ready2travel

Nbujic, you must have amazing bread and coffee in Fresno. I live in a NYC suburb and I can tell you that, with rare exceptions, the foods and drinks I've eaten, drunk, shopped for and bought at home were NO WAY like their foreign counterparts. Ditto for the way shops and markets display their merchandise as well. Vive la difference !!

suze

<<" soaking up the culture" would involve knowing something about the culture ( history, art, language...)>>

I guess that would depend on how you define the word culture. In modern usuage I don't think understanding "the culture" of a place or group of people necessarily involves knowledge of history.

nbujic

Just kidding about Fresno, I don't live there.
you might try some food stores on the Upper East or( West) Side or Soho in Manhattan
much closer to Paris than suburban NY!

nbujic

The Heritage Dictionary :
Culture
"The totality of socilly transmitted behaviour patterns, arts,beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population".
It is a mouthful , so let's just call it " soaking up the atmosphere"
which is one of the best things about travelling anyway!

suze

Here's what I was attempting to express... for example, when I am shopping at the Saturday morning farmers market in Switzerland, listening and observing local residents, participating myself... I'd call that soaking up the culture (though I don't speak French nor do I know the history or art of the region).

walkinaround

my cafe comment was related to my experience that i never feel like i'm learning about a place by sitting in a cafe.

in fact, i think it is very hard to really learn or experience the culture of a place during a typical two week holiday. as much as we like to think that we are experiencing the local ways, it is usually just so surface level it's hard to come away thinking that you really understand the place at anything but a very superficial level.

i'll go to a cafe if i think it will be good but i don't have illusions that it is teaching me anything meaningful about the culture.

to even begin get to get a decent understanding of a place, i think you need to spend a substantial amount of time there. and during that time you need to be involved in something that makes you part of the community (anything --sports with locals, working, school, volunteering, etc, etc)...not just for a day but for repeatedly during your stay....getting to know people and living and experiencing things alongside them. seeing how they react to different situations or people, how they work, what motivates them, what they believe, their underlying assumptions about things, etc. (ie some of the things that comprise a culture). these types of things are next to impossible to understand during a single meeting in a pub or cafe.

fishee

i think pausanais's question is a little tongue-in-cheek.

The idea of a step-by-step, objective driven programme to "soak up the culture" is contradictory to the very notion itself, which implies a more laissez-faire orientation to your surroundings.

suze

Agreeing with many comments above, I think if you are visting someone who lives in Europe, rather than touring on your own... that gives you a jump on soaking up local atmosphere.

amp322

Stay at least a week in one place. Rent an apartment. Maybe even rent a place where you stay with locals. Or just rent from a local & get to know them.

Go shopping in a local corner grocery store, or any grocery store, actually. Or a place like a department store, a local market, etc. Take public transportation. Read up on the local news. If you don't speak the language, get an English newspaper, although that will only cover certain topics, and most likely be written by expats, and be from a certain perspective. Watch local TV. Even if you don't understand the language, you will get a sense of what the locals watch & see, (and are allowed to see,depending on where they are from).

Go to a local bar, a local cafe, a local restaurant. Go to these places - the same bar, cafe, etc, at least twice during your visit. Waiters will really open up once they recognize you. Go to a local internet cafe & talk to the teenagers that work there. Go to the laundromat.

Experience daily life & you will soak up the culture a lot faster than actually avoiding it by being served & waited on in hotels, and being taken around by tour guides. Of course, this requires more work and more adventuresome risk taking, but it will be the only way to get to know a place.

treetown

Interesting thread. Hmm.... let me see if you have done this.

Five years back, I stayed in a small Spanish village for about six weeks and joined the local gym. When I could understand'em which wasn't always , I talked to a large number of very interesting local men and women! Of course, I am not advising anything unless you are somewhere for an extended period of time.

Pausanias

Lots of interesting discussion and surprising ideas here -- although as fishee noticed, the question was slightly tongue in cheek. Glad I asked!

fishee

Try packing a lot of culture into a large zip-lock bag and sit on it, squeezing all the air out.

I've been able to fit an entire baguette, a baby carriage left outside of a restaurant, 3/4 bottle of limoncello, a side of Iberico ham, second-hand smoke, and the sneer of a Parisian waiter into just one bag. It was super heavy, though.

