[Dave25989]

I too had heard this rumor many times. For whatever reason, the French (Parisians in particular) have gotten a bad rap. In planning our first European vacation, I had no desire to visit Paris. We ended up deciding to go to Munich, Prague and Vienna, and the cheapest flight turned out to be on Air France. Go figure. But since we had a layover in Paris anyway, we decided to stay for two days. Those two days were an eye-opener. Paris is a magical city, and only having two days is ludicrous. Every encounter, and I mean every encounter, was pleasant. My French is awful – I spent maybe a week doing Berlitz tapes for French, German and Czech. But what French I knew really came in handy. I think they really do appreciate the attempt, and seemed very forgiving of the lingustic atrocities I must have committed.

As an aside, on that trip I was appalled to see how many Americans behave abroad. Once at a train station in rural Austria, I saw one of my lovely countrymen walk up to the window and speak in an insanely loud voice, in English, demanding tickets on the next train. The service he received was curt, but hey, if someone came up to me at work and shouted at me in German, I probably would not be Mr. Polite, either. I have since had the good fortune to visit Europe for or five times, and I’ve found that in general you find what you’re looking for. By that I mean, if you go with a good attitude, and make an attempt to know something of the language, history, etc., before you go, people will respond positively to that.

By the way, I should add that over the next several trips I’ve spent a total of maybe two weeks in Paris, and it’s become my favorite European city. I’m glad that first trip got routed through Paris after all. In fact, I can’t imagine that I almost skipped Paris based on prejudice.

User Detail :  

Name : Dave25989, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Gay, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 34, City : San Diego, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Engineer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[Author]

Posts