Lazy Tourist

Me, Myself, and I

My eldest goddaughter, along with many other high school students, graduated senior high a few weeks ago (Congrats, everyone!). In Finland, the graduation of these young Finnish hopes inspired Maaret Kallio, a psychotherapist, to start a campaign on social media that encouraged Finnish influencers (and non-influencers) to share words of wisdom addressed to their younger selves. You know, things that they had come to know as adults that they wished they had known as teenagers. The campaign was called #olisinpatiennyt (I wish I had known) and it reminded me of a similar trend a few years ago that had people writing letters to their younger selves.

Obviously, I wanted to participate in this campaign as well. I thought longer and harder than is healthy about how to strike a perfect balance between giving advice that would encourage my younger self to take herself a little less seriously without completely changing the trajectory of her life and, at the same time, giving advice that would not mess with the time continuum and send the future of humankind into the throes of a post-apocalyptic world. The more I thought about it, though, the less and less likely it started to seem that my advice would have any effect on my younger self. So much so, in fact, that in the end I got discouraged and decided to let go of the thought experiment altogether. Not because my younger self wouldn't be able to receive a DM from her future self (completely plausible) and not because she wouldn't believe that I was actually from the future (I'm a pretty gullible person - ask my brother!), but because my younger self was kind of a dick (to me). So judgmental! In fact, if I ever met my teenage self, I'm pretty sure the conversation would go something like this:

Me *with a booming voice*: Greetings! I am the future you! I'm here to impart all my wisdom on you!

My Younger Self *chewing gum*: Uhhuh. Wrote that Great American Novel yet?

Me *with a nervous chuckle*: Well, last time I checked, I wasn't American.

My Younger Self *still chewing gum*: So, that's a 'no,' then, eh?

Me *defensively*: But it's not the destination, as you will come to learn, it's all about the beautiful journey there!

My Younger Self *swallowing gum*: Great. Thanks for the platitudes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have the funeral of my future hopes and dreams to attend to.

See? Like I said, kind of a dick. And if the fact that I haven't published that book yet didn't go over so well with my younger self, I don't think she'd be thrilled about the following confession either. Are you ready? Here goes:

I am a bad tourist. There, I've said it. And no, I don't mean that I'm disrespectful to others, or that I go to McDonald's instead of trying the local delicacies, or that I wear socks with sandals. None of that. What I mean is that I'm a lazy tourist, that instead of spending my whole vacation sightseeing, meeting new people, and soaking up new thrilling experiences like dehydrated SpongeBob (as my younger self had undoubtedly hoped for), I've become one of those old-timers who only cares about two things on her vacation: eating and doing nothing. (Somewhere in a parallel universe my younger self is getting ready to jump off a cliff.)

The Art of Being Lazy

If someone were to ask me if I had any advice for other aspiring lazy tourists out there, it would be this - Find your tribe of other human sloths who share your interests (eating and doing nothing) and who won't make you feel guilty about not doing touristy stuff. The rookiest of rookie mistakes, on the other hand, is to go on vacation with a so-called eager-beaver tourist, thinking that you two will challenge each other out of your comfort zones, creating wonderful, memorable moments for both of you. That won't happen. What will happen, however, is that you'll find your eager-beaver counterpart utterly exhausting, while they'll find you insufferably passive, and good times will be had by none. Personally, I'm very lucky in that the person with whom I have chosen to share the rest of my peaks, valleys, and air-conditioned hotel rooms understands the value of eating and doing nothing on a trip better than most people. Rather than being a thrill-seeker, my significant other is a comfort-seeking tourist. Here's an example of what I mean:

I once showed my fiancé a discussion and critical thinking exercise I had for my students. The exercise was about survival, and the description went something like this:

You are paddling your canoe in the middle of the ocean (Alone, how else?) when your boat suddenly gets hit by a lightning and starts sinking (What are the odds?). There's a desert island nearby (of course there is) and you can swim there and save yourself, but out of twenty items (that every canoer should OBVIOUSLY have with them at all times... not) you can only take four with you. Which ones would you choose (Don't think too long, Sophie, or you'll lose everything)?