HonestAbe

I love all the comments on grocery stores!! So True!!! The best education I ever got on Wales was when I was in a residential-area small grocery. I was looking for something to snack on and a a paper. I asked the keeper for a USA Today so I could check on the baseball scores, and that began my education on why American baseball is irrelevant and it is all about the soccer. It was 12 years ago and I still remember that spirited discussion.

Regarding Cafe's, I think the reason we associate them with soaking in the culture is because it is sometimes the one thing that forces us to stop and just sit.. instead of finding the end the ticket line or figuring out what time our tour begins...

LondonLois

There have been many thoughtful replies already to the question about what 'soaking up the culture' really means - probably the answer is 'different things to different people'!

I have a suggestion for those who would prefer to get to know a real neighbourhood. Rather than stay in a hotel or rented apartment in a tourist area, consider a home swap instead. I do confess to a vested interest in suggesting this as I have been running a home exchange service in London for the last 22 years, http://www.homebase-hols.com !

One of the comments many members have made over the years is, that although a major advantage of swapping homes is having no accommodation costs, the prime reason for arranging home exchanges is actually the fun of being able to try out a new lifestyle, live as a local, shop in local markets and shops and generally get to know a neighbourhood well. This doesn't mean ignoring well known attractions in the area - of course you will want to take in those that interest you, but it does often mean that your exchange partners or their friends or neighbours will also introduce you to the hidden gems that most tourists wouldn't find out about. A combination of taking in both known and not so well known attractions in an area plus spending time in your home away from home and local neighbourhood (chatting to locals and people watching in a cafe or pub) should give a sense of satisfaction of having had a well rounded experience of an area. Isn't that what soaking up the culture is all about?

flanneruk

Do you mean "soaking up the Culture" (the stuff in the guidebooks) or "soaking up the culture" (the stuff people do?

Because unless you define "Culture" very widely, and then only in a few towns, Culture is precisely what people don't do. More Milanese watch a football match at San Siro in 90 minutes than go to La Scala in two months. But ten times as many are shopping in the city's hypermarkets - and it's places like Ipercoop or Auchan that reflect howm Milanese live more than posh city centre salumerie or street corner grocery shops.

But for culture: in most of Europe, it's the town-fringe shopping centres where large numbers of people most get together, and meandering around them - and looking at what their customers are actually buying - teaches you more than any number of Zara-infested city-centre streets.

Watching local TV - especially soaps - is a good way of seeing this. So is listening to local speech radio (of which there's a surprising amount, even outside the British Isles). Reading - or trying to - local newspapers. Going to local sporting events, especially those rarely followed internationally, like horseracing or rugby. Looking at the amateurly-produced posters on village noticeboards, and going to whatever it is. (Believe it or not, there are midwinter tourists overnighting in the town where I have a house who don't buy tickets to our pantomime or come to our carol services)

Creatively reading up beforehand on daily life, not just through the many clones of Barzini's "The Italians" there are for most European countries (a decent travel bookshop like Stanford's stocks these by the ton these days), but using your local business library for market reports (Euromonitor's stuff on retailing beats any guidebook I know for almost up to date knowledge of what makes countries tick, and it now extends to countries like Brazil and India. And if they've got access to the EIU's stuff on cost of living, by city...).

The Taj Mahal or your average Piero painting are all very well, but gawping at them can never be one gazillionth as interesting as watching the minutiae of how tens of millions of other people live their lives. And I passionately believe it's pre-researching the best insight you can get into this that makes a holiday worthwhile, and creates the things that stick in your memory.

Clifton

&quot;Culture&quot; to me has two entirely different connotations - the high minded appreciation of the local arts and history would be one. The other is as a description of the social fabric of an area, city, country. What makes it tick, what are the people like, why the place is what is <i>now</i>. I do not expect to blend or become part of the scene. That's just silly unless you live there and develop a life.

Actually, I don't find it all that easy to &quot;soak up&quot; in western Europe as I have elsewhere (or at least convinced myself that I was). You know, head for a spot where you don't see a camera or map in use all morning and hang out. But I find that mostly, you eat, you drink, you watch... but you don't really engage people that you aren't paying or potentially will be paying in one way or another. Walking around asking questions of total strangers might do it...

I guess for me, it's just looking for natural-feeling opportunities to talk to people on some level other than &quot;another cup please&quot; or &quot;how much for these shoes&quot;. Useful phrases but not all that enlightening.

