Tourists there have always been and always will be. Having grown up in Boston, tourist town par excellence, I've been used to seeing lost people wandering around with maps in their hands. Here, every summer I've gotten used to cars with license plates from Madrid or Barcelona crawling along the roads, completely lost. I've had tourists stop their cars and ask me how to get to a town a hundred kilometers from here. How do some of these people even manage to leave their houses if they have no idea of where they're going?
There are lost tourists and then there are lost tourists. There are tourists who come prepared. They've studied the terrain and know more or less what to expect. The absence of a street sign, however, will make them doubt and maybe take a wrong turn. These are the people who have come to Santiago to see the cathedral and know that they can't make a two hour side trip to Ourense to visit the thermal springs because it's just too far away. These are the people who end up knowing more about the local sites than you do. They are respectful with what they find and don't criticize because things are not the same as where they come from. These people are a pleasure to help. Unfortunately, these are the rarer tourists. The more common ones tend to make you shudder.
The cathedral, for instance. During daily Mass (around midday) people are not allowed to wander around the nave. Attendants will stop people at the door and explain. Tourists who are inside are ushered into a pew or to the door. Those who come from Catholic countries generally understand. Those who have no Catholic roots but are respectful of others understand, too. But there's always some complainer who just thinks the cathedral is another tourist attraction built expressly for them to wander around in as if it were a museum.
And there are those who sit at a table at a café and expect to be attended posthaste and that the coffee should be exactly how they drink it at home. And, of course, those who complain about not only the service, but the prices. Once, I was at a beach nearby and two tourists from Madrid were seated at a bench behind me. They didn't care who heard them. They were complaining that the seafood was too expensive. That because it was fished nearby the final cost to the consumer should be much cheaper and that the locals were taking advantage of the tourists. I felt like going up to them and explaining that the locals were paying the same price, and that if for them two, with their higher salary it was too expensive, for us with piddling salaries it was through the roof and only for special occasions. I wanted to explain just how the different varieties were fished and what backbreaking work it was. But I saved my breath. That kind of tourist thinks the world simply exists for his enjoyment.
And then there are the totally ignorant that make you want to both laugh and cry. The totally lost guy who asks about the subway in Santiago. (That I know of there are only subways in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.) The guy who goes to the tourist information office in A Coruña and asks for postcards of Mt. Teide. (Was he intending to go to the Canary Islands but got on the wrong plane?) There have even been people who have asked when the next steam boat left for the Canaries. (I don't know about the next one, but the last one left the docks about ninety years ago.) Some seem to have traditions a little mixed up and have asked where the Apostle James' mummy was located to be able to put his arms around it. As far as I know there is a statue of the Apostle behind the altar at the cathedral in Santiago that you may put your arms around. The mummies are Egyptian and they're in the museum behind glass. There was someone else who appeared at the tourist office in Santiago and asked to have someone indicate on a map where the towns with drug trafficking were. Not that he had any bad intentions, just that he had heard they were beautiful. Uh huh.
Since we're in February the onslaught hasn't begun yet, but come June we better get ready to get a few head-scratchers.
There are lost tourists and then there are lost tourists. There are tourists who come prepared. They've studied the terrain and know more or less what to expect. The absence of a street sign, however, will make them doubt and maybe take a wrong turn. These are the people who have come to Santiago to see the cathedral and know that they can't make a two hour side trip to Ourense to visit the thermal springs because it's just too far away. These are the people who end up knowing more about the local sites than you do. They are respectful with what they find and don't criticize because things are not the same as where they come from. These people are a pleasure to help. Unfortunately, these are the rarer tourists. The more common ones tend to make you shudder.
The cathedral, for instance. During daily Mass (around midday) people are not allowed to wander around the nave. Attendants will stop people at the door and explain. Tourists who are inside are ushered into a pew or to the door. Those who come from Catholic countries generally understand. Those who have no Catholic roots but are respectful of others understand, too. But there's always some complainer who just thinks the cathedral is another tourist attraction built expressly for them to wander around in as if it were a museum.
And there are those who sit at a table at a café and expect to be attended posthaste and that the coffee should be exactly how they drink it at home. And, of course, those who complain about not only the service, but the prices. Once, I was at a beach nearby and two tourists from Madrid were seated at a bench behind me. They didn't care who heard them. They were complaining that the seafood was too expensive. That because it was fished nearby the final cost to the consumer should be much cheaper and that the locals were taking advantage of the tourists. I felt like going up to them and explaining that the locals were paying the same price, and that if for them two, with their higher salary it was too expensive, for us with piddling salaries it was through the roof and only for special occasions. I wanted to explain just how the different varieties were fished and what backbreaking work it was. But I saved my breath. That kind of tourist thinks the world simply exists for his enjoyment.
And then there are the totally ignorant that make you want to both laugh and cry. The totally lost guy who asks about the subway in Santiago. (That I know of there are only subways in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.) The guy who goes to the tourist information office in A Coruña and asks for postcards of Mt. Teide. (Was he intending to go to the Canary Islands but got on the wrong plane?) There have even been people who have asked when the next steam boat left for the Canaries. (I don't know about the next one, but the last one left the docks about ninety years ago.) Some seem to have traditions a little mixed up and have asked where the Apostle James' mummy was located to be able to put his arms around it. As far as I know there is a statue of the Apostle behind the altar at the cathedral in Santiago that you may put your arms around. The mummies are Egyptian and they're in the museum behind glass. There was someone else who appeared at the tourist office in Santiago and asked to have someone indicate on a map where the towns with drug trafficking were. Not that he had any bad intentions, just that he had heard they were beautiful. Uh huh.
Since we're in February the onslaught hasn't begun yet, but come June we better get ready to get a few head-scratchers.
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