(Some) Americans are loud...and obnoxious

In the 10 short months that I have been living in London, in a some ways I have become British. I drink tea almost everyday, I say things like "no worries", and I have become acutely aware of just how annoying Americans can be. When I first moved here, I would get really defensive anytime I heard people talking about Americans negatively and when I heard a group of rowdy American tourists walking around Picadilly Circus I would smile and say to myself, "ah yes, my people:-)" However, I've recently realized just how obnoxious us Americans are and now when I hear the rowdy American tourists I wince and say to myself "how embarrassing. They really need to get a clue."

Case in point, I was out shopping earlier today and I was sitting on a bench waiting for the tube. A group of young American guys were standing near me and were behaving typically.

American idiot #1
"Dude, it's f*cking hot! I don't understand why the British don't air condition the subway."

American idiot #2
"It's because they don't have the technology. They aren't as advanced as we are. We should have gone to LA."

American idiot #1
"Yeah, we should have totally gone to LA. The food here sucks and I can't understand what people are saying."

American idiot #3
"Yeah, let's go to LA next time. It rains here all the time. London sucks. "

I must admit, I'm not too happy about there not being any AC on the tube either and I've bitched about it to countless people. And yes, I've complained about the rain and lack of sunshine more times than I care to count. But what I wouldn't do is talk about how much Britain sucks when I'm surrounded by about 30 Britons and I'm a foreigner. If they were just talking amongst themselves that would be one thing. But these idiots were practically yelling at the top of their lungs like each of them were 25 feet away from each other. It was obvious that the British people were annoyed and a little offended, but being the British people that they are, they were way too polite to comment or even look in the same direction as the idiots.

Despite my post-graduate status, I'm living in a building full of American college kids. In stereotypical co-ed fashion, they're loud and drunk most of the time. Our neighborhood is quaint and quintessentially British so the closest thing we get to raucous is the crazy lady who does bird calls in the wee hours of the morning, and the cavalry of horses and canons that parades down the street once a month at about 8am. Every few months we get a string of new study abroad students that invade the neighborhood. They walk through the streets in hordes of 10 or more talking loud and most of the time the topic du jour is usually how London sucks. They sit on the porch playing their guitars at all hours of the night, and yell at each other up and down the street like they're on campus. "HEY STEVE! STEEEVE! CAN YOU PICK UP A PACK OF BEER FROM TESCO?"

Witnessing all of this hurts my heart because these loud and obnoxious idiots are enforcing just about every stereotype that Europeans have of us...we're loud, ethnocentric, have superiority complexes, and the college kids are drunk and clueless. I've had many conversations with my coworkers who say that Americans have a horrible reputation in this respect. I agree with them on some level because I've witnessed these behaviors not only in England, but in France and Italy as well. I'm not saying that you should completely change your behavior because you're in a different country, I'm just saying that you should completely change your behavior because you're in a different country.

Now before some of my fellow Americans start getting all defensive and say I'm "un-American", let me be the first to tell you that I'm not. I can't wait to get back home, being here has given me a new found appreciation for American culture, food, mindless tv, music, food, food, etc. And I'm also not saying that all Americans traveling abroad fall into the category of loud and obnoxious, because they don't. I'm basically saying that the world already has stereotypes of us, it would be lovely if tourists didn't make them even worse.