Tourist or not tourist?

I spent two weeks this summer in the Netherlands, a countryIonce lived in and still know well. I was there for both work and play and spent most of my days wandering around the city of Delft on foot or bicycle, taking pictures. Yes, I am American — pretty typically so — but when I touched ground at the airport atSchiphol(yes, I can actually pronounce it properly in Dutch), I was determined NOT to be labeled an American tourist.

Don’t pretend you don’t know what an American tourist is: loud and obnoxious, over-dressed and over-eager, full of questions that natives regard as stupid, insensitive, bumbling and intrusive. You know the look — baseball hats perched proudly,professing a favorite team or university, and kids in athletic shorts and sneakers. The children are herded along by dads sporting Tevas and socks, a combination for which no one should be forgiven, no matter the vacation.

American tourists also love to take photographs. Since my project this summer involved photographing Delft, I made a conscious effort to only take photos surreptitiously. I was not the guy with the camera dangling from his neck, taking photos of everything that moved, waving for his kids to smile and pose, as they pretended to be happy at the thirteenth cultural site visit of the morning. Do I even need to mention the fanny pack? In my mind, American tourists seem to do their best to be both unabashedly intrusive to the local culture and aggressively patriotic. The combination tends to result in an outsider who’s constantly demanding attention but deserving none.

I did not want to be associated with that particular American archetype. I love my country, butI know from experience that once I confess my American identity, people start to askwhether Massachusetts (or Princeton)isanywhere near the Jersey Shore and if Ihavemet Snooki,so I consciously try to steer the conversation away from questions of where I might be from.I wanttoslip back into beinga part of the environment and culture that I had once participated in seamlessly.

I usually pull off being Dutch passably well. When I speak the language, the accent is there, but not strong enough to indicateany particular nationality.I dress with a certain “European style” that I’ve adopted and embrace as my own. I smile at strangers occasionally, but not as openly or as boldly as American tourists tend to do. I know my way around Holland on public transportation or on a bike (the preferred mode of transportation among locals) and don’t need to ask for directions. I feel like a native, and I’m proud.

However, thereare alwaysthe occasional slip-ups that bring me back to my American reality. For instance,about halfway through my summer trip,when I walked into a local cafe and asked for an iced coffee. Looking at the menu and seeing only specialty items, I tried to clarify in my prettiest Dutch.Ik wil graag een ijs-koffie—maar zonder melk, alsjeblieft.“I would like an iced coffee but without milk, please.” The barista looked at me askance. I was sure it was not my accent she didn’t understand; the words were too simple to be misheard. “Koffie” is coffee and “melk” is milk. It was the fact that I wanted my coffeewith“geen melk,”or “withoutmilk,” that tripped her up. She stared at me like I was from Pluto — the foreign, rejected planet.

“You mean ... espresso with ice? Black coffee on top of ice?” she asked.

“Uhh yeah. You know, coffee made cold with ice. Just no milk,” I explained.

Apparently, it was a hard concept to understand. And, honestly, in the Netherlands, itis. Milk is an integral part of Dutch culture, so anyone who chooses not to add it to every aspect of their life (coffee, tea, dessert platters, shoe sales, fancy galas, who knows what) is, for all intents and purposes, mentally deranged.

It was a face-off. I looked at the barrista with consternation. Why couldn’t she understand that I wanted a regular iced coffee? She looked back at me with disbelief clearly wondering what kind of oddball orders coffee without milk, that sweet nectar from a cow’s udder so essential to a meaningful existence?

And then the kicker, as she handed me my “eccentric” order:

“You have a slight accent — are you American, maybe?”