The Real City
When one travels to a Spanish city, one will discover a bipolarity. Walking into the ebullient old section, one expects to find life as it has always been there. One expects the continuity of life in the stone walls and (sometimes) cobblestone streets, where descendants of the original dwellers still go about their lives as they have always done.
But that continuity is not there. If one enters the old section of a city like Santiago, expecting to see the heart of living in this city, one will be disappointed. It is a beautiful city, with history stretching back over a thousand years. But it is only filled with people during the day. At night the only people in the streets are those who visit the bars and restaurants, and students on their way to their dorms. It is no longer a part of the city that is vibrant with ordinary life; its soul is gone. As the neighbors died out, their houses were bought and reconverted into hotels and hostels, tourist apartments and offices. Those who still hang on are probably those that can pay the elevated rent. If they still own, they can pay the elevated taxes, and don't mind the inconvenience of not owning a car or of paying annually for parking it in another area of the city.
In place of the neighbors, it has become a city of tourists. The stores have changed for their customers, as well. Instead of the little grocery stores, or dry goods stores, or other places that once served the neighbors, including bookstores, the storefronts have been converted into chic bars, expensive restaurants, boutiques, gourmet groceries, and places where you can buy souvenirs that say "Galicia" but were made in China. As you walk the streets you hear languages from all over the world, which is good, but you won't hear a neighbor complaining with another neighbor over the price of bread. Even the market is undergoing a change. As people have stopped shopping there, stalls have closed. Some still remain, and sell their varieties of fruits and vegetables, fish, or meat; a couple still put out trays of tiny watermelon plants, tomato plants, or pepper plants to set out in the garden, apart from the cut flowers and houseplants. But now there are restaurants and bars set up in empty stalls that boast of buying their product just meters away. Some will let you buy your own product and will cook it for you, at the appropriate price, of course. No locals ever sit at those stools or eat from those plates.
The life of the city has now transferred elsewhere, to the newer section. But with rents there also inching upwards, we'll have to see how long that will last. Gentrification brings prettiness and new life, but it displaces old life, as well. At the moment, the neighbors are still there, and the students and the daily visitors. Tourists also wander around, and sometimes enter the local shops, but they may have difficulty finding someone who speaks English well. An Englishman was explaining to a clerk in a sports clothing store yesterday that he wanted walking pants with pockets everywhere. He pointed to a pocket and waved his hand all over the pants. The woman understood his gestures more than his words.
To find the real life of a city, one must see how they eat. The best place to do that is to enter a supermarket where the locals do their weekly or daily shopping. Check the shelves, look at the produce, consider the cuts of meat. The prices also say something about what is customarily consumed. The higher the price, the more gourmet the option, and the less likely one will find it on a table on a daily basis. Or at all. Preferences change from one country to another, and that is reflected in the supermarket. In Portugal, cod is king, and has a section to himself. In Spain, it's olive oil, and salt pork in Galicia. In contrast, France has a poor selection of olive oil, and more in the butter department. France has a greater array of dairy products, and a large deli section.
Restaurants can also say something about local ways of thinking. But only those that are obviously enjoyed by the local population. If the restaurant is modern, and the only people one sees entering and leaving are strangers to the city, don't bother. There are expensive restaurants where one might eat like a king, and pay like one, too. But too many take advantage of their location in the old section, and that the clientele is temporary, and charge large amounts of money for food that says nothing about the local cuisine, little about good food, and too much about a bad chef and careless manager. Yes, there are small, cheap restaurants that have bad food. But at the ones with a decent chef, you will see how the local people tend to eat. If you go for a Galician cocido at a five star table, you might think every Galician mother makes a deconstruction of pork and greens with a foam of potatoes on the side, that fits neatly in the center of a medium plate, but it's not true. For that, go to a decent little place where the neighbors, or even better, workers on their lunch hour, go to eat. You will discover the local version of the real cocido, with potatoes, greens, pork, sausages, and chicken, set out on the plates before you. You might even wonder how you will finish it all, and marvel at your fellow diners putting away their ration with no problem, and asking for dessert and coffee, still.
Travelling will bring new worlds to the traveller, but so many have taken advantage of this situation to rake in easy money, that tourist destinations are being emptied of all meaning, and becoming theme parks to bamboozle the visitor into thinking they are seeing the real city. For those that travel to discover new people and new cities, it has become necessary to seek out the real away from the contrived. The old section of the cities are worth a visit to discover the history and the beauty of yesterday, but to find the life that once was there, it is now necessary to travel into the other neighborhoods of a city, where the architecture might not be inspiring, but where the little stories of everyday life are now being lived out.
