[Sethomas]

Oh, okay. He's Jewish. So equating American tourists with a religious minority forced to sew yellow stars on their clothing is A-OKAY.

I've encountered no such bitchery in England, nor anywhere else in Europe. In total, I've spent about three months in Europe and have NEVER been treated rudely. The closest I've come to rudeness was when I started smoking pot in a bar, and the keep informed me that such was not the place. Totally my fault, and the guy was cool about it.

What pisses me off is dolts who go into a country with no effort to learn the language, and get surprised when they're refused service. A week's worth of studying will get you enough linguistic knowledge to impress the locals, and they'll be glad enough you put in the effort that they'll gladly speak English.

I was in a champagne gallery in France, and the store keeper was very fluent in English. However, he saw that I was a student of the French language and he was very considerate about speaking French for my own practice, and he did so clearly and eloquently.

My sister is living in Stafford, England now as a medical resident. She has told me that everyone there is exceptionally courteous and love her American accent. Her voice is everything bad about a Northern Hoosier accent, with little of the good.

Granted, Stafford is a small town compared to London, and so attitudes are different. But, she's never encountered rudeness in big cities, and she's been visiting London, Birmingham, Manchester, and others.

Another time I was in Paris by Gare d'Austerlitz, and I grabbed a beer and walked down the street drinking it. An elderly man walked up to me and muttered something very quickly in French, and I could only infer that he was calling me a something. He then repeated in English, "You are drinking in street. You are, HOOLIGAN!" I was taken back at first, thinking I'd committed some grave faux pas I'd not known by drinking in the streets. But once he said that, he started asking where I was from, what I was doing in France, and made general quaint conversation. Very nice guy.

So, to sum up the article:
Anomalies happen, bitch bitch bitch.