British tourists in New York dazed, feeling poorer after Brexit

reuters.com ^ | June 24, 2016 | Stephanie Kelly

[Berlin_Freeper]

British tourists Britain visiting New York awoke Friday to news of their country's vote to leave the European Union and, in daze over the surprise outcome, had to contend immediately with effectively higher costs for everything as the pound plummeted.

"Apocalyptic," is how South London resident Greg Rowland, 49, described the referendum results while making his way through the tumult of Times Square.

One of the biggest effects for British travelers abroad was a sharp drop in the British currency. At one point on Friday, sterling fell over 11 percent to its lowest level in over 30 years, $1.3228.

[Gamecock]

For years I felt broke in the UK, what with a rate of almost $2-1.

[dfwgator]

I can imagine right after the US gained independence from Britain many of the colonists were just as apoplectic. “Oh my God, what are we going to do without British Support, the French and Spanish will invade.......yadda yadda yadda.”

[SandwicheGuy]

Absolutely Brilliant!

[miss marmelstein]

They want cheap trips to Greece and Italy. Well, they're not going to get it but they will get something else: respect for their country - one of the greatest in history - and the pride to know they stood up to the whole western world and said No. Not everything is chips and spaghetti in Taoromina.

[truth_seeker]

Had the good fortune to take a trip to Canada, at a time of very favorable exchange rates.

Hotel and nice meals were downright reasonable. Great values.

Now those favorable rates are back, and this time for the UK as well.

[SaveFerris]

Yes, almost as if they had them prepped and ready to go.....

I like how Costa Rica was already feeling the pinch, when hardly 12 hours had passed since it was being called for Leave.

[dfwgator]

Yes I quite agree with you, I mean what's the point of being treated like a sheep, I mean I'm fed up with going abroad and being treated like a sheep, what's the point of being carted around in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their 'Sunday Mirrors', complaining about the tea, 'Oh they don't make it properly here do they not like at home' stopping at Majorcan bodegas, selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in cotton sun frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh cos they 'overdid it on the first day'!.....And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Bontinentals with their international luxury modern roomettes and their Watney's Red Barrel and their swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats and forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging in to the queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss your bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night there's a bloody cabaret in the bar featuring some tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some big fat bloated tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners........And then some adenoidal typists from Birmingham with diarrhoea and flabby white legs and hairy bandy-legged wop waiters called Manuel, and then, once a week there's an excursion to the local Roman ruins where you can buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleedin' Watney's Red Barrel, and one night they take you to a local restaurant with local colour and colouring and they show you there and you sit next to a party of people from Rhyl who keeps singing 'Torremolinos, Torremolinos' and complaining about the food - 'Oh! It's so greasy isn't it?' and then you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic and Dr Scholl sandals and last Tuesday's 'Daily Express' and he drones on and on and on about how Mr. Smith should be running this country and how many languages Enoch Powell can speak and then he throws up all over the Cuba Libres......And sending tinted postcards of places they don't know they haven't even visited, 'to all at number 22, weather wonderful, our room is marked with an "X". Wish you were here.'......'Food very greasy but we have managed to find this marvellous little place hidden away in the back streets.'....Where you can even get Watney's Red Barrel and cheese and onion...'...crisps and the accordionist plays "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner"' and spending four days on the tarmac at Luton airport on a five-day package tour with nothing to eat but dried Watney's sandwhiches.... ......and there's nowhere to sleep and the kids are vomitting and throwing up on the plastic flowers and they keep telling you it'll only be another hour although your plane is still in Iceland waiting to take some Swedes to Yugoslavia before it can pick you up on the tarmac at 3 a.m. in the bloody morning and you sit on the tarmac till six because of 'unforeseen difficulties'. i.e. the permanent strike of Air Traffic Control in Paris, and nobody can go to the lavatory until you take off at eight, and when you get to Malaga airport everybody's swallowing Enterovio form tablets and queuing for the toilets and when you finally get to the hotel, there's no water in the taps, there's no water in the pool, there's no water in the bog and there's a bleeding lizard in the bidet, and half the rooms are double-booked and you can't sleep anyway...

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

That is freaking awesome!

[SaveFerris]

ping

[miss marmelstein]

Delivered by the great Eric Idle. The Brits certainly have a gift for vitriol. I was amazed in Sicily to find how many Brits ate spaghetti with chips and cheap beer.

[RegulatorCountry]

They weren’t exactly living in a vacuum just because they were on holiday in New York City. They could see the volatility in exchange rates just as easily as anyone else. A more proactive sort could have paid the hotel bill in advance, converted some currency to pay for activities and meals to avoid taking a big hit on exchange rates. Instead, they’re acting as if they’re purely at the mercy of events totally outside their control.

[RAldrich]

How could the Leave vote possibly win? We don’t know anyone who voted for it.

[SGNA]

The exit poll data on political ideology say it all.

[Rusty0604]

They could have just exchanged their pounds for dollars beforehand for their trip. Just saying.

[Wayne07]

BTW, for Monty Python fans, John Cleese was a rare supporter of Brexit in the art world...

[familyop]

Tourists in New York? That doesn’t make sense.

[Rusty0604]

Wow! That is what I call good optics!

[dfwgator]

And Cleese is a big-time Lefty. This issue transcended Left and Right.

[crz]

Which gives me a thought. Does that VAT tax end now?

[familyop]

Good one!