scrubbedexpat097

Is it green? (Spit, not floor)

Gorgieboy

I am sure there are horror stories of foreigners and ex-pats travelling. I would have the same sympath for them as I do these three American kids. I wouldn't be chastising them for being 'stupid' or 'not planning properly'.

Englishtart

I bet they won't try it again though, without 'planning it properly', so lesson learned as far as I can see!

As stated above, they didn't 'suffer' too much in the end, I for one, don't think they earned it though!

meauxna

Even they get it, G.
meh, it's not much in the big scheme of things.

dunroving

That's the problem with society today - when someone acts like a dumbass, the appropriate response is to feel compassion and bail them out instead of telling them they acted like a dumbass. So we end up facilitating learned helplessness.

Sometimes people need to be chastised, it builds character. Besides, I don't think those guys will be reading BE so their feelings won't get hurt (and by extension, they don't need you to throw a pity party for them and get grieved on their behalf). Or did the US change from the Land of the Free to the Land of the Easily Offended while my back was turned?

lapin_windstar

Are you an example of someone that's had character built by chastisement?

dunroving

Well I've been told I'm a naughty boy on more than one occasion ...

cindyabs

It's been a few years since I've traveled across the pond, but if I remember correctly, the card we fill out on the plane asks for an address of where we are going to be.

Bonny Boy

Yes, but suppose like them you are backpacking, travelling from place to place? Furthermore, I prefer to find somewhere when I arrive, I can have a look at places and decide what is suitable and then negotiate face to face on price.

These guys had not come to sponge!

dunroving

I used to like hitch-hiking on the motorways, but AFAIK it's now illegal. It used to be possible to travel internationally without a passport. No longer possible. Not long ago, you could take a tube of toothpaste onto a plane. No go these days.

The world has changed. Whether for the better or worse, these systems are now in place and we have to take responsibility for fitting in with the requirements of whatever countries we want to visit. That's why I didn't wear my Borat thong last time I visited Dubai.

scrubbedexpat097

TMI my friend

Oddy

Yeah, the world has changed a lot...sometimes for the worse.
These guys would have avoided tons of trouble if they had booked a room somewhere their first night out of the US.

elfman

the first time I came to the USA was as a backpacker in 1992 and I hadn't actually aranged anywhere to stay, but I knew I was heading for the Youth Hostel in New York up by Columbia University, so that's the address I put on the landing card. The Immigration bloke at JFK then argued with me, insisting that I'd got the name wrong and that it was called the YMCA (a completely different place in midtown). We went back and forth for a while until he gave me a stern "don't argue with me" look, scribbled out "Youth Hostel" and wrote "YMCA" over it, then waved me through. I suspected that so long as you at least gave them something vaguely sensible in the address field they didn't really give a toss.

Bonny Boy

Agree, just say 'Motel 6' in some nearby town (and hope there is one...)

Stayed at the mid-town Y back in the mid-eighties when passing through NY.

To some of the above...yes, the world has changed I guess. Just read Patrick Fermors 'A Time of Gifts' in which as a young man in the 1930's he set off from London, across the Channel to the Hook of Holland and then walked to Constantinople (now Istanbul); he had a passport, but visas not required.

To what extent do you just 'accept' the rules, and 'fit in' though?

dunroving

To the extent that you can afford to resist. If you can't afford to cancel your trip to Ireland and buy a one-way ticket back, then follow the rules. It's hardly like these guys are being asked to give up their left bollock - all they needed to do was demonstrate they could fund their trip and had some idea where they woud stay. There are far more important infringements on our liberties than that. If you don't want to fit in, then you find a way to be different that doesn't cost you your holiday.

I've been refused boarding to a transatlantic flight twice due to US visa problems, In both cases, I was pretty pissed (on both occasions, it was due to me accepting advice from people I shouldn't have trusted) but I wasn't pissed at the system, more at my own stupidity for not making sure I had my sh*t together. On neither occasion would I have expected to be front page news and get a free paid holiday out of my crass ignorance.