The combination of excruciatingly (unnaturally) slow walking pace, the random and unexpected stopping in the most awkward places possible to take photos and the half hour it takes them to get on the bus having checked every stop it stops at combines to send my blood-pressure skyrocketing. And that's not to mention luggage. Roller suitcases and my feet are not friends so please stop introducing them to each other. And backpacks. What is it with backpacks, bumbags and strange little shoulder pouches. Why is it people who can sensibly get around their home city on the contents of their pockets and maybe a small handbag suddenly feel the need to carry enough kit to make a para weep. Wherever you are, I can assure you that you almost certainly won't need it.
As you have probably guessed, I am a passionate advocate of pavements in big cities being divided into lanes; one for people who actually want to get somewhere and one for those that are dawdling.
It was with some trepidation therefore, that I agreed to go to portugal this weekend with my girlfriend. Having freely aired these views on tourists many times, I was determined not to act like that myself. Not only that, but I hate feeling like a tourist too. It feels so contrived. Some of the best experiences I've had abroad have been when I have been staying with locals. Although I was still far from blending in to the background, at least I was seeing local things from a local perspective.
First things first, the bare minimum was packed in an holdall with no backpack in sight. A guide book was purchased and flicked through and the loud shirts left in the cupboard. When we got there, we planned out a rough itinerary before researching the public transport system (and where everything went) and memorising a few basic phrasebook sayings. I know everyone speaks English but it, in my mind, is extremely poor form not to have a few linguistic niceties to start conversations when we are guests in other people's countries.
Most impressively of all, I managed to get my girlfriend to ration down what she took around with her on a daily basis and talk her out of taking photos every 32.5 seconds so we actually got to do some exploring and see the place.
After all that, it turned out to be a brilliant weekend. We suited ourselves exploring the city at our leisure (and travelling round it without disrupting the public transport network), saw the local sites and best of all (for me at least) tried the local food; usually by the failsafe method of opting for the most unusal-sounding thing on the menu.
All in all a thoroughly good weekend.
JR
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