Day 21 - Keep on Walking
May. 19th, 2024 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bigmogWhen first arriving to a new place, I like to join a walking tour. These guides give an overview of the area but also provide history lessons, local trivia, and restaurant recommendations. Instead of charging a fee, they now just work for tips. You pay only what you think the tour was worth. I've been giving them about $20 regardless.
What occurs to me after going on many of these tours is that it's all a routine to the guides. They have a set not unlike a stand-up comedian. They do the same tour every day. Only the audience changes. It's show business in a sense. Some guides welcome questions perhaps because it adds some variety just like crowd work. Others don't even bother making the tour interactive. They just want to get their presentation over with so they can get on to the next tour.
Today was the first time that I left a tour before it completed. The guide wasn't so bad really. It's just that Warsaw involves a lot of walking and not a lot of interesting sights. There is hardly any of that old-world European charm. Perhaps to a European, Warsaw is great because it offers a modern western-style city.
They have some museums but they largely fail to impress after seeing museums in Vienna. While my hotel reservation is in Warsaw for a few more days, I do have my train pass so I'm thinking I'll use that to venture out for a day trip elsewhere.
What occurs to me after going on many of these tours is that it's all a routine to the guides. They have a set not unlike a stand-up comedian. They do the same tour every day. Only the audience changes. It's show business in a sense. Some guides welcome questions perhaps because it adds some variety just like crowd work. Others don't even bother making the tour interactive. They just want to get their presentation over with so they can get on to the next tour.
Today was the first time that I left a tour before it completed. The guide wasn't so bad really. It's just that Warsaw involves a lot of walking and not a lot of interesting sights. There is hardly any of that old-world European charm. Perhaps to a European, Warsaw is great because it offers a modern western-style city.
They have some museums but they largely fail to impress after seeing museums in Vienna. While my hotel reservation is in Warsaw for a few more days, I do have my train pass so I'm thinking I'll use that to venture out for a day trip elsewhere.