scurry

<BR>Believe me, this is not a troll, I just thought it was funny seeing how different Europeans stand in line (or more on point -- how they don't) for train tickets, etc. <BR> <BR>This one little frenchman stood behind me so closely that I turned around thinking it was my wife. <BR> <BR>I've also noticed that if there are three ticket windows, Europeans will queue up in three separate lines -- while Americans would more likely have one line where the head goes to the next available window. <BR> <BR>However, I also greatly appreciate how many train stations' information desks employ the take-a-number system. This really allows you to rest your feet. <BR> <BR>Anyone else notice this international quirk?

Linda

I've long studied the way different cultures "queu up". Or lack of it! For instance, in southern Italy, sometimes there is NO line. They simply mob around the window and the one that gets noticed first gets waited on first. So it's easy for somebody to get waited on first, even if they arrived later than one who got there before them. Just a quirk of a different culture. It's not rudeness, just something different. I love it!

Ed

'Tis a funny phenomenon indeed. <BR> <BR>New Yorkers have a well-deserved reputation for being pushy. When I first started commuting there, though, I was stunned to find people leaving the subway stop in Queens and queueing up quite sedately for the Q10 bus. <BR> <BR>On the other hand the Italians have, in many respects, a resputation for gentility. I recall, though, going with Italian friends to a set of caves down in the south of Italy. Both are quite gentle, educated persons. We had to queue up (actually milling around in a mob that pressed closer and closer together as time wore on). Once the door to the grottoes was opened the stampede was one of the scariest things I've ever been in ... it couldn't have been worse if it were a fire in circus tent. My friend's wife, 5'2" of the gentle soul, pushed me implacably to the stairs and down them, pell mell. Don't know how I kept from falling. She would have made a darned good pulling guard in the NFL when she was a bit younger. <BR> <BR>I've seen nothing quite so bad since in Italy, though I'm very careful around lines there when I perceive there are more Italians than tourists about. <BR> <BR>twenj

sandi

My husband and I marvelled at this the 2 weeks we were in Italy. Everyone cut in front of us at the train station or at an espresso bar. Most of the time it was no big deal but I did get onto a guy that stepped in front of just as I was approaching the counter to purchase something. He acted like he never saw me. An old woman stpped in front of me as my turn was up at a train ticket counter. She walk to the front of a long line and stpeed right up to the counter in front of me. My Italian friend, and a French friend say that they never stand in line and think it's silly that American do that.

Howard

Ed, I'll let your comment about New Yorkers have a well deserved reputation for being pushy pass without comment for the sake of decorum on the Fodor's board.

Capo

For the most part, I can't recall people not standing in line, or being pushy, ever being that much of a problem in the places I've been in Europe. I think the single worst experience with pushiness I ever had was at a beer garden I went outside Munich with a German friend of mine. There was, ostensibly, a line, but almost everyone -- even kindly looking old ladies -- kept elbowing and shoving. We were really surprised at first...but then just elbowed and shoved right back. :~) <BR> <BR>When we were trying to get info about changing to a Eurostar train at an info window at the Naples train station a few months ago, a few younger guys kept trying to cut in front of my girlfriend & I but, almost like a game of fencing, we just kept parrying every thrust of theirs until we made it to the window. I was especially impressed by the way my girlfriend kept outmanuevering the guy on her side of the line. <BR> <BR>Re: scurry's comment "I've also noticed that if there are three ticket windows, Europeans will queue up in three separate lines -- while Americans would more likely have one line where the head goes to the next available window." <BR> <BR>Interesting. I wonder if that one-line-next-available-window concept -- which I like since, if there are multiple lines, I'm one of those people who inevitably always ends up choosing the slowest-moving line -- <I>is</I> used more in America than in European countries. <BR>

Ed

Ah, the heck with decorum Howard: <BR> <BR>Wanna fight?! ) <BR> <BR>But seriously, I grew up &gt;almost&lt; in NYC (12 miles from Times Square in Joisey), worked there for many years in my 20s and 50s and consider myself a virtual (non-pushy) New Yorker. Having spent more time than needs to be disclosed here buying bagels in the morning, braving subways and els (I'm that old) and taking the daily dare to dance past the homeless and mentally unbalanced in Grand Central Station ... I feel I have a right to say anything I like about "us" New Yawkahs.

top

top

Ana

While showing friends the tourist sites in Ireland, I often sees German tourists cut into lines. I've only seen Germans do this.

