Accepting My Outer Tourist

For most of my life I tried desperately not to be recognized as a tourist. I studied maps in hotel rooms, memorizing routes so I wouldn't have to pull out those telltale sheets of folded paper in public. I tied my scarves like the natives and never wore running shoes. I whispered and mumbled, hoping that my American-accented English would somehow slip under the linguistic radar.

It was something of a relief to travel in Africa and South Asia where my touristic status was too obvious to be hidden. Ironically, I had some of my most intimate travel experiences in Botswana, where my American teacher friends shared a compound with the Batswana teachers, and India, where I lived and traveled with Indian friends. Yet I continued to mumble in London and loop my scarf twice around my neck in Paris.

But in New York this week, I realized that I am finally over my tourist anxieties. Perhaps it was living in London last year. You can't mumble for months at a time, and besides, I was living and working, not sightseeing, and I knew it, so what did I care what other people thought? Perhaps it's traveling with children. If you need to find the carousel in Central Park, you need to find it, and wandering around aimlessly until you happen upon it because you know it is somewhere over there just doesn't cut it with kids, so you either need to pull out a map (which I couldn't because I didn't have one because really I'm not a tourist) or ask (which I did, and at least the hotdog vendor pointed us in the right direction, though it was still a search). Perhaps it's that I finally have gained--dare I even say it?--a modicum of maturity, or maybe it's just that tourist stuff is fun.

At any rate, I took the girls to New York last week to visit C, who is about to have a baby, and my aunt and uncle, who are not about to have a baby, and we had a fabulous touristic time. We spent Thursday in Central Park at the playground, zoo (E calls it the Madagascar zoo since I took her to see the movie), and carousel. We also took a sidetrip to F.A.O. Schwartz where E danced on the piano, and we went to Alice's Tea Cup which is the most delightful treats place ever.

On Friday we took the subway to Coney Island, most notorious in our house for the time Henny got lost and the policemen gave her an ice cream cone (M: I never knew what the All-of-a-Kind Family's last name was! E: I know what it is, it's a-Kind Family). We waded and dug in the sand, rode kiddie rides, bumper boats, and bumper cars, and ate ice cream, hot dogs, and french fries.

I got to go running twice in Riverside Park which is gorgeous these days. The girls got to be doted upon by my aunt and cousin. We ate H and H bagels every day. It was simply a great time, touristicality and all. And then, it was so nice to come home to our new house.

And then, to cap off the greatness of it all, the cable guy came and we finally got internet!!