When I was going back to Paris on a visit, a good friend of mine sent me a letter from her grandparents’ place and other than the fact that a letter sent from the American Midwest could actually arrive in Paris within two days, what stayed with me was a sentence said in jest but with an added note of being serious about it, don’t forget to be a tourist. Truth is, I had never played tourist in Paris. The touristy places I visited were places of interest because of a certain exhibition or event, and the touristy places I’d frequented repeatedly were places that kind of just happened to be there and were attractive to me because of people, cafes or some energy that I liked. I always loved Sacré Cœur, but living so close meant that the path there was part of my fitness routine, as in I love walking and being asthmatic, this helped me gauge my fitness level on any given day. 

The closest I came to being a tourist was when my godfather came for a visit with his wife and we headed to the Eiffel Tower. My godfather was in the military then, so deciding to walk to the top after seeing the lines of tourists was a logical conclusion. At the age of fourteen Frank was one of the very few grownups I trusted with my heart and soul. Besides, since neither his wife nor my parents fancied that type of exercise, it meant I could have him all to myself for a while. 

I only realized many years later how important my friend’s words actually were. Being a tourist allows you to see the place you are in and call home (or refer to as my current place of residence) from another perspective. Sights and places of interest become more than just the places that hold you up in traffic or drive you crazy when there are too many crowds of people passing through. All of a sudden you notice the beauty in what you see every day, or at least see why others would be interested in it. At the very least, slipping into tourist mode will take you out of your usual way of thinking, look at it as explaining something you are all too familiar with to someone who has little to no clue about the subject. 

Best of all though, whether you’re just walking around taking in the sites, using public transportation or go so far as to book a guided tour, being a tourist with no strings attached takes the pressure off your brain. You’re literally just going with the flow, you don’t have to make any decisions, because all these decisions are being made for you. There is no pressure of commitment  (you will either like what you see or you won’t, as in some things you will love, others less so) you can just let your mind wander and essentially be in that neutral state where no decisions have to be made. It’s a great place from which to make your decisions going forward, because no pressure.

It’s funny because this friend and I managed to lose touch, since she’s one of the few people in my life who don’t do social media. And also because that’s just what happens to people when they grow older, move around or just develop different interests. But here’s the other interesting thing, you might forget your friends’ addresses, lose their phone numbers and emails, but cliched as it sounds the shared complicity in various situations and their advice stays with us long after we or they have moved on.

The song caught my attention when a close friend of mine made a flippant comment that involved Rotterdam. The name caught my attention, but the haunting melody and the beautiful voice of the singer held it all the way through. To me it will always and forever describe the familiarity of places amidst the alienation we all feel at different times of our lives, no matter where we are or may be