Andy

Ana: I will bet you never have been to Israel.

lineup

The absolute winners in this category are Japanese tourists. (The previous post about Germans is a natural opening for WWII jokes, but I'll resist the temptation.) <BR>For some reason, the Japanese think it's OK to elbow, push, slink, slip, and slide. We noticed it in Rome when I was there with my two sons. They're each about 6 feet tall and weigh 200 lbs., and thought it was quite funny when a 5-foot Japanese tried to push them aside.

nancy

Thanks for the warning guys! <BR>We leave for Rome in 10 more days <BR>Yippee!!

julie

It has been my observation in my long life of travel that people in groups, especially tour groups who feel that the 'group' gives them some sort of anominity (sp?) behave that way. My worst experience was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, when a 747 full of Syrian women going to the 'Hadj" arrived in the terminal. Past all the weary travelers they circled to the front of the line and just put their selves, complete with veils, at the front. Some English folk who had been standing patiently for eons took umbridge and a near riot ensued. I have seen French groups push past other groups waiting to get into castles, elbows flailing, and have seen german skiiers ski right over the flat of your skis to get in the front of the lift lines. The truth is, and this goes for Americans, people tend to be more rude in groups. Japanese have a very elaborate set of polite rules they use with family, friends, peers, but almost never in public...I think they view public areas as war zones. Ditto Chinese. Almost got stomped trying to get on a plane in Thailand. The English are the only people I have encountered who queue by instinct. The first sign I saw from the airport the first time I went to London was "Queue Up! It's the British way!" Sadly, I think this habit has been somewhat eroded by huge influx of people from other cultures.

John

Funny! I thought this only happened on the Ski lift lines! When we go to Europe with a group we always employ what we call the "German Lift Line routine 7" That is where we lock arms and dare anyone to break through! The skiers behind us are incredulous to what the Americans are doing! This only works if you are BIGGER than them, our outnumber them! <BR>JOHN <BR> <BR>John

Erik

i am geram and i can tell you we hate <BR>to stand in line. soif there is a possebility to cout into line germans will do that.

Ana

EVERYONE hates to wait in line. But some of us are more polite than others. <BR> <BR>No, Andy, I haven't been to Israel. It's very high on my list. Will I be subjected to constant line jumping? I'll have to put on a few pounds and grow a few inches.

Hans H

Actually it's very impolite to cut lines in Germany, too. I'm pretty sure that I notice it if someone cuts in front of me in a line and so from my experience, it's rare event. But I think that there might be a cultural difference in evaluating when a line is formed and it gets impolite to cut in front of someone else. <BR> <BR>I remember a bus stop in England where a line was preformed by railings and people started to form a line within these railings more than 15 minutes before the bus arrived. It never even occured to me to do such a thing. If these railings hadn't been there, I might very well have cut the line and walked to its head because it wouldn't have been clear to me that the others had actually formed a line. It wouldn't have crossed my mind that someone could care about keeping the order of arrival at a bus stop. <BR> <BR>A similar situation exists in case of ski lifts. People arrive and form a rough line which moves forward. But nobody really cares whether the exact order of arrival is kept. It's more like a traffic jam where you aren't offended if a car in the middle lane inches a few yards in front of a car in the left lane. I can understand that people look incredulous at skiers locking arms in front of them. If you just go with the flow, people arrive at their destination more or less in the order of their arrival at the end of the traffic jam. Of course, if you don't move into openings in front of you, someone else will. <BR> <BR>I don't think that this has something to do with polite or impolite but rather with the preferences differing cultures have. Germans (and I think most of continental Europeans) don't want to form a single, disciplined line in which the order of arrival rules supreme. If they are in a country where this is the normal, their normal behaviour will seem impolite. On the other hand, if in Germany someone in front of me defends his place while entering a bus because he thinks that he has the right to do so, I would consider that behaviour unnecessarily aggressive and therefore impolite.

Kavey

Saw this and thought of this post... <BR> <BR>An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one. <BR>--George Mikes

clairobscur

I do agree with Hans, I would certainly be incredulous too seeing people locking arms in front of me at a bus stop or any such place and would be annoyed by this behaviour.

Mike

There was a TV show in the UK which tried some experimental psychology round this for English, German, Japanese and American. <BR> <BR>The American plant who rushed to the front of the queue at meals found herself the butt of lots of friendly but pointed banter. When meal times came round, other members of the party would anticipate her behaviour and start making a joke of it before it happened! However, the group remained highly sociable. <BR> <BR>The Japanese became quite aggressive. <BR> <BR>As I remember it (bit hazy on this one), the Germans actually confronted the queue pusher and challenged him to justify his behaviour. <BR> <BR>The English experiment failed! The woman was too embarrassed to push in front, even though she was being paid to do it!