How not to be an Ugly American

As someone who has done a fair amount of international travel over the past decade, I’ve always tried not to look like a tourist. It took some time, and I’ve never been completely successful, but I did learn some of the tricks.

Many of those tricks can be found on this Web site .

I’d add a few more. If, say, you’re visiting – oh, I don’t know, maybe Palermo, Sicily – and you visit a church with ancient mosaics , don’t do any of the following:

– Don’t get into a loud argument with your wife about whether, after having spent the day in 100-degree-plus heat, it’s worth the effort to step into yet another old church.

– Especially when the people guarding the entrance of said church look at you, dressed in your shorts, polo short and running shoes, as if you’d just spit on the grave of their mothers.

– But then when they look at your wife and, even though she’s the one who wants to go inside, they say that SHE can’t go in because she isn’t wearing anything over her shoulders.

– And don’t continue the argument, letting your voice rise even more, when your wife suggests (as only she can in a way that sounds reasonable but lets you know that YOU HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER) that you should go in alone and, after admiring these ancient mosaic treasures, come back out, strip off your sweat-soaked polo shirt and let her drape it over her shoulders so that she can admire them, too.

– Whatever you do, don’t complicate matters by resisting, or then by insisting that she go in alone, or by saying that you’re hot and tired and DON’T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO with a place of such uncompromising rigidity, not to mention sexism, no matter how priceless the so-called mosaic treasures are.

– Because that’s likely to lead to your storming out of the church, tearing your shirt off, throwing it on the ground and, in general, making yourself look like a complete American horse’s ass to the delight of a crowd of gawking Sicilian men sitting on a nearby park bench.

– So simply just do what we did then: Go to a souvenir shop, throw 10 euro at the kid behind the counter, pick a “I HEART SICILY” T-shirt off the rack, hand it to your wife, help her pull it on, return to the church, brave the glares of the guards, nod your head knowingly at the world treasures, leave the church hand-in-hand, return to your hotel room, shower, go have a nice dinner, and, after eating another in a long line of plates of Pasta alla Norma , try not to wince when you think of the stories that those Sicilians are going to be telling for years about the crazy Americans and their penchant for disrobing in public.

Words to live by, folks. Just saying.