Playing Tourist

A few weeks ago we attended a friend’s wedding. In the course of a conversation with some acquaintances, they asked what we had planned for that weekend. I don’t recall what in particular we were hoping to do if the weather held out, but the fellow we were talking to said “I don’t know why we’ve never been there ourselves!” He went on to comment how too often people take places/things for granted and never get around to seeing what is right in their own backyard.

How true.

Yesterday I was having a post-football bite of lunch with my son at HIS favorite sandwich shop. A friend, walking past, asked with a smile “playing tourist?”

It was an interesting comment (and not just because I personally eat too many bacon, brie and red currant rolls from the Sandwich Cellar, myself).  Typically, my daughter and I go to the Baker’s Table at the Talgarth Mill EVERY week after her tap and ballet classes. She is a right regular there, same as my son at the Sandwich Cellar – and when we aren’t in on a regular basis, our absence is noted.

I would call it “being regulars”.

Still, I do think we tend to play tourist because we know we have a finite amount of time here, and don’t want to miss out on all the amazing places and things that surround us.

I don’t know if it is because he has moved around so much for work, but my husband tends to attack a city like a long-term tourist, in a manner of speaking.  No dust grows under his feet on the weekends – from the day I met him, he has eagerly visited landmarks, museums, you name it.  (In fact, I think he had been to more places downtown Chicago than I had been in all my years of working there and in the surrounding suburbs. It was a bit embarrassing, honestly.)

Some weekends, all I really want to do is curl up with a good book. Instead, the Hubs will have found a re-enactment at a nearby castle, or a steam railway day out, or a festival the next town over, and off we go.

He keeps me from becoming even more of a bookworm than I already am.

And that’s not a bad thing.

So what about you?

Do you “play tourist” in your own hometown?

What did you do this weekend?