That description came with a list of all your belongings, among which were matches, a kettle for boiling water, a tarp, a hunting rifle, a first-aid kit, etc. My fiancé took one look at the list and said, "Hm. The first thing I would take are these hiking boots," and when he saw the stupefied look on my face, he continued, "Because, you know, you'll be walking in the woods a lot so it's important that your footwear is comfortable." Which I suppose is a good point. I mean, if you have ever worn shoes that were too small or otherwise uncomfortable, you should know that in that situation you cannot think of much else than the pain your feet are in. On the other hand, though, if you die on that desert island due to extreme temperatures, impure water, hunger, an inflamed cut on your body, or as an anaconda's dinner, the fact that at least your boots were comfortable might not be much of a consolation.

So, it probably goes without saying that when two people who wouldn't last a day on a desert island come back from a trip, they don't have a whole lot of zip-lining stories to share with their peers. That's why, when our friends ask us to tell them "all about" our trip, they are in for a much shorter story than they anticipated (put the wine away, hon, this won't take that long). The truth "We ate well"  is usually met with silence and that "And then?" look on their faces, which even the line, "And then, you know, we walked around," doesn't seem to shake. Sometimes, at this point, under the expectant and judgmental gaze of our friends, I might feel pressured to tell just a few teeny tiny white lies about the places we saw (cathedrals are a pretty safe bet and look more or less the same from the inside should anyone ask us to describe them) to make us seem more interesting, which is, of course, false advertisement because we're not. This is clearly a horrible idea because a) nobody likes liars but also because b) if these same friends ever invite us on a trip with them, you can rest assured they will drag us to every cathedral they can find. Not that I have anything against cathedrals per se, but visiting them is time I could be spending eating and doing nothing, so I just can't have that.

Case Study 42: Trip to Bonn

A few weeks ago my fiancé and I spent a weekend in Bonn, Germany, and we did - you guessed it - nothing (but eat). At this point you might think, Oh, but that's probably because there's not much to do in Bonn anyway. WRONG! There's plenty of things to do in Bonn. We just didn't do them.

Here's a short summary of the things that we could have done or seen but didn't:

Cherry blossoms - Tempting... but apparently not enough (didn't go).

Alexander Koenig Zoological Museum - Hm, to spend an hour or two of my life with stuffed animals or not? I think not.

Aritheum (museum of mathemathics) - They lost me at "mathemathics."

Bonn Minster (church) - Saw it from the outside as we were going to get our drink on. Does that count?

Botanical garden - Didn't go... wait! Yes, we did! Totally walked through it on our way to the hotel!

Beethoven House - Didn't go. No excuse.

To be fair, there was one time during our trip, as we were walking in the local celeb Beethoven's old hoods, when I suddenly stopped, pointed at a building, and exclaimed, "There! That's where we must go! Seriously! If we don't, all I will ever remember about Bonn is that we didn't go there!" I was, of course, talking about an ice cream shop. My fiancé glanced at Google Maps on his phone, looked at me, and said, "You know, the Beethoven House seems to be nearby," and when he saw the expression on my face, he quickly added, "I mean, it's probably closed because it's Sunday, but should we go by, just so we can say that we at least tried to go?"

It took me a whole second to consider this. "Nah, let's go get our ice creams," I said and off we went.

Now, I know what you're thinking. That I'm a bad person and probably going to hell, but that's only because you haven't seen the ice cream yet. TA-DA:

I rest my case

I mean, come on! I think Beethoven would understand.

Okay, to be honest, on the way back to the hotel, I did feel a little guilty that we hadn't gone to the Beethoven House, because, you know, he's the local celebrity and all, so I wanted to at least take a picture of his statue. Which I managed to do, except that it later turned out that it was not, in fact, the statue of Beethoven I had taken a picture of, but the statue of some random dude who was famous for God knows why.

The statue of some random dude that's definitely NOT Beethoven

Well, since I had already taken the picture, I figured I might as well add it here. It's the thought that counts, right? Anyway, here are a few more pictures of what we actually did (ate) in Bonn:

Curly fries!

Tibetian take-out and watching the second season of 13 Reasons Why in our hotel room - Yes, we did!

Notice Bonn Minster in the background!

I hope you enjoyed this post! And yes, I'm fully aware that it'll make me lose the rest of the street cred I have left, but oh well, it's done, it's out there. Happy summer vacation to everyone however you choose to spend it :)!