Bristol vs Toronto; Who you callin’a tourist?

Yesterday afternoon I arrived in Bristol in Somerset. Since then, I’ve walked around town for hours, checked out a few galleries, stuck my head in a bike shop or two–this country is seriously lacking in swank high-end shops–and even purchased some music. Earlier today, I bought a movie ticket at the independent cinema in the heart of the touristy part of town. About 90mins before the film was to begin, I left the hotel in search of food. Being distracted by a couple of murals down the road, I went right when I should have gone left.

Within minutes, I was wandering the streets of the Stokes Croft neighbourhood, checking out the graf’, reading the various club listings and trying to get a feeling for what this place is all about. Quickly, it became apparent that I’d forgone any intention of attending that film that this is the real Bristol. This is where space has become place and the people will riot to keep it home.

Finding a small local restaurant, I sat down at the large store-front window and watched the people go by. Young and old, by bike and by foot, with intention on their mind or aimlessness within their shoes, the people of this neighbourhood made their way along the cracked sidewalks and broken streets. Children wearing smiles laughed and played next to buildings without windows. I soon put the camera away, feeling like an uninvited guest stealing drinks from the open bar at a private party. No body was about to kick me out of the party, but I knew I was putting my nose where it didn’t belong.

Drinking coffee while reading the local arts/scene newspaper; the light was beginning to fade but the people kept moving past that large window on the world. Many do not realise that the immune system’s function depends on how we live our lives and they may take different http://appalachianmagazine.com/2016/10/27/2017-west-virginia-wildlife-calendars-now-available/ levitra samples forms. Well, most of us are living in sample viagra for free a way not favorable for their looks. This way Tadalista helps in enhancing erectile Dysfunction condition than taking the substance alone. cheap generic levitra Consuming Penegra with proper assistance will help you keep a track of the improvement, while the latch valve system ensures appalachianmagazine.com tadalafil levitra that it can be operated with just one hand. The occasion[or was it the glass] also gave me time to reflect on what I was feeling about this city. Bristol is a vibrant, artsy yet tough university town that just seemed to beckon me. Yup, I could live here and like it very much. I hadn’t felt this way since my time in San Francisco, oh so many months ago. Then I started to consider if I my feelings of attachment to Bristol were really a nostalgic sense of longing for my own place back in Canada.

Having been homeless and on the road for the better part of ten months, perhaps the endless space I’ve been calling home has begun to lose its charm. Perhaps I should spend less time in the places I visit, lest I become attached and thus, melancholy. But cities aren’t just buildings, restaurants, murals and pot-holes; they are–before anything else–places full of people. Perhaps that’s what I am really missing, what I’m truly longing for; my friends, my family…my people. Not that I intend on quitting my touring, but ever increasingly, I like the idea of returning to Canada in the fall. To return to my people, to return home, to look with suspicion at tourists taking pictures of the space I call home.