One of the biggest appeals of studying abroad for me was the idea that I technically wouldn’t be considered a tourist. Your stereotypical tourist is annoying, and the idea of being one of them is something I constantly fear when I’m anywhere new. The idea, then, that I would be living in Glasgow was all I needed to hear.
Living around locals, going to school with them, and eating at the restaurants they go to makes me feel fully immersed in this culture. So when I go to Edinburgh, for example, I am nothing but a tourist sightseeing and standing in everyone’s way like the rest of them.
Edinburgh is packed every day of the week at any time to the point where I can’t ever get those nice, aesthetic Instagram photos everyone else seems to have no trouble with. I know their secret is more likely than not just Photoshop, but my point still stands. I hate feeling like a tourist.
In Glasgow, I feel like I belong. I know where all the grocery stores are and all the best places to eat near me. I even know the pattern of the stop lights at this point. I live here and I feel like a local.
Sometimes, admittedly, I forget that I’m not.
The other weekend, my friend and I took a weekend trip to Dublin, and this fact hit me in the face. We were walking around like chickens with their heads cut off because we didn’t know anything, and I hate not knowing anything. No amount of watching TikToks or reading Google reviews will ever prepare you enough to just plant yourself in another country.
This is the fun of the experience, just trying to figure things out, but it makes me feel like the tourists that always get on my nerves when they just stand around not knowing anything. And so I choose to wear my heart on my sleeve when I confess that, I too, am an annoying tourist at times. Nobody is safe from the stereotype, I fear, but it’s okay.
Yes, I took pictures of all the landmarks, bought postcards, and went on a Guinness tour. I fell into every tourist trap, and I absolutely loved every second of it. These experiences and landmarks are popular for a reason: they’re fun!
My advice to anyone fighting the tourist label like myself is to just embrace it. Feeling like a local is fun, it’s my favorite part, but it is just as fun sometimes to take a corny selfie in front of the Guinness factory like everyone else.
Since we’re being fully honest here, I am also typing this whilst currently wearing a sweater I bought from the Guinness Store. Was it ten times more expensive than it should have been? Of course. But do I regret it? Of course not.
Fashion has no price tag in my mind. And while walking around the airport decked out in Guinness made me embarrassed at first, I was only one of a dozen others. This is my version of embracing my tourist tendencies, slowly but surely.
DU Abroad 