traveller observations part 1

• Australians are the new americans. loud, brash, obnoxious, travelling like they own the place. stupid fkn accent. a nations of criminal spawn has spread its virus of annoyance. they are everywhere like cockroaches. i mean we definitely have met exeptions to this all to common rule that i am establishing but overall they can be done without
• American women still carry the flag of annoyance high overhead. shrill, whiny and full of interesting and descriptive adjectives like "oh my god!", "like", "totally" and so on. i think they have adapted these words as verbs as well, it is difficult to determine. its like they took one brain and split it amongst the masses. intelligence has proved to be few and far between for these daughters of george bush. too much time watching the hills instead of sitting on grampa george sr's lap listening to history lessons
• much admiration for mainland europeans along the way. their general lack of personality and charisma is more than made up by their sensibility and experience. they can all speak between 3-6 languages, have been everywhere, they are prepared for everything and flustered by nothing
• the irish are always up for the drink and a story or two. had fun watching the irish world cup qualifications with a bunch of them. shed a few tears as well(fkn thierry henry)
• lots of israelis are travlling in south america. not too many places readily accept them on tourist visas apparently. south america is a common destination during gap years after university and/or military service(which is 2yrs mandatory for guys and girls). we had a couple on the inca jungle trek with us. was really interesting hearing their stories and perspectives, given all that has gone on in that area since, well, the beginning of time
• was surprised by several eastern europeans. some drunk russians(stoli for breaky, everyday on the jeep tour) but my favorite was this romanian guy and his girlfriend. as you may or may not know, i have a minor fascination with gypsies and romania is gypsy central. endre, the hungarian dude that i played with in denmark, told me many stories of the romanian gypsies. once i heard they were from romania i was eager to sit down with them and broach the subject. i quite enjoy the eastern european accent as well, so as he talked away i was like a kid at the teachers feet at storytime. i got a history lesson. he told me of their origins in india, their migration north to europe and the politics of the region that caused them to settle en masse in romania. romania was not under the iron curtain like so many eastern euro countries due in part to their dictator at the time, nicolae ceausescu, who did not like the russians very much and was quite frosty with them as a result. like a dumby, i asked "how was he as a dictator?"(meaning in comparison to how the russians would have been), he looked around almost to see if anyone else had heard what i said, then broke out into one of those huge grins saying with his thick accent "ohhh he was a very nice man!" as i sheepishly hastened to explain myself he just kept smiling. it was pretty funny. anyways, this dictator figured he needed to increase the population of the country and fast. he adopted over 6 million people as romanians. guess who was first in line? they became one of the hardest to control segments of european population until english soccer hooligans came around. he said since romania joined the EU about 3 years ago, many of them since have been granted access to the fertile regions of italy and france where the pillaging, theft and squatting is apparently becoming ridiculous. like putting wolves into the chicken coup. he said the reult has been benefitial for romania as many of the problematic parts of the population have left. on the flip side of that coin has seen a brain drain as well. he then went on to tell me he lived in cologne, germany. lol.