Functioning in the culture beyond sightseeing, any suggestions

Old fashion barber shops in non-tourist neighborhoods are a good resource for cracking into the culture. While waiting for the barber I strive to engage another customer with questions about photography shops or pawn stores. Language used to be a barrier, but my google translate app helps. Barbers throughout the world have a gift for gab I rely upon to culture crack.
It helps that photography is a passion so I seek camera shops and find it easy to start conversations and let the dialogue grow. Pawn shops are interesting for finding unusual souvenirs, I seek WWII medals from different countries, and pawn shop owners are often prone to speak “gab”.
My wife is a quilter and her phone has a variety of quilt photos. Once we find a quilt shop I can count on having a couple hours of free time while she “cracks culture”. FYI: the language of “quilt” ain’t cheap!
So encourage folks to use their hobbies and daily interests to find like kind experiences as they travel.
Mr. E, any international Aggie travel cultural related experiences to share? 🤣

Steven, going to Austin is like visiting another country. Funny you should mention barber shops. I went to one in Istanbul a few years back and well, wasnt expecting this: https://youtube.com/shorts/uFzEz86BfAI?si=C2eGjxYewz9J9j6I

Some folks stay in short-term rentals so as to be more immersed in the local culture.

Given the problematic nature of converting many apartments in city centers to short term rentals and the ability of outfits like Air Bnb to swamp and change the character of some tourist hotspots, folks who care about preserving the character and charm of hotspot areas might be best served by finding lodging away for limited space centers and also by avoiding rentals owned by outsiders, and large capital and maybe just avoid air bnbs altogether -- at least for city centers.

The other method is theater.

What a great observation!

Happy travels

Hobbies and instagram can be good for getting that little extra beyond sightseeing.

In the case of quilters and quilting, the Spanish Patchwork Association has an instagram profile. There is a lot of info about different activities they have programmed. While it is very Madrid focus, they do have things from different areas. In August there is a pueblo here in La Rioja where they hang quilts from the balconies, and it is on the Patchwork Assoiation's site.

Following the local tourist authority for your next destination can give you a heads up on different activities that will be going on. I follow a profile dedicated to Soria, and for example they are going to have the "Holly Days". There will be a Christmas market, focused around Holly, but the will also have some craft activities and a hike into the local forest to see the holly (it is very protected here).

Just some thoughts. About the barber, when I got my first haircut here in Spain, 30+ yrs ago, after the haircut, the barber was so happy to have an American (or even just a foreigner) that he took me into the backroom where he had a leg of jamon serrano and a porron of wine and he shared with me.

As I look at what I have done that has given me brief glimpses of “regular life”, three things came to mind that I do intermittently.

Since I usually travel for longer periods of time, I will sometimes take a spa day - find a day spa for a massage or nails or hair. Sometimes I just find a place for a hair cut or style. Or maybe just a manicure. I look for places with good reviews, but rarely find myself at a place where tourists are the main business. A couple of cities I have been a repeat customer (Krakow and Sarajevo). Often (but certainly not always) this devolves into interesting conversations. Last year in Budapest, I went for a manicure and she and I talked about our (coincidental) upcoming visits to the opera house and the difficulty of deciding on shoes.

I also sometimes try to find a small church on Sundays when it works out. This is always a local and welcoming experience.

And also not always possible, but it’s one reason I really enjoy staying at B&Bs. I had some really great experiences with this in New Zealand (but also Scotland, Oxford, Romania, and Ireland). Sitting around breakfast in Wanaka talking philosophy with Germans, Dutch, French (and native NZer and native English hosts) was pretty priceless. In Riga, I stayed in an Air BnB that belongs to a woman a couple of decades younger than me - she had saved and bought and it was originally her primary home. When heating costs went up because of the war in Ukraine, she moved to a smaller cheaper apartment and uses this one (decorated for herself) as income. We sat for an hour or two on arrival and departure and had lovely conversation. (When people start tarring Air BnB all with the same brush in broad strokes, they need to realize everywhere is not the same.)

