One of the interesting aspects of travel is to see whether in fact the stereotypical images of people in certain countries do match up to real life and in some cases these stereotypes are scarily true and in other cases wide off the mark.
We often imagine the French people to take lazy lunches, scoff at authority and protest at the slightest disruption to their lifestyle: such as longer working hours or an increase in French mortgage rates. They eat nothing but onions, garlic, snails and frogs legs with a liberal dash of excellent red wine.
The Italians we see as hot headed, fiery people who wave their arms around and love their food, yet do not seem to put on an ounce. The women are sultry and beautiful and the mothers are dominant and forceful, while the men are born to be lovers, yet not quite trustworthy.
Then there are the Russians who are sly and mistrustful of authority, who eat cabbage soup and little potato pies with pickled cucumber.
And how do people see the English? Many nations see us as reserved, quiet people, who like to keep a stiff upper lip and who are content to queue without getting irate, not to mention the badly cooked and bland food that people imagine we eat all the time. How true is this stereotype of us?