Aramis wrote:
I guess you could say I've interviewed a few Canadians on the topic - since
I am one, and I have travelled to Europe 11 times, 5 as a backpacker in my
"youth" - ahem.

Of course Europeans can tell and Aussie or Kiwi from a North American, but
unless you have a pronounced Southern drawl, a Canadian will almost always
be presumed to be an American at first glance. I'm quite good at sourcing
accents but many of my friends and family can't source an Aussie from a
Kiwi, forma South African, nor can they differentiate different UK accents,
so I assume there are a number of Europeans who can't tell any North
American accent from another.

If population tends translate into travels Europeans will see 10 times as
many Americans as Canadians. It is only natural to generalize based on those
kinds of real life encounters.

You can count a far greater number of truly generous encounters in Europe,
as a Canadian, if the people you are interacting with know you are a
Canadian. It's not absolute, nothing is, but I have had dozens of encounters
where initial aloofness dissipated once the individual I was interacting
with asked, or figured out that I was a Canadian.

If you would like some examples;

- A trucker in the Netherlands turned around to pick me up after he saw the
flag on my backpack.

- I have never had to answer a single question crossing a border when
displaying my passport - American backpackers I have been travelling with
had to empty their backpacks and were questioned privately on several
occasions.

It even extends beyond Europeans -once when I hooked up with some Kiwis in
Ireland and was invited back to their London flat for a few days, one of
their flat mates was particularly cold towards me. He wouldn't even look at,
or speak to me as we piled in the VW to head to a pub the first night I was
there. 10 minutes after we arrived at the pub one of the other folks asks me
something about Canada and this distant guy gets a quizzical look on his
face, comes over, has me confirm I am Canadian and then apologizes for his
behaviour because he thought I was a Yank. After that we drank and snag for
days - ah Europe and youth!.

The fallout from American foreign policy and cultural myopia is a fact. It
affects some people more than others, and may not at all dictate the way
some people react to tourists. It is enough of a factor, overall to be
noticed by those who are most likely to get mistaken for an American, eh?



Well, my wife and I have traveled fairly extensively since 1959
(actually, she started as a bicycle leader for American Youth Hostels in
Europe in 1954 (or was it '53?)). We have been in Europe a fair number
of times, including during the past few years, as well as in Japan,
Argentina, Jamaica, Russia, Mongolia, Viet Nam, Australia and New
Zealand, just to name a few of our recent trips. We have never hidden
our country of origin (although we tend to be mistaken for Canadians
until we disabuse people of that idea -- nothing against Canadian, we
love traveling in Canada too). And we have had many, many special
things happen, and few if any negative ones.

For example, we were in Japan last month, and took a day trip to a town
(Mikawa, near Kanazawa) for a Shinto festival. I was invited to pull
one of the floats for a couple of blocks, and then we were invited into
someones house, where he was entertaining dozens of relatives, friends
and associates. They even put on an impromptu tea ceremony for us, and
tried to talk us into staying the night.

We have been dragged to a governor's tea in Simla, invited into a home
in Istafahan (pre revolution, admittedly), given brandy "on the house"
in a small restaurant in France, and gotten all sorts of help in Oz and
Kiwi-land, etc.

I could go on, but I'm not sure that being from the States keeps you
from having nice things happen.

Cyril Alberga