Bloody Americans!

Americans are apparently loud and annoying when they vacation in Europe. I listen to the BBC a bit and that is the gist of the comments about Americans over there. I bet I know why this is so.

Based on my experience, Americans get about ten days of vacation a year. Even then, that is only after the first year you work somewhere. Think about all the other obligations that eat up a day of vacation. I had to go deal with Metro (the bus system) recently and that ate one of my ten days of vacation. That leaves me with nine. I took another at some point for some reason I cant even remember. It was some reason other than having fun or relaxation. That leaves me with eight. I only get five days of sick leave that is all gone because I have allergies that lead to bronchitis and intestinal problems and I get migraines from all the stress. That will easily eat three more days of vacation leaving me with five days.

I will probably spend the five days during Faire season taking Friday's off to help put up tents and set up camp and frigging relax at camp. This means I will not get a full week off at any point in the year. I am very blessed because I work for a company that is intelligent enough to shut down for the most part between Christmas day an New Year's Day.  I'll get that time off if I play my cards right. Most Americans I know have no opportunity like this.

Not every one has something they enjoy like Faire so they save up money over a course of several years, working fifty hour weeks, for an over stressed boss who gets off making their lives miserable because he cannot afford to take time off, putting up with over stressed customers who have not had a vacation in years, putting up with their stressed under achieving kids who seem think they are going to live with their parents until they are forty, to finally get to take a full week off from their job. Now they have not had time to plan properly because the boss and coworkers have not kept their shit together long enough to plan for the disappearance of one person for five lousy days. So, when they get to the place where they are going to frigging relax, every little detail that doesn't just fall in to place is going to make them wonder why they bothered taking a vacation. Why didn't they just stay at work and not risk letting the boss know how much better things run without their presents.

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That is why Americans are loud and obnoxious on vacations. We do not have time to relax. Relaxation is for those lucky enough to be in a coma. So, Europeans, the next time you have to deal with an American tourist who gets all bent out of shape because some little detail didn't fall in to place, go ahead and give them the dirty look and talk about them with a sneering tone in a language you know they don't understand because they should be spending those tourist dollars closer to home and letting Europe slip into an immigrant dependent nanny-state where so many of the  people who should be working to make things better have already been lucky enough to slip in to that comma the vacationers seek.