All Americans Look Alike

To celebrate our anniversary, we went out for late dinner at a nice restaraunt in our neighborhood. Afterward, we walked across the road to a hotel, intending to have an after-dinner drink. As we approached, we could hear dance music and see people in fancy dresses and suits. We thought the hotel might be hired out for a wedding reception, and we nearly decided to skip it. We wandered in anyway, and there was indeed a wedding reception in progress. A gentleman, 60ish, was looking at us pretty intently, and we agreed he was either the manager or part of the wedding party. He walked over, and I asked whether the hotel was closed for a party. He assured us that it wasn't, and that we should come along and have a drink. He seemed pretty happy to see us, and we were a little surprised when he announced that we he was going to tell his wife we were here, and herded us into the lounge in the lobby.

He brought us over to some sofas and announced "Look who I found!" to the woman and the two other couples who were seated. They all said "Hello" and started asking whether we had enjoyed dinner and so forth. We assured them that we had, and that it was our anniversary. It was the anniversary of one of the other couples, as well, so we talked about that for a bit, and moved on to who was from where (they were all visiting York from elsewhere in England) and why we were in York. They seemed surprised that we had been in York a month, and that we knew the area pretty well, and after 15 minutes or so, the gentleman who brought us over leaned to me and said "You're not the couple we met about an hour ago, are you?" I said we weren't, and he turned to the group and said "It's not them!" and everyone started laughing. It seems we looked (except for the glasses, and the hair) just like an American couple who asked these folks for directions to The Minster earlier in the evening and had chatted a bit. They thought the lost Americans were back. Well they were very nice and we spent what was left of the the evening having a beer and chatting with them about what makes Yorkshire different from and better than the rest of England. For example: in the North, people can only move there mouths east and west ("work" is pronounced WIRK; in the South, mouths only move north and south (WARK). It seemed to make sense at the time, anyway.