The Come-Back, Day 13. In Search of the Perfect Tourist
The weather is taking on a summery feel, again. While temperatures are still proper of the month of May, the wind is moderate from the northeast, and the forecast is for temperatures to start going up tomorrow, and possibly hit 30º/86º by Tuesday. Just in time for the beaches to open.
Most seaside townships replied to the regional government's suggestion of an internet app to get appointments to hit the beach with a resounding "No." They find it very awkward to implement, and will instead try to keep down the crowds in different ways. Some say they will fly drones to warn people, others will parcel out the sands, so people stay farther apart. Some say they will use manpower to patrol and control. It's May yet, and since we still can't travel from one province to another, there won't be crowds next week.
The tourism industry is trying to revive itself. But, unless massive visits are coming in, many hotels and tourism-driven businesses will close. What gets me is that, after so much talk about how this pandemic will make us look to change what was wrong with our world, now that we are opening up, we are trying to bring back the same world as before. Yes, those areas that relied heavily on tourism are going to suffer. But the answer is not to bring back the crowds and force the natives to leave. Rather, it's to find another way to employ those natives and have fewer crowds coming in. Life was becoming unlivable in the center of Barcelona, for example, with cheap tourism, and local businesses giving in and focusing only on visitors rather than local needs. We need tourism, yes, but it shouldn't become our only industry.
It would be beautiful if tourism were to focus once more on the experience as a gaining of knowledge rather than as a fiesta to get drunk and let loose. Once upon a time, people visited new places to know more about a place, to experience different points of view, and to learn from their experience. Because trips were so expensive, they had to have a purpose. While trips shouldn't become expensive again, the emphasis should return to the acquiring of knowledge. But maybe I'm being fanciful, utopian, and old-fashioned. I just know that I would respect a group of people who are respectful of my home. Those that come to drink, act like jerks, throw up in the street, and use doorways as bathrooms are idiots that don't deserve any respect. We have enough home-grown idiots like that, we don't need to import any.
It will probably be a long time before we can save up enough to go anywhere. I just hope my husband and I will be able to go somewhere in Galicia this summer, on a day trip like we've always done. Perhaps we could re-visit the coast of Lugo, or go down to the hills in Ourense near the province of León. Just a simple trip, with sandwiches we make from visiting a supermarket, to see a part of our home we're not acquainted with, or whose beauty we want to have our sight rest upon once more.
Life continues.
Most seaside townships replied to the regional government's suggestion of an internet app to get appointments to hit the beach with a resounding "No." They find it very awkward to implement, and will instead try to keep down the crowds in different ways. Some say they will fly drones to warn people, others will parcel out the sands, so people stay farther apart. Some say they will use manpower to patrol and control. It's May yet, and since we still can't travel from one province to another, there won't be crowds next week.
The tourism industry is trying to revive itself. But, unless massive visits are coming in, many hotels and tourism-driven businesses will close. What gets me is that, after so much talk about how this pandemic will make us look to change what was wrong with our world, now that we are opening up, we are trying to bring back the same world as before. Yes, those areas that relied heavily on tourism are going to suffer. But the answer is not to bring back the crowds and force the natives to leave. Rather, it's to find another way to employ those natives and have fewer crowds coming in. Life was becoming unlivable in the center of Barcelona, for example, with cheap tourism, and local businesses giving in and focusing only on visitors rather than local needs. We need tourism, yes, but it shouldn't become our only industry.
It would be beautiful if tourism were to focus once more on the experience as a gaining of knowledge rather than as a fiesta to get drunk and let loose. Once upon a time, people visited new places to know more about a place, to experience different points of view, and to learn from their experience. Because trips were so expensive, they had to have a purpose. While trips shouldn't become expensive again, the emphasis should return to the acquiring of knowledge. But maybe I'm being fanciful, utopian, and old-fashioned. I just know that I would respect a group of people who are respectful of my home. Those that come to drink, act like jerks, throw up in the street, and use doorways as bathrooms are idiots that don't deserve any respect. We have enough home-grown idiots like that, we don't need to import any.
It will probably be a long time before we can save up enough to go anywhere. I just hope my husband and I will be able to go somewhere in Galicia this summer, on a day trip like we've always done. Perhaps we could re-visit the coast of Lugo, or go down to the hills in Ourense near the province of León. Just a simple trip, with sandwiches we make from visiting a supermarket, to see a part of our home we're not acquainted with, or whose beauty we want to have our sight rest upon once more.
Life continues.
Although no longer American, I have often seen the ugly American. One Brit asked me why Americans talked so loudly? On the TGV from Geneva to Paris, I was in a car with a group of American tourists. One woman was complaining loudly the entire time that the tour had paid for first class, and now she was in second class, and the second she got to Paris she was going to let them know blah blah blah and then added, the view is better in first class. I said to the man next to me in French, that at the moment I was no longer claiming to be American.
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