Acting a fool overseas...

I have been meaning to write about this topic for a while.

I always find it interesting how people around the world complain about the rude American tourists who don't respect the culture in the countries they visit, when in fact, the Brits are just as guilty.

From The Guardian:

A British couple found guilty of having sex on a beach in Dubai had their jail sentences suspended today on appeal, and are to be deported.

Michelle Palmer, 36, of Rutland, and Vince Acors, 34, from Bromley, south-east London, had their appeal granted at the court of appeal in Dubai city.

The pair, who were on bail, have been ordered to pay a fine of £170, according to Acors' solicitor in London.

Hassan Matter, who represented the couple in court, said: "The judge has cancelled the jail. He refused the prosecution appeal [for the sentences to be increased]. They are free. It's wonderful.

Who has sex on a public beach in Dubai of all places!!!

Apparently, unruliness is a trend with British tourists.

From New York Times:

“They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit,” Malia’s mayor, Konstantinos Lagoudakis, said in an interview. “It is only the British people — not the Germans or the French.”

Malia, [Greece] is the latest and currently most notorious in a long list of European resorts full of young British tourists on packaged tours offering cheap alcohol and a license to behave badly. In Magaluf and Ibiza, Spain; in Ayia Napa, Cyprus; and in the Greek resorts of Faliraki, Kavos and Laganas as well as Malia, the story is the same: They come, they drink, they wreak havoc.

“The government of Britain has to do something,” Mr. Lagoudakis said. “These people are giving a bad name to their country.”

They are also hurting themselves in the process. A recent report published by the British Foreign Office, “British Behavior Abroad,” noted that in a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007, 602 Britons were hospitalized and 28 raped in Greece, and that 1,591 died in Spain and 2,032 were arrested there.

The report did not distinguish between medical cases and arrests associated with drunkenness and those that had nothing to do with it. But it did say that “many arrests are due to behavior caused by excessive drinking.”

So it would seem. Reports of scandalous incidents rumble on regularly here and elsewhere, helping to cement Britain’s reputation as the largest exporter of inebriated hooligans in Europe.

WTF???