I am not surprised, I am jokingly referred to as the "Poor American" in Ireland where I go to medical school. Dublin is actually even more expensive than Venice for a lot of things. On occasion when someone hears my accent, I tell them I'm Canadian, it usually helps avoid any kind of potential arguments, sometimes I pretend I can't speak. Despite a lot of similarities between Europeans and Americans, the USA is not popular in this part of the world, it was under the surface until recently, but its more open now and even fashionable. A lot of people here were upset about Bush's Iraq War, and now that they were right about Bush, that he screwed up and now the US is in deep trouble economically, many people are rubbing it in. I think the owner of that restaurant seemed to just rub it in about America's bad luck.