It's long, I know...
I was born and live in Lisbon, a small, pretty simple city where you can find tourists all times of the year, but since Spain is right next to Portugal, we don’t really get that many Americans - the ‘usuals’ are mostly British or Dutch, ‘cause they know they’ll get just as much sun over here as in “Aye-bee-tha!” (slaps forehead)
The Americans we DO get seem to be completely baffled and behave like they just landed on Pluto.
This story isn’t really funny, but it’s just a testimony of how annoying it can be when people don’t even make an effort to remember they’re the ones visiting a foreign country...
I was waiting for the bus on one of our very busy squares at about 7h30 pm, which means there are LOADS of people still trying to get home (many of them students and businessmen/women; how is this relevant? …Read on).
A very loud, very pale-skinned and quite large American family are trying to catch some sort of transportation to a landmark by the river.
Well, if you’re in a country where the language is as unknown to you as the reason why people carry chiuauas as purses is to me, you try and find someone who will at least LOOK like they speak a foreign language (there’s plenty to chose from since it’s the financial district).
No, not this family. Because like so many other tourists (disregard nationality, because this seems to be a common problem for any tourist here), they decide to ask the simplest looking old lady or the man most likely to win the ‘I’m-so-dumb-I-forgot-to-close-my-mouth-and-now-I’m-standing-on-a-pool-of-my-own-drool’ award of the year.
So after a few failed attempts at raising their voice and slowing down speech for better communication, I step up and say in my pretty reasonable English “Excuse me, maybe I can help…”
The father raises his arms in the air like I’m bringing him redemption and screams out ‘FINALLY!!!’, showing himself extremely vexed at the old lady he was talking to earlier, like every Portuguese person has the duty to know how to speak in his mother tongue. Promptly, the about 50 people waiting at the surrounding bus stops turn their eyes to ME, as I try to excuse his rudeness with apologetic looks of helplessness.
I simply explain that they have to catch a trolley, number so-and-so, and now, since he has no idea what a trolley is, looks at me like I’m not speaking English anymore, almost angrily so! Fortunately a trolley goes by, I point it out to him and simply say “One of those…”.
He still looks repeatedly at his guide and at me, doubting, but as he sees everyone else get on it, he follows, shouting out to his family -standing two feet away- “Come on! We have to catch this one over here!!!”
Not a thanks, not a nod. Too bad I didn’t give them the wrong directions.
(Mikash, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 14:16, Reply)