A Stereotypical Post

My impressions of various nationalities that I've encountered while studying abroad here in Toulouse. AKA my most offensive post yet.

The 3 most represented nationalities:

Chinese

There are a surprising number of Chinese students studying here in Toulouse, though it's hard for me to make too many generalizations since they're always together, speaking Chinese (hey, there's 1 down!). To sum up the general impression given off, I'll give you an illustration of the difference between the Chinese and the European (/occidental) students:
All of the "Erasmus" (blanket name for int'l) students have one lecture class together each semester. For the first...few months... of the lecture, you would walk in to the course and see the first 3 rows or so of the Chinese students, all with their electronic translators at hand, and then a few rows back the European students started, all trying to be as far back in the room as possible. If you walked in to said course while it was in progress, you would see the Chinese students silently taking notes, and the Europeans talking amongst themselves, checking out facebook, drinking coffee, and so on.

Italians
My French class here is half Italian, actually, which is pretty fantastic since they all have wonderful, Italian-sounding names (Alessandro, Lorenzo, Roberta, Davide, Giorgia...). The general stereotype for the Italians, which has held true way too often, is that they will be late. To everything. The trend lately has been to give a time half an hour earlier to the Italians so they will be less late (though we've found that 1 hour to 2 hours is a reasonable estimation of when they will arrive, depending on the person and the event).
They also really like their coffee. And think the pizza here is disgusting (though I'll have to agree with them on that one).

Germans
Stuck together like the Italians at the beginning, though most dispersed eventually. They've got a reputation for drinking - which they have done, and quite often with beer, yes - but I was surprised to find them out-drunken (not a word, but I'm too lazy to figure out a more appropriate one) by quite a few other nationalities who were much less represented, yet still made amazing showings in the drinking department.
Such nationalities include the Czechs (seriously, it was like their mothers' milk), and the Polish (who had an affinity for vodka, big surprise there), and even the few Colombians represented. Still, it was when I was with the Germans that it was decided to sit around drinking on the steps of a church in Montpellier, so it's not like they've lost the game here.


Any nationalities you'd like addressed? Do the Spanish really like their siestas? Do the French drink to get drunk? Swedes - blonde? The answer to these questions is yes, actually (though you could have put an effort into making the last one a complete sentence - I mean, come on), but if you have any others, feel free to leave a comment, and I'd be quite happy to respond.