Look Up

I went to a talk today given by a friend of mine who’s a Tourist Guide in a number of cities and towns around the UK, including Stratford upon Avon. What we got was an extremely interesting talk punctuated by some quite amazing tales of her experiences with that strangest of breed, the American Tourist.
It’s a very sad thing to say especially in this day and age, but our cousins from over the water do appear to have a very insular world view and a complete lack of any historical sense. No wonder so many of them don’t have any problem with Creationism.

Anyway, my friend told us of the American woman in her tour party who caused havoc in a Stratford bookshop, by insisting on a signed copy of all Shakespeare’s plays.

She also told the tale of the American on a tour of the Cotswolds who wondered why the roads were so narrow, asking aloud ‘Why the builders hadn’t anticipated the growth of traffic’?

The American couple who had visited Shakespeare’s Birthplace and whose next port of call was ‘Hiawatha’s Cottage’.

And finally the American who wanted to know ‘If Elisabeth Arden was a relation of Shakespeare’?...and so on.



At the end of a very interesting and amusing talk about her experiences, my tourist guide friend gave a wonderful yet simple piece of advice to all of us who like to visit different places...

‘Look up’ .