Loud, you want loud?<BR><BR>Try spending a couple of days at a hotel anywhere in Europe where an Italian tour group is staying.<BR><BR>BTW, they do not talk only with their hands!<BR><BR>US

Here's a tip for the non-smokers: Take the earliest seating in French restaurants. Not too hard since 1st seating was 7:30 or 8:00 at the restaurants I selected. Smelled very little smoke, it was not a problem as I had feared. Also, I think serious "foodies" are less likely to dull their palates with tobacco, so perhaps choosing restaurants recommended by Patricia Wells and various food magazines helped.

Uncle Sam: You're right. Your comment about staying in hotels with Italians brought back memories of our millennium stay at the Hotel Colbert. An extended Italian family was also in residence at that time. They usually came back to the hotel between 1 and 3. First they would continually ring the bell to alert the concierge. They would then spend about 30 minutes conversing with each other in the stairwell at a full shout. When the couple staying across from us finally entered the room, they would have a loud argument. Then she would take a shower while he called his brother on the phone. The brother was rooming on the floor above us. It was interesting being able to hear both ends of the phone conversation. Quite frankly, I don't see why they bothered to use the phone.<BR><BR>The kids in the family were staying in a room next to my kids. They didn't argue. They sang. They put the radio on full blast, took a group shower, and sang for a few hours. Until dawn, apparently.<BR><BR>I was upset the first night it happened. By the second night, I started to see the humor in the situation. By the third night, I found myself waiting for their a.m. arrival. <BR><BR>Ahhh, travel!<BR><BR>

I've been living in Brussels for three years, a city that has a large number of American and British expats. Generally, the Brits are far noisier than the Americans. Especially the younger British women who are here as au pairs--they're often called the "screaming nannies." In Malta a few days ago, we dined in a restaurant that had two groups in--one American, one British. While the Americans did burst into loud laughter from time to time--usually while joking with the waiter--it was the group of Brits who were so loud nonstop that we could barely hold a conversation at our table.

BTW, I've been told that as an American traveler, that in order to avoid the "ugly American" traveler label I'm supposed to adapt to European customs and accept the differences. After all, this isn't Texas any longer, so you'll just have to do without your Shinerbock and your Rudy's BBQ.<BR><BR>OK, I've done that now for 12 years and 23 European trips.<BR><BR>Now, after reading this thread, it appears that the smoking "nazis" want us to accept all that difference in culture except for the smoking because it bothers them.<BR><BR>My advice....get over it or do not go!<BR><BR>I'm an ex smoker, quit three years ago, and smoke bothers me as well. However, I am an adult and I do recognize that in Europe a lot of people smoke and there just isn't much I can do about it. <BR><BR>So anto smoker nazis, you have a choice. either stay here or go and put up wiht it!<BR><BR>US

Thanks, Kate. I do agree with the general point you were making, that as long as we travel to different countries, we really cannot expect the people in them to change their ways of life to suit us. <BR><BR>However, I'd add that, in the case of smoking, I'm sure that "we" -- by which I mean Americans -- are certainly not the only ones who wish Europeans would change their smoking way of life. I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who feel the same way. And, even though things are not the same in Europe as they are in the U.S., when you compare things with how they were twenty or thirty years ago, attitudes toward smoking have changed in Europe too, and my guess is that they'll continue to change. As just one example, I recall talking with a Roman woman on the train from Rome to Arezzo last year; she said that a former (current?) Minister of Health had (or has) made trying to keep kids from starting to smoke a high priority. <BR><BR>Now, what I'd love to see would be two tables next to each other in a restaurant: one with soft-spoken French smokers and the other with very loud American non-smokers...and see which table could hold out the longest. :) <BR>

The comments on noise remind me of an anecdote told by a mid-Western man who visited two places, New York, and Alaska.<BR><BR>This man felt somewhat frustrated in New York; he couldn't seem to get in a word edgewise when he conversed with his New York friends. He concluded that New Yorkers were 'loud.'<BR><BR>In Alaska, he stayed with some Athabaskan Indians. At dinner one evening, he found himself halfway through a sentence when he realized that he had been the only one who had said anything in the last several minutes. He realized that to the Athabaskans, HE was the 'loud' one.<BR><BR>Moral: Volume is relative, and we rarely hear our own 'noise.' <BR><BR>I suspect the same is true of smokers; a smoker gets accustomed (obviously) to his/her own smoke, it takes practice on their part to realize that it is 'there.' I suspect this is an individual skill, not one that comes automatically with any cultural territory.