Whenever I fly with Ryanair I always seem to have the bad luck to end up sat close to some Aussies in the plane. Does not even seem to matter where: they have been on flights to Stockholm, Altenburg, and now to Berlin. Now I would not wish to generalise about the presence of a nation???s nationals in Europe but some things strike me as noteworthy.
There is always a sense of ???doing Europe??? in the way the Aussies in Ryanair planes discuss their destinations. They also have a tendency to discuss such matters at the top of their voices that ??? thanks to the somewhat grating Aussie accent ??? seem to cut through the background noise. As all their conversations are in English there it little way to keep myself hidden in blissful ignorance.
Conveniently, this leads me on to my second point: the sorts of subjects the Aussies in Ryanair planes tend to talk about. The three males sat behind me have just engaged in a detailed discussion of the size of a woman???s breasts in a lad-mag they have been reading, and also about some well-endowed man???s appeal to women (according to the magazine of course). Discussions of their plans for the weekend in Berlin seem to revolve around how much they can drink on Saturday night, while discussions of previous trips to other countries feature plenty or references to drink and weed. Scarily, one of them boasts of having been to 52 different countries in the world. So presumably that equates to more than 52 poor places that have received pukes on the pavement.
Perhaps most scary of all has been a brief discussion about how one of them wants to be a father in the future, and how he would like 3 boys. I feel very, very sorry for those poor kids that may be produced if and when this uncouth individual finds some woman stupid enough to tolerate him. Once more the old quote from Bertrand Russell seems to appropriate: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
I am an Aussie and I often look at the behaviour of my fellow Aussie’s and I am stuned. The way they act is nothing like at home and those you hear the most from are often green travelers trying to prove how worldly they are. We are not all like that but unfortunatly the only people you remember are the ones that upset you and every nation has there fair share of yobs, there is just a hell of alot of aussies out there traveling and most are on budget airlines.
Thanks for the comment! 🙂
Please don’t think I uniquely think this way about the Aussies – I do my best to keep clear of Brits when I am abroad as well, and there is nothing worse than being in some pleasant place and confronted by a bunch of drunken British yobs. The British can be terrible tourists; Prague and Riga – popular for stag nights – especially spring to mind.
Your comments accurately reflect my own feelings about meeting Aussies, while traveling. I am usually left trying to melt into the background, lest I be spotted as “one of them”. While the English are often just as loud and obnoxious (sorry!), at least you don’t have to listen to completely stupid and uninformed comments about them “doing Europe”. Perhaps the only thing worse than meeting your fellow countryman abroad, is meeting an American…