The Worst Things Brits Have Done Abroad

Every summer, Brits descend on Europe like a Biblical plague of locusts, lurching from Irish bar to Irish bar, demanding cheap pints and “chips, por favor”. Amid the sunburn and disgraceful lack of effort at speaking the local language, for our latest trick, we’ve managed to get minibars banned from hotels on the Costa Blanca, after one in three British tourists admitted to filling the bottles back up with water and/or piss to avoid paying for drinks.

This, obviously, is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the terrible things Brits do when set free from the shackles of their everyday life, dizzy on sun, freedom and €5 fishbowls, so inspired by the intrepid business minds turning their urine into cold hard cash (sort of), we asked a few 20-somethings: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done as a Brit abroad?” The general verdict is that we’ve been real twats in Spain and owe it an apology:

Jamie, 28

I went to Leipzig on a stag-do last year, because we’d all been told that “Leipzig is the new Berlin”. It’s not, it’s just a medium-sized city with concrete buildings. Still, we were in the Berlin mood, so bought some pills ahead of an RB Leipzig game we were going to, all dropped at half time and came up almost instantly. Cue 11 pilled-up Brits trying to hug a load of bewildered Germans and their children.

Lauren, 24

One night in Barcelona, my then-boyfriend and I got very drunk at a cocktail bar. We had a terrible relationship, so inevitably our merriment devolved into a screaming match down a charming side street, ruining everyone else’s night. I stormed off, screaming at him to fuck himself (en Inglés, sadly), as some concerned-looking locals gazed on. Lovely sangria, though!

Fred, 26

I was in Barcelona for a friend’s birthday with like eight other guys. We started drinking at Gatwick at 8AM, so by 8PM we were beyond shitfaced. Somehow, we ended up at Bar Brutal, one of the city’s best tapas restaurants, surrounded by locals and people who were clearly there for their big special holiday meal. All I remember is someone standing up to do a speech for some reason, and then everyone taking it turns for the rest of the night to stand up and do a speech, loudly and in English, literally until we paid the bill. Then someone threw up in the street outside.

John, 27

Some friends and I went to Amsterdam for King’s Day and, thanks to a heady blend of Oranjeboom and British arrogance, ended up commandeering someone’s rowboat and paddling out into the middle of the canal to do cocaine. The poor guy came out of his house and shouted at us until we came back to shore.

Laura, 28

I went to a nudist spa in Berlin with a bunch of my friends and did a bomb of MDMA before getting in a sauna, which I suppose is less obnoxious behaviour and more a massive risk to my own life.

Joel, 31

Most Brit abroad thing I’ve ever done is just fully vomited in a shower and just, like, left it there. Like I was showering, and then I vomited, sort of in the shower and sort of out of it. And the flat was a complete state at this time – lots of contorted bedding on the floor, and like whole bags of crisps open and crushed, and bottles of lager, and vomit, and the sort of residue that comes with vomit (spit, after-vomit), and I just thought: I’m not cleaning this up. I have to get out of this country. This is Spain’s problem, now. And I flew home feeling terrible and still, broadly, do.

Alice, 27

Me and some friends went to a karaoke place in LA’s Koreatown and finished off a bag of K I’d accidentally brought on the plane with me. I have almost zero recollection of what happened for the next few hours, but we all compared photos the next morning and it looked like a fucking disaster: people visibly K-holing by the bar, one of my friends trying to wrestle a microphone off a guy who worked there, a random Australian girl we’d forgotten about, who came into our karaoke room and just laid down on a bench, retching for half an hour. Weirdly, they didn’t bar us or anything, just happily waved us off at 1AM.

Daisy, 28

Does running through Budapest screaming “It’s coming home!” count?