While swimming in the pool his afternoon, Tim asked Stasha today if there was anything that would make this holiday more excellent, and she couldn't think of a thing, till this afternoon. "People here are so rude, Mom! The ladies just budge in line!"
Brought up to Canadian orderliness, she finds this deeply offensive. We have to admit that the Russians, in particular, are pretty in-your-face, to put it mildly.
"I can't tell if they're having an argument, or just an ordinary conversation" Tim murmered at lunch the other day. Certainly whether talking on a cell phone or just chewing food, they seem to be doing whatever they're doing with a sort of everyday aggression that's baffling to us.
Russians seem to be the majority here, closely followed by Germans; only today have there been any English speakers and even then, they remain sparse. Any unilingual Amglophones coming here hoping to make new friends would be sorely disappointed. Fortunately, being a self-contained family unit, we're content to talk amongst ourselves. It's still hard not to observe the general behaviour of the other guests and how they treat the wait staff; Tim and I had earlier speculated that the relative taciturnicity of the staff, compared to the ebulliantly friendly Istanbulli and Smyrnians, was due to the language barrier. Now we think it's more to do with having to constantly deal with Russians and Germans.
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