Viator Viator Travel Blog

The cities I fall spontaneously in love with have one thing in common. They all have a sense of possibility, which you can feel seeping up through the streets and out into the air from the back alleys. While they may open to your curiosity at first embrace, they also keep some things secret. Their essence is understood through experiences and connections that unfold over time. You need time to feel intimate with a city, like it gets you and you get it.

There is also a tendency for each of them to give me a surprise kick in the teeth, which shocks me out of my complacency and hurtles me into a new escapade. These misadventures can be traumatic at the time, but they are part of what keep us moving, the way that an accident turns into an anecdote, and the unexpected twists and turns along the road make it all the more intriguing.

How I love thee, Glasgow

Words to live by, from Glasgow

Glasgow seemed like it was already familiar, something like a future deja-vu. I had my passport stolen in Glasgow, along with the rest of my wallet and everything in it, but somehow even that wasn’t enough to make me dislike the place. It sent me off on an unexpected trip to Edinburgh, which is a far prettier town, with its quaint cobbled streets and deeply cultured air, but somehow I never got over that first encounter with Glasgow.

Edinburgh is incredibly beautiful, perched up there on the hill with picturesque old town shops and the glowering castle, but somehow it leaves me cold. I find the warmth and grit of urban, working- class Glasgow infinitely more attractive. It has a vibrant contemporary art and music scene, the cultural landscape offers endless possibilities for connection, making friendships and creative networks.

I ♥ New York

I remember being intoxicated by the city the first time I flew into New York. It started at least 20 minutes before landing, and I hit the streets of Manhattan at fever pitch. It was 1989 and the city was frizzling, I wish I had never left, I wish I had a time machine to go back to that moment and make myself stay.

One night on that first trip to New York, I sit on the fire escape of the Carlton Arms hotel, watching the drama of the street play out between a couple who alternately scream at each other and a hapless taxi driver. There is romance and tension in the air in equal measure. A penniless actor – Drew, from Melbourne, where are you now? – had invited me there that night to see the room that his painter friend, Mark, was decorating with a mural in lieu of rent.

Lady Liberty, role model

They asked me to live with them, ‘he needs someone like you’, said Mark. And Drew told me, ‘you’re on a spiritual journey, that’s the most important thing,’ and then gave me Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac and kissed me sweetly on the lips.

But I had other plans: a ride on the Concorde, a trip to Turkey and Greece, cruising from Rhodes to Marmaris with my uncle (who was the boat’s mechanic). Still, I longed for New York all that time, and tried to find the itinerant friends I had made there, but this was long before they days of email or social networking sites, and they had moved on, untraceable.

I was young then, and didn’t realize that when you feel the urge to linger somewhere, and have the time and resources to do so, it’s best to give in and stay. The time it takes you to get back there, and the speed at which everything in the world changes, mean that you can never recapture the life that might have unfolded, if you had taken that chance. The past, as they say, is another country.

We’ll always have Helsinki

Hyvaa matkaa is ‘good journey’

Helsinki just felt special, and after a whirlwind trip through the archipelago to Stockholm, taking part in a festival at Kiasma and Suomenlinna island, and spending a week at the railway station in the name of art, we developed a bond that I still cherish. In fact Helsinki gave me joy immediately: Taking the 3 euro aerobus in from the airport to be met by new friends, who showed me the bridge I was looking for, and took me out to the sauna and seahorse restaurant. When I returned for a festival a few years later, it was a fortnight of chaos and mayhem, all good fun until I sprained my ankle going down the steep stairs to get on stage at Club Gloria, and spent the rest of the evening with my foot on ice, dancing in my chair.

Still, this sudden impact with the ground, in contrast to all the hyperactivity, seems to draw me back there, time and time again.

Berlin, Ich Liebe Dich

Berlin has the potential for magic every time you step out of your apartment, there the sense that another adventure awaits, if you give yourself up to her embrace.

Shopping for New Life in Berlin

The first time I am in Berlin, a friend takes me to see the May Day riots, which seems like a good idea at the time. In the event I am terrified by the punks, anarchists and skinheads throwing rocks at each other and the police, and we leave fairly quickly. (These days the first of May is more of a cultural festival and celebration, with street parties and community gatherings, making it a far friendlier occasion.)

Cycling down the hill from Kastanienallee, on that first day, the brakes on my borrowed bicycle fail, I throw myself to the ground in order to avoid hurtling into the oncoming traffic at Rosenthaler Platz. I feel like there is some strange cosmic force at work that symbolically grounds my restless wandering spirit, and keeps me coming back to Berlin over the years, until I eventually end up settling here. The accidents that change your life may happen spontaneously, or take longer to become evident, but you will feel their effects, sooner or later.

The emotional essence of a city can soak into your soul, something that charms you, unexpected, fascinating, makes all the difference. I want to love Barcelona, and by all expectations I should, it’s a city that suits me perfectly in theory, but in practice I find the place doesn’t take, and remain stubbornly attached to Berlin. It is there that I feel at home, even though it drives me crazy some days, and everything changes so quickly you can barely keep up. The city has a place for me, it feels like we will be together for a long time.

These are things you just can’t know until you have been there, and experienced the way the city wraps around you with the daily rhythms of life, to follow your own impulses and curiosity down unfamiliar paths and strange streets. Just keep your passport close, and try to stay clear of the cobblestones.

–Jodi Rose

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s New York City Tours, things to do in Glasgow, Berlin tours, and things to do in Helsinki. If you need a place to stay, check out Helsinki Hotels on Planetware.com.