Inside me there are two wolves. One says "that's awful touristy." The other says "you are going there to be a tourist"
20 years of living in DC, a city that is absolutely jam-packed with tourists for ten months out of every year, left me with a visceral urge to apologize for my gormlessness to everyone I meet whenever I go somewhere new

Partly this comes from the years when I commuted to work every day by Metro, when I would find myself choking down homicidal urges because some tourist did not understand that ON METRO STATION ESCALATORS YOU STAND TO THE RIGHT DAMMIT IT'S SO SIMPLE

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/03/461818517/stand-right-walk-left-the-smooth-swing-of-subway-etiquette

Oh my god as a resident of Madrid, I share the pain: WHAT'S WRONG WITH TOURISTS WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT YOU STAND ON THE RIGHT IN THE SUBWAY ESCALATORS. Do they think the literal hundreds of locals within their field of vision using left side for walking, right side for standing is just a weird coincidence??

@jalefkowit I used to visit DC for work and it didn't take long to get the stand right / walk left message.

I got so well at blending in that tourists started asking me for directions šŸ˜‚

@jalefkowit when i go somewhere on vacation i pretend i’m an elite spy who must perfectly blend in with the locals and discovery means death
@hannah @jalefkowit
I would sign up for a group tour led like this.