In the late 1960’s, we were working in Nicosia on the island of Cyprus for a week or so. We stayed in a very nice hotel — the staff seemed extremely nice and the service was excellent. After we’d been there a couple of days, we were joined by another employee of our company to help install some equipment. I’d picked him up at the airport and on the way to the hotel he made a couple of remarks about having to travel to all these third-world countries. Cyprus was by no means a third-world country in my mind and I didn’t think anything more about it.
The next morning we went to the dining room for breakfast and Ron (the new guy’s name) came in a few minutes after the rest of us. We had a carafe of coffee on the table and I poured him a cup… turned out his cup emptied the carafe. When he finished his coffee, he asked if I’d like another cup. I said I would and he called the waiter over.
(I’m going to interrupt the story here, for an informational message… the official languages of Cyprus are Greek and Turkish. English is very widely spoken everywhere by locals of all ages. This is probably because of previous British rule…) Now back to the story.
When the waiter came over, Ron pointed at his coffee cup and grunted, and grunted, and pointed and grunted. The waiter had a puzzled look on his face and looked at me and said, in perfect English, “what does he want? Another cup of coffee?”
I guess sometimes, the phrase “ugly American” really is appropriate….
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