If the souvenirs you bring home from places you travel to consist of things like locally made soap or a package of grits or the weekly newspaper - you're a resident tourist.
If you seek out the cafe where the inhabitants gather and find out about grits and where to buy them and how to cook them and the necessity of having them alongside biscuits and gravy - you're a resident tourist.
If you send a Christmas card to the family who runs the Bed and Breakfast - where you plan to return next year - and their card to you passes in the mail - you're a resident tourist.
If you now know how to make chapattis and a lady in India now knows how to make potato pancakes - you're a resident tourist.
If you learned twelve words of Spanish from some kids and those kids can now speak twelve words of English - you're a resident tourist.
If you are a Canadian and the local residents corrected anyone who didn't know you were not American - you're a resident tourist.
If you visited Victoria and now know - and have visited - all the yarn shops (Knotty by Nature, Boutique de laine, Beehive) you must have come across some of us KIP'ing (Knitting in Public) and you are definitely a resident tourist.
I'm proud to say we fit some of the criteria for a 'resident tourist'. Here's another, maybe?:
If you enter a restaurant in France as a foreign couple and end up sharing an evening's conversation and a meal with several local diners - you're a resident tourist.
It's all in the attitude.
Your Slinky Bottles are truly amazing - something hard and metallic morphs into something soft and organic.
Posted by: Barbara Chappelle | May 31, 2009 at 09:43 PM
Hello Barbara
Oh absolutely - your example and that it is in the attitude. Thanks for sharing the experience. And I like your description of the Slinkies' duo persono's - adds to how I now see them.
Posted by: karen | June 01, 2009 at 07:28 PM