A Swiss person once asked me: “Why do Americans all sound like soldiers yelling into walkie-talkies?”
Instead, politely accept their glaring stares, and smile when they ask: “Why are all Americans overweight?”
Nothing angers them more for some reason. Shopkeepers in Milan will shoo you out of their store if you’re overweight.
The drunker you are, the more likely you’ll abuse all the items on this list.
You may think that a sleeping bag is adequate camouflage, but everyone on the train can tell what you’re doing under there.
Beer is cheap in Greece—a perfect excuse to down an entire case and then turn into a human vomit volcano all over their nice clean country.
Small change has inordinate value abroad. They will turn you away if you try to buy a single beer with a 20 euro note. This is one reason item number four gets abused so much.
There’s an involved etiquette when it comes to soliciting prostitutes abroad, so involved it makes you wonder why they don’t just call it dating.
Wow, it turned out that girl wearing the thong under her fishnet dress is just a Dutch au pair. No wonder your first solicitation of a hooker ended with a dinner tab and an open-handed slap.
How are you going to understand their subtle derision of you?
How dare you use them for practice. Come back when you can speak perfectly.
Are you insinuating that you think you speak their language better than they speak yours?
They wouldn’t use American dollars to plug the peepholes in their public toilets.
This holds up the embarkation line, which in turn causes an epidemic of huffing, eye rolling and, in extreme cases, arms akimbo.
Does the Leaning Tower of Pisa really need the ten millionth tourist to mime trying to push it back into place that day?
In England, fanny is the word they use for vagina. Instead they call it a bum bag, which is not at all, in any way, as bad.
In metropolitan areas, dogs on leashes are as common as toddlers in strollers, and hovered over equally. Try to pet either and expect to be tackled.
Maybe it’s just common to me, but let’s just say that the combination of copious hairspray and a bar lined with atmospheric candles makes perfect conditions for a human torch. Don’t at all expect the locals to waste their beers by pouring it on your head.
Hollis Gillespie writes a weekly travel column for Paste. She is a writing instructor, travel expert and author of We Will be Crashing Shortly, coming out in June. Follow her on Twitter.