AMERICAN VS. EUROPEAN TOURISTS: Ted Barlow and Megan McArdle have been having fun with this. I agree with Ted that this quote from Megan is a gem:

And second of all, Europeans get no sympathy from me because I have never, ever seen an American, upon finding out that someone to whom they were speaking hailed from another country, say, “Oh, I hate your country!” and regale the guest to our shores with a half-hour litany of why the foreigner’s country, culture, and customs are utterly repulsive. Yet I have not only repeatedly met with this treatment on each of my trips to Europe, but also found, when I repeated them to a native of whatever country I was in, that my putative host defended this behavior with some variation on “Well, you have to admit they’re right.”

Lovely.