minutes pushing and shoving the french bloke around. Who remains calm throughout until the cock spits in his face and it kicks off. Unlike all his student friends he is not a total poof and is in fact the under 16 french boxing champion. God he was good.....
(Fieldsie, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:44, Reply)

We know where you live...
Some years ago I was working as Town Crier for the city of St.Albans. Summer job announcing all kinds of utter crap to make sure that people knew what the hell was happening on Market Days.*

I'd just finished announcing the day's events at the top end of the town when I was approached by two of the fattest people I have ever seen. One of them, sturggling with a tiny phrasebook in his pudgy paws spoke loudly and slowly to me in a language which alas I didn't understand at all.**
The ensuing conversations remains with me to this day.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand you. Do you speak any English ?"

"Of course we speak English! We're from Idaho! Why don't you speak Italian ?"

"Ahm, because we're in England, not Italy ?"

"You're wrong, this is Rome. Rome is in Italy"

"We're not in Rome, really we're not."

"Yes we are. We're touring Europe, and we're here to see the Roman ruins."

"Well, the Roman ruins are down the hill there, but I assure you you're not in Italy, you're in England."

"No, we're in Rome. England was yesterday"

At which point they waddled off towards the old Roman city of Verulamium, muttering to each other about the fool in the red coat who didn't even know which country Rome was in.

*Yes I am serious, sad isn't it.
**Alas all the laguages I speak fluently have the phrase "syntax error" as a major feature
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:40, Reply)

American tourists in London
TWO true stories that happened to me:

American tourists in Trafalgar Square- "Which way to Buckingham Palace?" I pointed through Admiralty Arch and said "Through there and keep going - it's at the end of The Mall". The reply- "Gee, thanks. And how do we get back again" !

American tourists on Waterloo Bridge- "Which way to Tower Bridge?". I pointed eastwards and said, "That way, around the bend in the river". The reply- "Gee thanks (again!) and which side of the river is it on" !

Unbelievable but true.
(Johnus the Arse, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:31, Reply)

McBigMac
My friend went into McDonalds in Amsterdam and ordered a McBigMac. He suddenly realised there was no such thing and panicked and whited out on the floor.
That probably happens quite a lot over there.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:25, Reply)

Not quite a tourist message, but amused me none the less
Went to Manchester Uni, and the girl in the next room to me was from Croydon. She spent the first two weeks convinced that she was in Scotland, as "you surely can't drive this far north and still be in England".

Bless, it's not just Americans who don't get British geography, our own Southeners can get it very wrong too.

PS The girl in question was studying (yup, you guessed it) Geography.
(emma_fisi, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:25, Reply)

New Zealand
Overheard this conversation between my Kiwi Friend and a Dumb American in England:

DA: So where are y'from?
KF: New Zealand.
DA: Is that near England.
KF: No.
DA: Do you speak New Zealand?
KF: What?
DA: Do you speak New Zealand? New Zealandy? Say something in your native language.
KF: OK - fuck off.
( thealternativefact, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:21, Reply)

"It's Never Dull In Hull"
I’ve noticed at least two posts that mention the lovely northern city of Hull (pron….Ull) and it easy to spot a stupid tourist in Hull, not that Hull gets many tourists but anybody that visits Hull as a tourist must be stupid and the only smart thing they could possibly say is "how the funk do you get out of this shit hole?"

“Its never dull in Hull”
(hullygully, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 13:05, Reply)

Welsh Immigration
A few years ago, a Kiwi friend of mine had invited some fellow Kiwis across to the UK. Whilst driving towards the Severn bridge to enter Wales he turned to them and said 'You do have your passports, right?' He has a wicked sense of humour, so....

Cue roadside luggage shifting as the only passenger 'sans passeport' was bundled into the boot and smuggled past the Welsh Authorities....

Arf!

My favourite bit was when he got to the pub later, and starting bragging to the rest of his mates about how he'd managed to smuggle himself in :)

Note - for those not in the know. There are no 'border controls' between Wales/England/Scotland and no passport is required to travel between them. Heh Heh
(BeatsWork, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 12:52, Reply)

It must be the accent...
Walked into Burger King in London town, asked Scandinavian attendant for a Whopper Meal. 'No problem sir, what drink would you like?', Fanta, I reply. 'So, that's a Chicken Royale and a Coffee... would you like anything else?'.

The Whopper Meal I originally ordered would be nice.

I know my Yorkshire accent is strong, but it's not THAT strong.

He apologised, as he was only working to pay for his holiday. Who the hell goes on holiday to work in Burger King???
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 12:47, Reply)

more merkin mirth
having recently had the pleasure of slogging across the andes for four days to see macchu pichu, imagine my horror at being informed by some 80 year old american fuckwit who clearly got the bus up there that the incas were inconsiderate not to make it more disabled friendly.

as an aside, it was most amusing to be told "winners don't use drugs" as i stuffed my face full of coca leaves passing a group of exceptionally fat and out of shape septics on day 2 of the trail.

stupid cunts.
(davidblunkettsdogblankets, Tue 12 Jul 2005, 12:30, Reply)