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I've never understood why people overseas always assumed I wasn't - couldn't be - an American Tourist™, when that's what I was and wasn't pretending to be anything else. Yes, I have kind of a funny accent, but it's a hybrid of several USA regions, comes out rather Midwest-flat with a few Southern and New England quirks, and you can't hear the "extra" u tha I can't help typing from having grown up reading mostly British books as a kid. (I only ever do foreign accents on the phone to telemarketers.) But everyone in Europe - even in Britain - figured I was from the EU or UK, and sometimes didn't believe me when I said I was from the States. Other tourists and travelers sometimes even asked me for directions in London and in Rome--!
I wasn't dressed all that differently from other American students and grads bumming around Europe, who never got this response; I was carrying a camera, and gawking at the sights; my lame attempts at the local lingo didn't sound any different from other American Tourists™ to me. I couldn't really be behaving that differently in sundry crucial non-verbal tells from the majority of my compatriots that those in the tourist-serving industry saw every day, could I? But still, people in Europe assumed I was a fellow European, and when I told them no, I was American, they assumed I meant Canadian. When I explained that no, I'd been to Canada once or twice but that was all, they were baffled - still nice, and still helpful. But baffled, as if I'd told them that no, really, I was from Altair, honest--
Billmon explains why.
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I wasn't dressed all that differently from other American students and grads bumming around Europe, who never got this response; I was carrying a camera, and gawking at the sights; my lame attempts at the local lingo didn't sound any different from other American Tourists™ to me. I couldn't really be behaving that differently in sundry crucial non-verbal tells from the majority of my compatriots that those in the tourist-serving industry saw every day, could I? But still, people in Europe assumed I was a fellow European, and when I told them no, I was American, they assumed I meant Canadian. When I explained that no, I'd been to Canada once or twice but that was all, they were baffled - still nice, and still helpful. But baffled, as if I'd told them that no, really, I was from Altair, honest--
Billmon explains why.
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