"Among the golden corn rows of Indiana"
The Americans have a fascination with Europe. It's the "foreign" place to go: it has similar lifestyle yet is so much more,well, - "euro".
As a European I have always felt American tourists were a little strange. I guess, like many, I resented their quantity - but now I understand that it obviously isn't their fault: their country is just huge, so understandably they will come in throngs.
Having lived here for 3 1/2 years (I know, it's a reaaally long time so I must know what I'm talking about! ;) I have to say I feel my suspicions confirmed. Europe is like Disneyland for Americans. You go there to travel from attraction to attraction in order to get a different feeling from each place but those places are not "real", they are here to entertain you, not to be taken seriously.
If you want romance, obviously you will go to Paris (as shown in this movie) and enjoy those cute little bistros while you wear black and think of Audrey Hepburn in Charade. For a more serious romantic experience you will - of course! - go to Italy, preferably Tuscany, where you will obviously buy a villa on impulse, buy a white dress and meet new people. Read: fall in love with a hunky Italian who has lived a pictoresque life in a pictoresque village just so he can finally meet his American sweetheart. On the other hand if you are looking for a more historical or cultural experience you will visit Prague (I could say Czech Republic, but let's be honest, can anybody name a Czech city besides Prague?) or Russia or some other Eastern European country, hoping it's one that still suffers under Communist-Regime-leftovers so you get some good pictures of Lenin statues, empty grocery stores or people dressed in gray.
Generally though it has to be noted that people in those countries serve more or less as extras, hired by the travel agency to supply us with all the necessary details to make the whole thing as believable as we've seen it on TV.
Sitting in Indiana, where people take it for granted that even the best restaurant in town will be located on a busy street in a regular strip-mall-type of building, I get really frustrated. Why don't people make their own surrounding "romantic", "pictoresque" and "cultural"? Why not make beautiful things part of everyday life? It baffles me. People here will have gorgeous houses, with pretty porches, seasonal decorations, different shaped windows, impeccable yards, but then they go and throw their main public buildings into shapeless boxes that get destroyed every 5 years to make room for a new parking lot or something.
Well, there's always museums and Disneyland. And Europe. :)
Posted at 08:11 PM on October 29, 2003
"You go there to travel from attraction to attraction in order to get a different feeling from each place but those places are not "real", they are here to entertain you, not to be taken seriously. "
Just to comment on the flipside of things, this is exactly how I feel about tourists here in California (which is generally a pretty-tourist-filled place).
"go and throw their main public buildings into shapeless boxes that get destroyed every 5 years to make room for a new parking lot or something"
As a city planner, I heartily agree with this statement. :-)
I generally find tourist subculture offensive. Not the notion of being a tourist, of course you want to see someplace different. But as someone of Jamaican decent for example, I get sort of annoyed at the idea so many people think Jamaica is merely a cute island culture for their amusement as opposed to simply another culture.
I felt the same way about a lot of the people I went to college with in Minnesota. Most of my friends came from outside the Midwest (east and west coasts, but as far as Africa and Eastern Europe) and they had pretty set views about what life in St. Paul was supposed to be like, and never looked for anything beyond what confirmed their expectations. The critics made fun of accents, food, local news and political beliefs, but never came to appreciate the culture around them.
But I'm biased-- I love the Midwest and I'm easily frustrated by how others dismiss it as boring or without culture. I guess most people are defensive of their homes, and think tourists don't appreciate them.
"and never looked for anything beyond what confirmed their expectations"
isn't that one of the most annoying things? it happens all the time. people just like to be right i guess.
obviously i hope it's clear that i didn't want to dismiss all american tourists ever. again, things have to be a little exaggerated to make the reading more interesting. :)
that's what i think anyways. and i like to be right! ;)
Yeah, I always wondered why here all the downtown areas go down the drain with their beautiful historic buildings (or why nobody lives downtown anymore), while they build yet another ugly uniform mall-type thing somewhere on the outskirts of town. Here, they have these beautiful 100+ year-old cotton mills, and what they do with them is turn them into lofts that no normal person can afford to live in (1200.00 in a Southern town where people make 1/3 less than what the national average is). I just really don't get it.
Oh, and I hate it when something about Europe comes on TV and all they show is France (and maybe with some luck Italy)!!! What's up with that?
Gudrun
You want Czech cities???!.... Brno, Karlovy Vary, and Cesky Krumlov.... in addition to Prague!... (Oh, and I will freely admit that I had to look up the proper spelling of every single one of these Czech cities before I opened my big mouth)
shannon, i'm sorry but anyone who knows what "andorra" is cannot be considered as an ignorant american tourist.
sorry. you'll qualify for something else, i promise!
;)
maybe it's because of all the parasites and ungrateful brats like you no one can seem to improve anything there.
Why don't you do something for the world instead of being so damn judgemental like the rest of europeans? Make a damn difference yourself.
God, I try and do news searches, and all I run across are whiney brats.
Americans are not a particularly nostaligic group of people. They will tear down a hundred year old building to build something bigger, taller & perhaps more lifeless -- in a heartbeat. It is what it is. If you want a basic feel for culture goto Europe -- if you want to see real civilzations and real culture goto S.E. Asia or the Indian Subcontinent.
America is a huge social experiment like none before it. Most major cities around the globe have a good mix of immigrants -- the American cultural identity is only that -- the fusion of many cultures and peoples.
Europe just seems like soda pop to me now after I saw Cambodia, Laos , Gulf of Thailand . :)