I was looking at someone's blog yesterday. A commenter left a comment to the effect that waitresses are rude, the customer is one big inconvenience etc etc
A few weeks ago someone we know went to Barcelona and on her return reported that all the staff in all the bars were rude and consistently ripped her off.
We have been to Berlin and Barcelona this year. Now bear in mind that neither of us speaks German; any Spanish I had previously absorbed was totally wiped out by contact with Catalan.
In both cities we found people to be helpful without exception. Good service - my quibble with Berlin would be the inordinately slow time it takes for the bill to arrive after it has been requested. But otherwise, no complaints.
I wonder why our experience was so different from other people's. Is it because of their own attitude, I wonder. "Look, mate, I'm here to spend money and I expect you to understand every word of my incoherent inarticulate colloquial English spoken in complex semi-sentences. Oi, right. Jump to it, finger out, wanker."
We adopt an attitude of slight humility, and realise that body language, especially smiles, coupled with the local equivalents of please-and-thank-you go along way.
Mind you, we did notice in Barcelona that restaurants bang on the tacky tourist trail served shit food at inflated prices. A bit like London, then. And countless other cities.
An abiding memory of Barcelona for me happened to occur on Good Friday. In that square at the top of Las Ramblas gathered a group of English rugby players, yelling and screaming a public-school oiky rugby song at the tops of their voices in a way I found initimidating even while sitting on the top deck of a bus. People like that expected to be treated with respect.
A few yards away we had a quick drink in a bar and got talking to an American, who was quite flabbergasted at the large size of the spirits measures we were poured. It turned out that he had been in Barcelona a few weeks on business and was finishing his trip with some leisure - his wife was back at the hotel. In his entire time he had only eaten at the hotel and drunk - Budweiser - in that particular bar. He thought we were very adventurous because we had eaten in restaurants on sidestreets in various areas of the city, and were just on our way to the theatre.
