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Tale of an American Tourist

one year ago
Randomly decided to write up a brief account of something I witnessed the other day. This felt like a suitable place to share it.



The American tourist had been dreaming for weeks of his visit to London. He had imagined every inch of it to be as beautiful as the pictures he had seen of Buckingham Palace, Westminster, and Kensington gardens. He had imagined all the people to be elegant and refined Hugh Grant types, well spoken with immaculately developed vocabularies.

The whole family is going. Him, his wife and their two children. The in-laws are looking after the dog for the week that they are away. It was kind of them to offer. He'd been scrimping and saving for months to be able to afford this trip. They know just how much he's been looking forward to it.

Upon arriving their first destination is St Paul's. The cathedral is everything they could have hoped for and more. It's gorgeous white dome, a perfect symbol of the finery of British history and culture, stretches above, framed beautifully by a few wispy clouds in the brilliant blue sky.

Lining his children and wife up in front of him, he steps back to take a picture of this awe inspiring site. This is a beautiful image he wants to hold onto for the rest of his life.

But, oh so suddenly, a terrible event happens that changes everything. A cascade of disillusionment comes crashing down around him. As he steps back, a large bald man in a vest walks up to him and yells. "Get out of the way you fucking yankee twat."

Tale of an American Tourist

one year ago
It sucks when people are just randomly assholes to strangers, particularly in a situation like that when you know everything about a trip like that is something a family is going to remember for the rest of their lives.

>He had imagined all the people to be elegant and refined Hugh Grant types, well spoken with immaculately developed vocabularies.

I'm not sure if anyone believes this anymore though, even without doing any research for travel, the Bri*ish are encountered all over the internet.

>Him, his wife and their two children.

I am not 100% sure if this is incorrect, but something about it feels off.
(Update: a very smart grammar person says it should be "he" since he is the subject of the sentence, as opposed to "him" which should be when he's the object. But I'm still not sure that particular sentence is the best way to phrase it.)