Annoying People Friday: Tourists

As a tourist myself, I can tell you, those people are freaking annoying.  They are never sure of where they are and walk about as slow as a pile of dog crap on the sidewalk.  As fun as Italy has been, I'm really excited to move back to Blacksburg where I live in the woods, 10 miles from the nearest sign of civilization.  Here are some of the most annoying tourists I encounter on the daily.


Tour Groups
I've been living in the middle of Tourist Central for about 2 months and I'll be damned if there's not a day that goes by that I'm not swept up in a swarm of fat Americans taking pictures with their iPads or Asians waving umbrellas in the air or Germans wandering around cluelessly plugged into their audio tours (you can always tell the Germans because they have weirdly dyed hair, and they sound like they spit everywhere when they talk).  Please, stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk, because I don't live here or anything, and it's always ME that's in the way.  My freaking apologies.

This is stupid and not clever.

People With Nice Cameras
If you're toting around some DSLR with 3 different lenses and taking decent pictures then by all means, don't let me stop you on your aperture adventures.  But too many people are taking picture after picture on the automatic setting.  Someone PLEASE tell me why you're going to have a $1500 camera and not know the first thing about shutter speed or ISOs.  That is a waste, and you need to hand that over right now.  Having a nice camera doesn't make you a photographer, it just means that you have more megapixels than the rest of us and know how to twist a lens, so congratulations and welcome to 10th grade photo class.

People Under the Age of 15
If you bring your toddler to Italy, then you are stupid.  No one wins in this situation.  First of all, he's not going to remember any of it, secondly your life sucks because you have to haul around a stroller, and most offensively his screaming is ruining my peaceful steak dinner.  The same goes for elementary schoolers, and if I had a Euro for every time I saw a middle school boy kick a pigeon I'd be eating a lot MORE steak dinners and would also be attacked by birds 100% less.

Complainers
I love complaining just as much as the next person (what do you think I keep a blog for?), but if you look around and everybody else is sweating, I'm pretty sure they know it's 95 degrees and don't need your bitching to remind them.  Also, you're probably in a beautiful country so shut the hell up, take your dumb picture and enjoy it in silence.

So next time you're traveling around a foreign country, remember to not get pick-pocketed and to not be annoying.  Bon voyage!