Yo Duuuuddee!
It’s getting to the end of the academic year and it seems like there are more foreign students on the streets. Maybe it’s just that they’re venturing out now the rain has stopped. One of the places I get on t’web is Cafe Oriental. It’s got reasonably fast wifi, it’s big enough so you can loose yourself in the back with a small beer and the staff are friendly. As such it’s a popular hangout for the foreign students. These seem to be in two main groups, the Germans and the Americans. The German students were in the other night with painted faces looking all expectant and then really unhappy as the football played out in front of them. It was unusual to notice the Germans because usually they’re drowned out by the Americans.
I like Americans (with some noteable exceptions… Baaaahhhhb for one). They’re usually unfailingly polite, friendly and open (too open sometimes). But there’s one thing that I don’t like and that’s the way their voices seem to have an extra piercing quality. The Spanish can be loud, ear splitting sometimes, but the American students seem to posess some chalk on a blackboard tone to their voices which, even though they’re not shouting, means you can’t help but hear how they’re progressing with their studies, what they think of Spain, how there’s no decent food here (!!!) and how it’s not like home (duh). I don’t want this information, I don’t want to know, I don’t care, but I can’t help but hear it. It irritates me, it feels like they’re being boastful, proud and culturally riding roughshod over the rest of us… I don’t believe that but it’s what their voices do to me. I want to go over and tell them to shut up, to at least be a little quieter, to calm down. I won’t though, for a start they’d look at me blankly and give each other WTF looks because most of what I’m feeling is in my head. Secondly I won’t because, well, I’m English and we don’t do that sort of thing.
Tags: cafe
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