But that continuity is not there. If one enters the old section of a city like Santiago, expecting to see the heart of living in this city, one will be disappointed. It is a beautiful city, with history stretching back over a thousand years. But it is only filled with people during the day. At night the only people in the streets are those who visit the bars and restaurants, and students on their way to their dorms. It is no longer a part of the city that is vibrant with ordinary life; its soul is gone. As the neighbors died out, their houses were bought and reconverted into hotels and hostels, tourist apartments and offices. Those who still hang on are probably those that can pay the elevated rent. If they still own, they can pay the elevated taxes, and don't mind the inconvenience of not owning a car or of paying annually for parking it in another area of the city.
In place of the neighbors, it has become a city of tourists. The stores have changed for their customers, as well. Instead of the little grocery stores, or dry goods stores, or other places that once served the neighbors, including bookstores, the storefronts have been converted into chic bars, expensive restaurants, boutiques, gourmet groceries, and places where you can buy souvenirs that say "Galicia" but were made in China. As you walk the streets you hear languages from all over the world, which is good, but you won't hear a neighbor complaining with another neighbor over the price of bread. Even the market is undergoing a change. As people have stopped shopping there, stalls have closed. Some still remain, and sell their varieties of fruits and vegetables, fish, or meat; a couple still put out trays of tiny watermelon plants, tomato plants, or pepper plants to set out in the garden, apart from the cut flowers and houseplants. But now there are restaurants and bars set up in empty stalls that boast of buying their product just meters away. Some will let you buy your own product and will cook it for you, at the appropriate price, of course. No locals ever sit at those stools or eat from those plates.
The life of the city has now transferred elsewhere, to the newer section. But with rents there also inching upwards, we'll have to see how long that will last. Gentrification brings prettiness and new life, but it displaces old life, as well. At the moment, the neighbors are still there, and the students and the daily visitors. Tourists also wander around, and sometimes enter the local shops, but they may have difficulty finding someone who speaks English well. An Englishman was explaining to a clerk in a sports clothing store yesterday that he wanted walking pants with pockets everywhere. He pointed to a pocket and waved his hand all over the pants. The woman understood his gestures more than his words.
To find the real life of a city, one must see how they eat. The best place to do that is to enter a supermarket where the locals do their weekly or daily shopping. Check the shelves, look at the produce, consider the cuts of meat. The prices also say something about what is customarily consumed. The higher the price, the more gourmet the option, and the less likely one will find it on a table on a daily basis. Or at all. Preferences change from one country to another, and that is reflected in the supermarket. In Portugal, cod is king, and has a section to himself. In Spain, it's olive oil, and salt pork in Galicia. In contrast, France has a poor selection of olive oil, and more in the butter department. France has a greater array of dairy products, and a large deli section.
Restaurants can also say something about local ways of thinking. But only those that are obviously enjoyed by the local population. If the restaurant is modern, and the only people one sees entering and leaving are strangers to the city, don't bother. There are expensive restaurants where one might eat like a king, and pay like one, too. But too many take advantage of their location in the old section, and that the clientele is temporary, and charge large amounts of money for food that says nothing about the local cuisine, little about good food, and too much about a bad chef and careless manager. Yes, there are small, cheap restaurants that have bad food. But at the ones with a decent chef, you will see how the local people tend to eat. If you go for a Galician cocido at a five star table, you might think every Galician mother makes a deconstruction of pork and greens with a foam of potatoes on the side, that fits neatly in the center of a medium plate, but it's not true. For that, go to a decent little place where the neighbors, or even better, workers on their lunch hour, go to eat. You will discover the local version of the real cocido, with potatoes, greens, pork, sausages, and chicken, set out on the plates before you. You might even wonder how you will finish it all, and marvel at your fellow diners putting away their ration with no problem, and asking for dessert and coffee, still.
Travelling will bring new worlds to the traveller, but so many have taken advantage of this situation to rake in easy money, that tourist destinations are being emptied of all meaning, and becoming theme parks to bamboozle the visitor into thinking they are seeing the real city. For those that travel to discover new people and new cities, it has become necessary to seek out the real away from the contrived. The old section of the cities are worth a visit to discover the history and the beauty of yesterday, but to find the life that once was there, it is now necessary to travel into the other neighborhoods of a city, where the architecture might not be inspiring, but where the little stories of everyday life are now being lived out.
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