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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

Dumb American moment: I once visited Germany for a conference in Munich. My hotel was out in a rural town on the train line. One night my colleagues and I walked out the door for an adventure and into the first restaurant we found, a tiny little place.

We sat down at the Stammtisch.

The waitress kindly told us that we should move. Then everybody in the place was kind of cold to us, until someone picked up from our conversation that we were from the US. The waitress tentatively asked: "Are you Americans?" Yes. "Oh, we thought you were English." All of the sudden the whole place warmed up to us, and they even brought us complimentary glasses of the house liqueur, which I can tell you was quite potent.

I don't know why they liked Americans better than English, and we didn't press the matter.

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Once in France, a bouncer wouldn't let me in a club because I wasn't dressed properly -- so I was waiting outside while my friend went inside to look for someone.

After about a minute the bouncer asked "English?".

I said "Well I speak english but I'm American, from Tennessee". He immediately smiled broadly and opened the door for me to enter.

The stereotypes are: English/British tourists are drunkard hooligans. American tourists are students or dumb rednecks but friendly.

Usually a couple Brits can't behave themselves at larger events (Oktoberfest, Euros) and make it into the news cycle - commonly paired with a backhanded comment like "The British underestimated the potency of German beer yet again".

There's also a large rivalry in soccer and balconing; combined with history and Brexit it really isn't a mystery.

> balconing

TIL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balconing

There is a depressing site, which keeps the ranking for Mallorca:

https://www.balcon.ing

You forgot the most important one - !!! Beach Towel Wars !!!

From what I understand from my European friends is that English vacationers have a bad reputation for getting belligerently drunk when on "holiday" that dates back many years.

Die britischen Nationalsportarten: Dartspiel, Ehebruch und Fußballrowdytum

> Fußballrowdytum

https://glosbe.com/en/de/football%20hooliganism

rowdytum:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/german-english/r...

rowdy:

  english(-american) rowdy, origin unclear

hooligan (n.):

"thug; hoodlum," first found in British newspaper police-court reports in the summer of 1898, almost certainly from the variant form of the Irish surname Houlihan, which figured as a characteristic comic Irish name in music hall songs and newspapers of the 1880s and '90s.

While in Europe, there's no extensive beefs with the Americans in sports like there are between football (soccer) fans from any two given countries in Europe.

It is not between soccer fans.

Many brits cannot behave when they are on vacation, mostly because of alcohol. Not all of them, but a significantly high portion of them compared to other countries. But german have similar reputation regarding being drunktards especially when in large groups.

Other nationalities may have their own reputations and clichés. Spanish people are loud, french people complain about everything and don't make a single effort to speak the local language, etc.

As always it is always about statistics and the biggest groups tend to have the more stereotypes and generalizations. But clichés often exist for a reason.

>Spanish people are loud

They dress loud, but AFAICT that's only a Spaniards in Berlin thing. They guy with the top hat, circus vest, short shorts and tights and golden wings on his sneakers, very likely Spanish.

You don’t know history, it’s been like that for centuries. It’s also something a cheeky English chap might do while on holiday in Germany. The history of that area of the world runs deep.

Why does everybody thinks first this has something to do with your nationality? This is the Stammtisch. I'm from Germany and when I come with my little son to a restaurant we also can not sit there. Same right for all

They might have been offended assuming that Englishmen in Germany would have some basic knowledge of German pub culture. So they took you sitting down at that table as a deliberate or clumsy faux pas. But then they immediately regretted their hasty generalization and how cold they were to you once they figured out you were American. And then they had to make it up to you. Because they knew that expecting Americans to have any cultural understanding while in Europe/Germany is completely unreasonable.

I haven’t experienced this at all in Hamburg, in fact they’re kinda weirdly obsessed with (their idea of) England

hamburg is different. due to its harbor there is a long history of trading with england and other places, which i think has allowed the english and other foreigners to develop a different and in particular long standing reputation going back centuries, and also locals getting used to them, as opposed to elsewhere where foreigners only started showing up once tourism became more common.

Probably because of soccer..

maybe because of brexit. wouldn't justify it. just a wild guess

Not from Europe, but it reminds me of how Amsterdam has been actively discouraging young men from the UK from visiting because they have a reputation for being rowdy and getting in trouble.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65107405

I haven't been there in 20 years but I'm not surprised. Back then there was a tidal wave of drunk, loud men from the UK whenever they had a bank holiday.

My unsolicited advice to people wanting to visit the city has always been to not go during UK long weekends and if they're only looking for drugs and sex, that both can be sourced closer to home.

Of course not. Free yourself from the media bubble.

Huh? Why Brexit? Why would someone be upset with the British when they left the EU? Maybe one asks why, but angry or resentful? :))

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