Am I a Tourist? Are you?

(Day two of my self-imposed writing project)

Ezra wondered when people stop being tourists and become inhabitants. When could a city be claimed, or a town, or a country for that matter, as a home instead of a destination? Or if the place you live is stereotypically tourist destination, are you still a tourist for visiting parts of the city? And if your place is not a typical destination, does it still count as tourism if you visit a place you haven’t seen in your town or borough yet, just to see it?

He thought these things to himself while squirming through the mass of people cramming the popular Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. A sunny August day should had prepared Ezra for the sweating and undulating crowd of parents and kids, backpackers and elderly couples vying for walking space on the packed sidewalks. Looking around Ezra caught the frustrated eyes of the natives. The purposeful gait of those used to the bustle of the city was truncated by the masses. Frustrated eyes looked for pockets to dash through. Their gazes were directed forward, not up and around. Ezra felt a kinship with them, but frowned and wondered why he should.

I haven’t moved here yet. I’ve visited plenty, but that doesn’t make me a native. Is there some hard and fast point at which I stop being a visitor and become something more permanent? He escaped the crowd by dashing down the stairs into the underground pedestrian walkway. A few minutes later he arrived at a subway station. Musing on the train home he watched the city pass by.

“At what point does a tourist become a local?” Ezra asked Mary, his girlfriend of a year. Mary was seated cross-legged on the giant beanbag she had found on Craig’s List. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Looking up from her laptop, dark brown eyes met Ezra’s gray.

“When you stop going to all the touristy places, I guess, “she said.  “Why do you ask?”

“I was wandering around downtown today—“

“—That being your first mistake—“

“Haha. I mean, I was wandering around and I’m getting really comfortable here, you know? I feel really at home in the city, getting from place to place, finding my own way around, not relying on cabs or maps. I know which train lines to take where and when they stop running. But I don’t have an apartment here. I’m still a visitor.”

Mary set her laptop on the low table next to her. Her apartment was furnished with lower than average furniture. An older building (advertised as ‘vintage’ by the leasing company) with high ceiling and peeling white molding, it looked on the inside like a fight between two interior decorators. One preferred Asian inspired furniture and posters, screen-printings and low wooden furniture, chopsticks and rice bowls with blue patterns. The other decorator had done a lot of acid in the 70s and some part of the brain remained there. Beanbag chairs, plastic houseplants, a garish shag carpet rug festooned the living room. A large stained glass peace sign hung in the bay window.

Mary herself as a mix of styles, through currently one of Ezra’s college fencing shirts covered her slight frame. A pair of her old Taekwondo uniform pants covered her lithe legs. She was in better shape than Ezra and playfully reminded him of the fact when they went running together.

She paused before answering, “you come here to see me, in part. Or so I hope.” She winked at him. Long distance relationships were difficult, but they had managed this one well. They both agreed, Skype was a beautiful piece of software. “Plus, your family lives less than an hour from here. You’ve been visiting here for years, since you were young right?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Ezra shifted in his seat, staring back down at the bottle of beer in his hands, “I mean I saw all these tourists today. Legitimately, easy to spot tourists. Camera phones, guidebooks, maps, waddling in packs, the whole thing. And I got mad at them. Angry! Like, morally offended that they would pack into MY city.”

“Your city? And they’re allowed to visit, you know. The tourism sector brings a lot of money into Chicago.”

“I’m aware, I know. I mean, I felt in that moment like one of the locals, less of an outsider, or a visitor. It was like when I was in Scotland—“

“—Really? Back to Scotland again?” she teased.

“In this case yes! I was there only two months. Just two. Not long enough to learn the culture, to know a great deal of the history (though I feel like the only one who read all of our reading before the trip, How the Scots Invented the Modern World), but long enough so that when I went back to Edinburgh the third or fourth time I was sort of annoyed with all the Americans milling about on the Royal Mile instead of wandering into the less touristy areas of the city. It’s a beautiful city!”

“As you keep saying.”

“Yes, sorry, just, well, and in Dundee the urgency of vacation wore off the second week we were there. Classes, fencing practice with the local team, buying groceries, finding our favorite local pubs, it became very mundane, even though we were four thousand miles from home. I guess it surprised me how quickly all that became normal.”

“Do you think your anger with tourists might have something more to do with you rather than an actual hard and fast definition of tourist versus visitor? They’re allowed to visit the city and share these spaces as well. They find something awe inspiring in those sights, or something interesting there that you may overlook becomes you’ve grown used to them? Maybe you’re jealous.”

“True,” Ezra said, “I hadn’t considered it that way, and I haven’t spoken with enough people to know. Maybe I should, I’d be curious to know.”

“It might be like a sliding scale,” Mary offered, “certain qualifications might make you one or the other. It’s easy to spot the extremes:  the tourist with the camera against the local. It’s harder to peg you, someone who is comfortable in the space but doesn’t officially live there. Or when you were in Scotland. You had a space, you had an address, but you were temporary.”

“That’s true, but what if it’s like this:  like you, a local has been somewhere for years, but still explores their surroundings. In some ways we’re always finding new places, being surprised by what is hidden in a city or a space. Maybe in some ways we will always have a bit of tourist in us,” Ezra took a sip of beer, then stood up to cross the room. He motioned for Mary to make some room. They squished against each other in the giant beanbag, quietly sitting for a moment.

Mary pinched him; “I think someone has thought of that notion already.”

“Yeah,” Ezra said, “They probably have.”