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Departing the Tourist Path in Favor of Local Delights
Seeking and finding the venues that are not in the guidebooks
I certainly won’t deny that I’ve been to the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids at Giza and Teotijuacan, Picadilly Circus, and Macchu Pichu. Truthfully, though, I have found that the more I travel, the more I relish my immersion in the quotidien of the locals rather than that of my fellow travelers.
I have found several ways that do this:
Haircuts
I used to suffer from a condition I referred to as “fear of foreign haircuts.” Then, on my first visit to Barcelona in 1986, when I was looking particularly shaggy, I knew I needed to ditch that fear so that I could manage to be able to look at myself in the mirror.
Since then, I have had my hair cut in dozens of countries. In fact, on many occasions did I embark on a trip in need of a haircut, just so that I could get one overseas.
The guy in the photo on top was certainly not the barber of Seville, but he was a barber in Seville.
Secondhand stores
The Nobel Museum faces the Stortorget in Stockholm’s picturesque old city (Gamla stan). This open plaza is lined with cafes, bars, bakeries, and restaurants, most of which are patronized by the tourists visiting that part of town.
As enjoyable as it was to visit the museum and the square, all I had to do was walk half a block away in order to encounter a place that was populated exclusively by locals: a secondhand store.
That’s where I found the clay pendant you see hanging on the right in the photo above. I was intrigued when I saw it, so I did a Google translate search and learned that HÅLL UT! means “hold on!”
As a means of getting clarification, I asked one of the sales clerks if “hold on” was along the lines of “hang in there,” and she gave me an affirmative nod.
That’s a message I like, so I bought it and brought it home.