Brief sample of our version, wrong part of the world. Sitting in a open 3rd floor veranda type of bar in downtown Phnom Penh. The place is really nice - french built, ceiling fans, big leather chairs. Lots of character. And it's a great place to drink and watch the mekong. But the only locals in the place were slinging drinks and bar food. It's obviously easier to notice that distinction outside of Europe. But if you looked down from the view, the street and riverbank were alive with activity. So we knocked 'em back and went down and sat on the wall and had all sorts of conversations (whether we wanted to or not). Hugely memorable night. I've had similar impromptu conversations in eastern europe, but kind of suspect that engaging conversation with strangers is never going to come as easily as elsewhere and that there is no secret. I think that's why my interest is drifting a bit from western Europe lately, except when I'm in the mood to just eat drink and sightsee.

SuzieC

Paris is my obsession. MY town. As to its culture, I read everything I can get my hands on...still trying to plunge through The Seven Ages of Paris. Without having some knowledge of history, it is difficult for me to get a handle on why the collective community is like it is.
But I also understand that Paris is not the sum and total of France. My next mission, that I chose to accept, is to continue to get out and about. I need a bit of indepth Provence; I want to see the Atlantic Coast...
Yes I do see museums, but I tend to the historical exhibits rather than paintings and sculpture, although they are enjoyable.
Cafe's is just a wonderful way to rest. &lt;GRIN&gt;

Nikki

There are as many ways of soaking up the culture as there are cultures in which to soak. And cultures more exotic to one's own will be soaked up in a different way and at a different rate than ones that are more familiar.

For me, one of the more interesting things is to watch television. This is why I will almost always choose a hotel or apartment with a TV. Familiar movies dubbed into French. Greek talent shows. Italian reality shows, which by the way win my contest for theater of the absurd. (In case you're wondering why, I give two examples: the dating show in which the contestants don't see each other fully but get to pick which body parts to see and touch through holes in a screen between them, and the matchmaking show in which the host brings a woman's estranged husband and surprises the woman by ambushing her and trying to get her to take him back in front of a live audience.)

I also listen to the radio. Now that behavior has carried over into my own home, where I can hear radio from anywhere on my computer. And I always buy home decorating magazines to bring home and pore over, whether the language is familiar or not.

Live music is important to me, of all varieties: jazz in a Paris basement, flamenco, fado, string quartets, the ballet, the circus band, rembetika, the Swedish pop singer in Denmark, the guys on the metro.

Among my best cultural experiences have been meeting people from around the world through this and other message boards. At get-togethers in Paris and Lisbon I have gotten to know people who live in those cities as well as other visitors like me at events where we ate the pig's ear salad together and learned how to dive through the bread for the shrimp in the bread and shrimp stew.

walkinaround

much of what is described here would be better described as 'soaking up the atmosphere'. 'atmosphere' implies a more sensory experience (sights, tastes, smells, sounds). fleeting pleasantries with people you meet are also part of the atmosphere.

culture implies deeper understanding of many layers of behaviours, beliefs, social structures, subcultures, etc. it takes a very long time to even get below a scratch of the surface.

i recently spent 3 weeks on holiday in a country that i had never visited. i did everything 'right' and i have a keen sense for culture - i perceive the little things. i went only to small, locally owned restaurants, i took in the taverns, cafes. i ate the local food, drank the local beer and wine. i talked to people. i stayed in a house surrounded by locals. if it was 'local', i said, &quot;i'll take two&quot; (in the local language, of course)

i do understand more about this country. however, do i have any understanding beyond a scratch of the surface...No. do i really understand the complexities of how people think there, how they work and really live...No. why they act the way they do, what their prejudices are...No.

i'll be the first one to admit this but i think many are loathe to accept that they visit a place and still don't understand much about it. perhaps they are gratified that they did not take a group tour and took some time to do 'local things' like sit in a cafe. people often are smug in thinking that there are two kinds of people, those who take tours and those who sit in the cafes doing local things. but in the end unless you spend a lot of time in a place and really engage with it, your understanding is at about the same depth either way.

Pegontheroad

I like the cafe idea. I was sitting in a sidewalk cafe in Heidelberg when a (German) woman sat at the next table and the waitress waited on her and ignored me. (It was just a mistake. She didn't do it on purpose.) The German woman apologized to me because the waitress had missed me. We then began conversing and had a nice talk, though I missed some things because she spoke very fast.

Later, when I was walking somewhere else, I saw her again, and she introduced me to her sister.

I also just wander around a good deal. I sometimes go to language school, so I have to supply my needs. I buy my morning rolls and cheese, hit the bookstore for something to read, and just live wherever I am.