By Osmosis
I've reached the conclusion that the best way to do anything is doing it by osmosis.
Tourism by Osmosis
I don't understand how people can stand visiting continents, countries or cities by going trough every little sight of interest, trying to do every possible activity. Sometimes seems that people travel just to put little checks on their travel book.
I know that, if you are some place where you've never been and probably are not ever going to be again, it seems like a crime not visiting that museum or that famous building. Why would you be in Paris and not Visit the Eiffel tower? In London and skip the Big Ben? In Rome and not go to the Colosseum? You would have to be crazy.
Here in Pisa I always wondered how come there are so many Japanese people by the tower but you never see them around the city, in restaurants and ice cream shops. A while ago, someone explained it to me. In Japan, it's so uncommon that you have vacations lasting enough time to travel that they only do it once in their lives. So, when they do it, they buy these "Visit Europe in 10 Days" packages where everything is organised and they only spend a few hours in each place. They fly to Pisa. Stop for 30 minutes by the tower. The bus takes them to see the Ufizzi in Florence. Off they go to Paris. Crazy. Also, their idea of visiting a museum is going through every painting or sculpture in the museum and taking 3 pictures. One for the label. One for the painting. And finally, one of them in front of the painting. All this without even looking at the painting. They are pretty good at this and can "visit" a museum in an hour or so.
I'm just giving this example for you to see how far this can go. This is not what normal people do but it's not so different. When I have to do visit a city in one or two days in fast mode, usually with someone that makes me do it, I arrive home and I don't even know where I've been, what I've seen and I'm dead tired. I don't meet anyone, I don't learn anything new and after the first five minutes I can't really appreciate what I'm seeing. It's like watching the best 10 movies ever made in the the same day. No one would try to do that.
That's why tourism by osmosis is a great idea. You just randomly walk the streets, turn wherever you feel like. You're tired? Stop at the coffee shop and watch the people go by. After lunch? Nap in the park! That shop or museum looks cool? Go inside. Read a book by the river or the sea. Talk with people!
Learning by Osmosis
When we first learn how to speak, we learn from being around other people and simply picking it up by repetition - by osmosis. We don't go to school to learn our native language. We simply pick it up because it is all around us. It doesn't matter what the language is: Chinese, Maths, Music. If it is what everyone else is speaking, we automatically pick up the basics. Did you ever learn language in school without going to the country where they speak it before? Without seeing why it's useful? That's the best way to hate that language.
Everything
This is a mindset and it takes a while to get used to it. The point is: if I'm not enjoying something that I was supposed to enjoy, I'm definitely not doing it the right way and maybe it can be done without really making an effort to do it.
