Swimpy wrote:It was also funny to me that most of the folks I met in both Germany and Austria, thought I was from England.
That was probably an accidental compliment. I bet you made an effort to say at least a few words in German.
In my experience, this is a fairly typical gesture of goodwill for British tourists to make. American tourists, by contrast, make it quite rarely. They tend to act as if Germany was a theme park, and its inhabitants theme park employees responsible for speaking English and for generally making sure the Americans have a good time. When Americans show modesty and respect for the indigenous language, Germans find this surprising, appreciate it a lot, and easily confuse it with English manners.
