i now declare tourism illegal

I don’t like tourists. In fact I think they are the biggest menace of a city dweller.  I don’t like them to the extent that if a new directive from the side of the EU was to forbid all unnecessary (i.e. not work related) travel I would be behind it 110%.

At work we used to like American tourists. Firstly they would always arrive an hour or two earlier than everybody else and then ask for the bill as soon as they had taken the last bite of their desert. And they would always leave a huge tip behind. Now, when dollar is worth zilch and its value is falling like a skydiver wearing a lead belt, the well tipping American tourist is history and hence I can no longer find any benefits arising from the millions of tourists cramming the streets of Paris.

Only a tourist will stop in the middle of his step to take a photograph. This means that as soon as the sun is out (when it rains they have umbrellas which just makes them worse) you have people stopping right there and then in front of you because they have “seen something nice”. And then the posing takes up the whole width of the road, leaving you standing there like a fool, watching your watch and hoping that the time would realise that it better stop for the period of this unexpected nuisance. (Not to mention the fact that I have a bruise on my knee because some idiot thought it would be better to take the photo a bit further away and stepped backwards into the road and as I was on my bike and had a long line of cars on the other side I was forced to make a sudden stop. Not good.)

Only a tourist couple in love will stop their bikes in the middle of the biking lane to smooch and be all in romantic and unable to wait until the next street light to get off their bikes (maybe the Eiffel Tower could not be seen from there). Due to the deadly hazard this wonderful show of emotion creates I vote that kissing in traffic is declared illegal.

Only a tourist will stand in the line at the bakery while waiting for his friends. And because he is still waiting he does not know what the friends might possibly like to eat and hence he cannot order but as he is in the line he cannot be passed and the whole process of buying bread – which normally in France works amazingly smoothly – comes to a standstill. 

 Only a tourist has 5hours for lunch and hence will not understand that the waiters or the waitress might possibly like to leave the restaurant because their shift has ended. Whereas a normal customer understands that the fact that their bill was put on the table an hour ago and lights were turned off and the waitress is pulling her coat on means that it is about time to take a hike, a tourist will think that it’s a nice gesture from the restaurant to make the atmosphere more romantic or more “French”.

Only a tourist will stop a runner at the entrance to the Metro to ask for directions. Because obviously looking from the enormous map situated just behind him in basically every single metro station in Paris would be too difficult.

And don’t let me get started on the Anglophones…