My recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, was a trip full of firsts for me. It was my first experience of tourism in Mexico, my first time swimming in the Pacific Ocean, and my first time tasting the kind of primo tequila they just don't export this far North.
It's worth noting that I was there for the better part of January, so I got to experience Puerto Vallarta at its full glory before the recent cartel violence. It's such a relief to know that things have returned to normal in the city, and that the locals and expats I got to know there are once again safe.
I'm not usually a "resort" kind of person, so my two-week stay in a luxury hotel in Puerto Vallarta really opened my eyes to the huge differences between Canadian and American tourists on vacation.
Obviously, these are generalizations, and there are exceptions to every rule. But here were the super-obvious differences I spotted between Canadians and Americans during my trip:
Americans are LOUD
I've travelled extensively through the U.S., even living in the South for months at a time. But when I'm in the States, I've never clocked just how loudly Americans speak.
But once I got to Mexico, I realized that Canadians and Mexicans speak at what I would personally consider a "normal" volume, and Americans SHOUT in comparison.
I could often hear entire conversations Americans were having 10 or 20 meters away, but I could not make out what Canadians or Mexicans were saying just one table over.
If there was a football game playing in the lobby bar, I could hear the American sports bros cheer for touchdowns from my room... on the fourth floor.
I decided to look it up, and apparently, this is totally a thing. Americans have a reputation in countries across the globe for being too loud in public places.
It seems to be one of those really specific cultural idiosyncrasies that they are entirely unaware of.
Canadians might be TOO friendly
When I'm travelling domestically or abroad, it's second nature for me (as a Canadian) to strike up conversations with other travellers. It's always fun to hear other people's tips and tricks for navigating a new city, or just to put names to the faces I see in the hotel every day.
It turns out that this is a very Canadian thing to do. I knew we had a reputation in other countries for being friendly, but I didn't realize that most travellers from outside of Canada just… don't meet new people.
They mind their own business and keep to themselves.
The Americans I tried to chat with on vacation seemed concerned that I was acknowledging them. And while Mexican tourists eventually seemed to warm up to us chatty Canadian tourists, they rarely initiated conversations.
I've heard from many French expats here in Montreal that Canadians' habit of being chatty with strangers can come across as intrusive to newcomers to Canada. It was something I tried to keep in mind during my trip so that I didn't alarm anyone with my Canadian quirks.
Americans have no table manners
Look, this isn't my nicest take, but it is what it is. I ate most of my meals in the resort buffet, and the Americans I saw had awful table manners.
They wore their baseball caps at the table. They cut people in line. They openly complained about the (frankly delicious!) food. They yelled at the wait staff. They scooped food onto their forks like shovels. They talked with their mouths full. They picked their teeth at the table.
Obviously, some of the Americans had lovely manners (mostly the older guests). And it's not like we're huge sticklers for table etiquette here in Canada, either. But my group found ourselves strategically eating at less-crowded times just to avoid the American diners. It was that bad.
Canadian men don't seem to know how to flirt
I was in Mexico for a girls' trip, so we got hit on about as often as you'd expect. I personally didn't go to Mexico looking to hook up. But a lot of people do, so we weren't surprised that we got approached.
The Mexican men were, by far, the most charming. They were somehow chivalrous while slipping in smooth double entendres in far-from-fluent English. The rizz levels were through the roof.
The American men who hit on us were definitely more up-front about it, and almost always drunk. But they were also playful and confident, and they get props for putting themselves out there.
But the Canadian men? Missing in action. Silent. Occasionally caught staring, but never found actually shooting their shot. With us, or any other women, as far as I noticed.
I really want to believe that my fellow countrymen who were staying at our resort were somehow all gay and/or partnered. But I have the sneaking suspicion that Canadian men may be too polite (or even too timid) to flirt — which is kind of adorable... but also concerning.
Americans are really hurting right now
Somewhere at the tail end of my trip, Americans started opening up to us about what they're going through at home. Maybe they'd seen us around enough that we were now familiar faces. Maybe they were freshly rattled by news from home.
Whatever prompted it, we were suddenly hearing a lot of stories from American tourists.
I was especially shaken up by a young mom we spoke to. She was taking a long-since-booked family vacation with her children, but without her husband, because he was Venezuelan and they were scared he'd get snatched by ICE at the airport.
She was even considering having her young daughter's dark hair chemically straightened to make her look more white-passing.
On one of our last nights in Mexico, one of the American tourists got up in the bar and sang a karaoke rendition of Keith Urban's Days Go By. It's a generic country song about living for today. I'd never heard it before.
But it seemed like every American in the place knew it. By the second verse, dozens of people were singing along.
What would have been a "yee-haw, YOLO" singalong just a year ago was now surprisingly heartfelt. Sincere. Mournful, even.
It clicked at that moment that, for all my annoyance at their volume and rudeness, I should have cut the American tourists some slack. They were cutting loose, escaping for just a few days from the grief of watching the country they loved fall apart in real time.
All they had was today, and they were living it.
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The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
