Retake the City! - Being a Tourist in Your Own Town

by Alex in Retake the City, Couch Surfing, Melbourne

Or, How To Travel Without Leaving Home.

Have you been to any of your local tourist traps? Have you ever picked up a brochure, gone a-gawking, and seen your city through the eyes of a traveller? Sure, while you're travelling you've probably gone to the big names, famous buildings, and oversized landmarks. Or perhaps you prefer to 'live like a local' while away from home, forgoing the most visited sites for some native flavour, to see the 'real' city, just like the locals do. But what about the everyday?

You’re probably wondering where all these strange questions and crazy ideas are coming from, and to answer that, I’d like to introduce you to a girl named Crystal who couchsurfed with us about two weeks ago.

Nice to meet you!

While we had a number of fascinating conversations and amazing experiences that completely deserve a post to themselves, what first struck me was her impressive and certainly intimidating travel plans. After putting down her backpack and unlacing her boots, she pulled out a map of the Melbourne CBD with landmarks circled. While it may sound silly, this took me completely by surprise. We’ve had people stay with us before, friends as well as surfers we’ve written about, but no one had ever come as overtly prepared to spend their time in Melbourne. And I am embarrassed to admit that when she asked me about a couple of these places, to get the insider know-how, I could do nothing but look blankly with an attitude that can be described only as ‘the I-dunno's’.

Bwuh??

It was quite a comprehensive list too, covering the beachfront at St. Kilda with its famous Luna Park, the National Gallery of Victoria, as well as listing several major works of street art in and around the CBD. It was frankly humbling to see someone so well-prepared for a few days in a new city, and as a local, I was surprised at the number of famous street art pieces that were apparently along my everyday walking route to work. Yet, despite my supposed familiarity with the area, when Crystal asked me about the best way to get to St Kilda or the opening hours of the NGV or what it was like to see the penguins on Phillip Island, I found myself having to repeat over and over, “I don’t know, I haven’t been there,” my shame growing with each iteration. Crystal, incidentally, was completely unfazed by my unhelpful answers and remained resolute to discover Melbourne as intimately as possible in the few days she had left before moving on to Sydney. This, of course, didn’t help my embarrassment with the situation as I felt her enthusiasm contrast starkly with the sedentary lifestyle I had apparently adopted since becoming a Melbourner.

Later, of course, I tried to justify the inadequacies in my local knowledge to myself: “We’ve only lived in Victoria for a year and a half, of course I can’t be expected to know the city that well.” But this was just a shallow self-deception, and did nothing to silence the voice in the back of my mind that spoke the truth. Even when Crystal, trying to be helpful, asked me instead for my recommendations in Sydney, the city I was born in, my eyes glazed over -  as 'the I-dunno's' swiftly returned. Despite a good chunk of my life spent in and around Sydney's Inner City, there is no way I would be able to give Crystal the specific details she was looking for there either. And at least in Sydney I have been to some of those landmarks.

This thought saddened me, that the city I live in or the city I grew up in might be so foreign to me. That I am about to embark on an epic journey overseas, without any appreciation of the home I am leaving behind. With that in mind, I resolved myself to spend more time discovering this place that I call home. I try to notice the small details that give this city so much character. The nine burly Italians huddled defiantly in their smoking shed, as if thumbing their noses at the incessant rain. The silent statues marking nearly every street corner, commemorating one or another event in Melbourne's history. I’ve even been keeping an eye out for the street art Crystal recommended to me on my walk to work each morning, seeing the beauty and artistic merit in what I had automatically though of as graffiti.

Van Gogh himself couldn't do better

But I feel like that’s not enough. I want to get out of my rut, to go to those places so that I can honestly recommend them to my future friends. I want to pick up a brochure, go a-gawking, and see my city through the eyes of a traveller. I want to encourage you to do the same, and to share your stories in the comments below. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of fun and interesting experiences to come out of this exercise, but the only way to know for sure will be to go ahead and do it.

Keep watching for Retake the City - Part 2!