Authenticity of (Common)Place: In which I continually try and fail to be British, admit my nerdiness, and happily drown in tea.

I am constantly torn between the desire to be authentically British and the desire to behave like a rabid tourist. 
 
There are some days when I firmly keep my map in my bedroom, my camera in my back pocket, and my cash in my wallet (so that I don’t humiliate myself by squinting at the millions of British coins as I try to deduce their amounts).  I am a local, I tell myself,I am cool, nothing fazes me.  I belong.
 
And then there are days when I wander everywhere with a battered map and wide eyes, stop at every street corner to snap pictures, and squint at all the coins while answering the cashier with pride when they ask what country I’m from.  I am a tourist, I tell myself, so I might as well own up and enjoy it. 
 
This past weekend, I visited a friend who goes to school in Norwich, a city that’s about two hours as the crow flies away from London.  I found continual joy in the mundane aspects of her life in a way that I sometimes do not in my own: living in a house as opposed to an apartment; eating Sunday roast and trifle; seeing a university production of a musical; going out for tea rather than just grabbing a to-go cup with a Twinning’s bag.  I was delighted by the chance to experience what life is like for a ‘real’ British student – to be that real British student.
 
Of course, I’m not a real British student, and despite my (attempted) assumed coolness while sipping cream tea or living in an actual house for the weekend, I could never entirely forget that.  The very fact that I found all of these commonplace British things so exciting revealed how not British I am.  As much as I enjoyed the experience of being a local for the weekend, I remained – perpetually, inevitably – a tourist who delighted at mundane novelties and spoke with a funny accent.
 
I’m trying to embrace this sometimes awkward position of the long-time tourist as one who becomes involved in local life yet remains outside of it.  Some days ago, I did a very nerdy thing that I have wanted to do for six years: I walked around Fleet Street while listening to aSweeney Todd themed audio walk.  It’s a tour that takes listeners around the areas that Victorian Londoners would have frequented, while also pointing out spots specific to the Sweeney legend and the musical.  You can laugh at me – goodness knows I have laughed at myself – but it was a fantastic experience. 
 
Now, while walking around Fleet Street with earbuds and giggling hysterically to oneself is likely only something a tourist would do, there were decidedly local elements to my tour.  The audio walk took me through a variety of streets that I would have walked straight past without its guidance: streets filled with office complexes, residential courtyards, and other places only locals frequent nowadays.  The tour took me to a London that I would not have experienced by myself, both a Victorian and a modern one. 
 
Now, was this entire experience one that a genuine Londoner would have?  Probably not.  It’s a staged experience, to borrow Dean MacCannell’s ideas on tourism.  It is an experience designed for a tourist, an experience that gives the impression of reality without being an authentic experience for real locals.  Still, that doesn’t make my experiences inauthentic.  Whether I’m pretending to enjoy cream tea with practiced calm or grinning stupidly at my scones as I snap several photos, that sort of moment is as authentic as the long-term tourist can get.  

[image taken by me, of me, in a moment of completely relinquishing the idea of not behaving like a rabid tourist. Because, sometimes, it's just more fun to be behave like a rabid tourist.]