Tourist Invasion

I want all the tourists to leave!

It’s fascinating living in a tourist city; we’ve been completely inundated with tourists.  They’re everywhere!  I grew up in a small English village.  No tourist invasion in the summer, just the same year round, so I love watching the dynamic of all these people arriving, determined to have a good time.  This is their vacation for the year, they’ve earned it and they’re going to enjoy it.

The disruption they cause is entertaining and sometimes mildly irritating but mainly they make me realize how much I love this place. They only spend a few days on vacation; I’m lucky enough to live here.

On the boardwalk, a path running alongside the beach, they walk in the wrong direction, into opposing traffic.  Or stand in the middle of it, laden down with beach chairs, coolers and boogie boards discussing which spot to choose on the beach while the locals navigate their bikes around them.  For locals, it’s our way of getting from A to B.  Jump onto the boardwalk on your bike and you can ride for most of the length of the peninsula.  The tourists have no idea of how the locals use the boardwalk and are at constant risk of being run over.  Luckily most of them are oblivious to this fact.

In the supermarket they stand in the middle of the aisle blocking the way.  I’ll whizz in for boring, basic things, like milk and bread.  They’ll be taking up the whole aisle.  Instead of picking up what they usually have, it’s vacation time.  Maybe they should have some exotic bread.  So while I try and grab the same whole-wheat loaf that I get every week.  They stand there, the guy perusing all the options shouting over to his wife ‘Shall we get the organic, poppy seed baguette.’   Of course he has to pick it up and wave it at his wife. She’ll stand there considering, making sure the entire aisle is blocked.  “I don’t know, shall we?”  They’re not sure, so all the bread needs to be analyzed, they’re on holiday, they want a treat.

Suddenly the entire family is involved in every purchase.  What crisps/chips should they get?  They huddle around absorbed by the options.  It’s their vacation; it’s got to be right.  Tourists with red, peeling skin debate the best suntan lotion options. Girls wander around in bikinis grabbing boxes of beer.  Guys walk in carrying their boogie boards under their arms.  It’s chaos but a good chaos!

My favourite time in Newport is early morning. All the maintenance guys are out hosing down the streets.  The beach vehicles are cleaning the sand.  The surfers are in the ocean and the old surfers, guys who don’t surf any more, gather by the beach to drink coffee, chat and watch the young guys surfing.  They’re grabbing some time before they need to get to work and the black ball flag goes up announcing no more surfing for the rest of the day.  There are no tourists then.  They’re all in bed recovering from their partying the night before.

Come September the peninsula will be ours again.  No more queues for restaurants, parking spaces available and less chaos in the supermarket.  But less energy, less people watching, just time to repair the damage and prepare for another crazy summer.
.