At 09:59 10-6-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
> > If I turned up, tramped in wearing my shoes, put my feet on the coffee
>table
> > as I do in my house, lit up a big cigar, and chowed down at dinner without
> > politely waiting for you to finish saying Grace, how rude would I be?
> >
>
>Well, there are American tourists who are just like that. But no one is
>defending them. What I read was something quite different. I'll give one
>example. I was tired after working and traveling and needed to eat before
>going to bed. I was in a Dutch hotel near the Shipol (sp) airport. My
>friend and I stood and waited at a restaurant for 10 minutes before we spoke
>up, asking to be waited on. We were shot looks as though we were typical
>rude American tourists.
Let me assure you that is definitely not common practice in restaurants
here. It is normal here for guests to be greeted almost as soon as they
enter the establishment, and be seated right away if a table is available.
If you have to wait for a while, many restaurants even offer you a drink on
the house while you wait.
On behalf of my fellow countrymen, our apologies for this treatment.
>We wouldn't have said anything if they were busy. They were not. They were
>charging us a good deal of money for our room, had rather high prices on the
>menu with a captive audience of tired business travelers
How much did they charge you for room and dinner? Hotels and restaurants
aren't all that cheap around here; NLG 300 per night for a three-star hotel
is normal, and dinner in a restaurant can easily cost you NLG 50-70. I am
not surprised though that hotels near Schiphol Intl. Airport do take
advantage (read: charge high prices) of the fact that most guests are
business people with an expense account who just want something to eat and
then go sleep. It's a practice they can get away with.
>, and considered us
>rude for wanting service. I think that there is a bit of a cultural
>difference here regarding accepting that from restaurants, and I'll get into
>that difference in another post.
This sort of behaviour doesn't have to be accepted, and you have every
right to complain to the manager if this happens to you.
>1) Americans are uniquely and prevalently loud and rude. A polite American
>tourist is the exception that proves the rule. Tourists from other countries
>are not nearly so bad as American tourists.
I certainly never said that. Tourists from other countries are quite
capable of showing exactly the same behaviour. The example of *American*
tourist seemed more appropriate here, because most posters on this list are
American. Had the majority been German, the example of German tourists
would have been used. (Yes, we do have some complaints about them,
too. <grin>)
Jeroen
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