Most of those experiences don’t build life-long relationships, but they give me brief glimpses into both the common framework we all have and into the cultural differences. And they all take time away from seeing “things” and “places”. So I am fortunate to have the time for these.

Oh, and I look for local music - the big formal concerts or the smaller less formal places. It’s a cultural insight in a different way.

There was another discussion about “talking to locals” and someone wondered why a tourist might want to. For me, the main component I look for in travel is not seeing the inside of museums (although I like that, too) but seeing a bit of the inside of cultures. Even short conversations on mundane topics contribute to that for me.

Local events, markets and fairs are always a good chance to get an impression of culture and exchange with locals.

Sounds like Berlin has the ultimate event for this topic which is the annual Carnival of Cultures. Problem here is that you will see a wide range of cultures of people who came to Berlin but rarely the original Berlin one but also this is part of Berlin culture, also in history.

Smaller local events can be a real highlight. I once had a great evening when coincidentally discovering a music / lyric event in Norway's Notodden. I did not understand one word of the song texts or presented lyrics but they fully addressed me emotionally with the passion they did this.

On road trips I made good experiences with just visiting a tourist office or following a sign / small ad which is obviously no road sign, e. g. pottery or farm market. Searching in Tuscany for Agriturismo overnight opportunity was two times very good to exchange with locals.

In Germany a Schützenfest is always a great chance to meet local people.

Eating a meal in someone's home is a nice thing to do. My experience...

• If you have a connection, that's helpful. I visited two young men from the US doing an apprenticeship in Germany. A long, long family friend of theirs named Adolph of all things invited the young men, my friend, and me to Sunday "Kaffee und Kuchen." After our coffee and cake, Adolph took us to a small cabin in the woods. During WWII, his father had been tipped off that he was on the Gestapo radar for his public Bible studies, so he built the cabin in the woods for secret Bible studies during the war.
• Tour operators can be helpful in arranging an in-home visit/meal. In Mostar, I worked with a tour company owner there to arrange a cooking class with a young couple in their home. That fell through. Instead, we went to dinner with three generations of a family in an apartment tower whose windows still had pock marks from the 1990's war ringing them. Very nice experience.
• There are websites that can also facilitate this. In Kyoto, I used the Eat With website to arrange a cooking class and dinner in the home of a US father, Japanese mother, and their children well away from the city center. We walked the neighborhood a bit on our own (I am chronically early), cooked with the parents, ate dinner with the whole family, and learned a lot about family life in Tokyo.
  

We have not formed any long term sort of connections, but have had other great interactions that were not about sightseeing. Doing laundry at a campground in Iceland, I talked with a local for a couple hours as we were doing laundry. We were both fascinated with each others lives and vacation styles. In Dresden, just after the new year when some of the stalls were still up, I stopped for a gluhwein and a local lady on her lunch break stopped as well. She sat near me and we talked for a couple hours as well. I learned a lot about her growing up there and things that we were not taught in history classes. My husband will often attend meetings for an international group he is part of. He was at a meeting here recently when an Icelander came as that man was visiting family. My husband and him connected, and my husband will be seeing him on his trip this summer.

I have had many memorable conversations with residents (local or not) as well as tourists from other places in a similar variety of settings that have enriched my travels greatly. Some of them: B and B breakfast with English couple, German couple and Swedish woman. Laundrette in the Cotswolds with a Welsh woman. Evening tea in a B and B in Glasgow. But taxis or private drivers have also been a setting for memorable, brief relationships. Eritrean driver from Cardiff City Center to St. Fagan's, Irish driver from airport to B and B in Dublin. Local driver from Moreton on Marsh to Hidecote Gardens and back to Broadway. Another place these interactions happen for us is sitting on benches, in a village square, on hiking trail, in a museum.