I was strolling down a lovely Barcelona street on a quest for coffee and pastries when I noticed a young lady on the next block trying to parallel park in an extremely small space.
She would back up, get out of the car to see how much room she had, get back in, back up more, get out and check, rinse and repeat. She was slowly wedging her car in, but at that rate, it would have taken her half a day.
I approached and helped guide her in, shifting from the front to the back of her car. In just a couple of minutes, the job was done. (Though I had no idea how she’d get out of that space.)
She threw out a line of Spanish (or Catalan, I’m not sure) and I replied, “No habla Español,” in horribly butchered Americanized Spanish.
“American?” she replied, in virtually flawless English.
“Yes.”
“Thank you so much for helping! I guess it’s not true what everyone says about Americans.”
“What do they say?” I asked, pretty sure I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“That you’re all mean and rude. And, how do they say… assholes?”
**sigh**
We chatted for a few more minutes. She was super-nice, and incredibly thankful for my assistance. Apologetic too for my phone being stolen, which elicited a, “Yes, some of us are assholes too. Every culture has them.”
She parted with a, “I’ll tell my friends that not all Americans are mean and rude.”
She was right, there are jerks in every culture. That Americans are felt to be at the top of the A-holes of the World list (at least in her circles, which appeared to be late 20’s, well-educated types) left me sad.
Come on, America… Is it really that difficult to just be nice? Offer a fellow human a hand? We can do better than this.
Yes, we can do better than this! We need to start at home… just be kind to your neighbor to start! Then maybe learn their name, take them a fruit plate, exchange phone numbers in case of emergency… I could go on… but that’s a start! Kindness can be a learned behavior, even if your background wasn’t pleasant! 💙🦋
I started doing better several years ago when I cleaned up my social media from those who don’t even try to do better.
For most of my life I had heard about how unpleasant Parisians were and how they hate Americans, That their waiters and taxi drivers were rude and that Parisians in general were not friendly people and were cold and unwelcoming to tourists. And forget about trying to speak English with them. And to top it off everyone I had spoke to warned me that there were pickpockets everywhere and Paris has a very high crime rate. Some had even been mugged there. I even read an article on the “Paris Syndrome” about how disillusioned Japanese tourists get when they visit Paris.
Despite all of the above, I went ahead and visited Paris any way in 2015. I thought that I should visit it at least once in my life. When I came there, I was prepared to face all of the bad things I had heard so much about and had been warned of.
I spent a week in Paris with my wife and kids. Absolutely none of the above happened. In fact what I experienced was the opposite of the above. I am not saying that what I was told was not true, but not only did I never encounter a rude waiter or taxi drive (I had to deal with a lot of them), they were all very friendly and nice. I was frankly shocked about how wonderful of a time I had in Paris. I loved Paris my experience so much that I came back the next 2 years in a row and spent a week there each time. I now tell people that Paris is one of my favorite cities in the world and cannot wait to go back and visit it. I do understand and accept that like in all large cities around the world, there will be crime and people who are not nice.
Full disclosure: before I go anywhere, I spend a lot of time learning about the local customs, etiquette, common phrases, and behaviors so that I will be a polite, respectful, and pleasant visitor. I also learn how to be street smart to reduce the possibility of becoming a crime victim.
I believe this had a lot to do with why I have such wonderful trips to Paris.