When I travel, I like to rent an apartment. It is, off course cheaper, and if you have kids, more convenient. But for me the best reason to get an apartment is "living like a local", and not any local, but the one of my own imagination and choosing! You can imagine yourself being a Russian Prince (or Princess) living in a small walk up near opera in Paris, or an American writer looking for inspiration in Rome. You can create your own persona, a whole new identity, a whole set of new habits, and hang outs: a favorit cafe to take your morning coffee, the perfect Ice cream stand, the neighborhood bar perfect for your new persona. If you like, you can even give your self a new name, too. It is the perfect scape!
Unlike hotels who bank on being predictable. apartments can, and do provide surprises. Each is different. Some are shabby, some are well cared for, all have taken on multiple personalities of the poeple who have stayed there. Sometimes people leave food items, boxed ceral, tea, coffee, tomato sauce. You can make a game of guessing who might have bought and left Mango Chai (Ahmed brand), or a half eaten box of Coco Crisp. People leave behind books and board games too. May be they think what is the use of taking the paperback you have already read? You can also try to guess what kind of person have left behind "the book of Ruth", an Oprah Book Selection.
But the best part of living in an apartment is to go food shoping with locals. Nothing provides more insight to people than observaing the way they shop for food, what they buy and where they buy it from. In the US almost everybody shops at a supermarket. In Italy, supermarkets are only one stop out of many for the housewives (and most shoppers are women). Supermarkets do sell meat, fish and vegitables, but all self respecting locals go to their favorite shops or stands for those. In France, Monoprox sells everything including children's clothing and make up, but the Cheese is too precious to be bought from Monoprix. The selection there is too meager, good only for tourists like me. All self respecting Frenchmen or women patronize the specialty shops. Selection also tells you what people care about. Italian supermarkets carry an enormouse variety of water, both sparking and still. But the choices for toillet paper is limited.
More importantly is the way they shop. Italian women touch every tomato, smell every bunch of parsley, inspect every cut of fish. Their faces are intent, focused. Shopping is not a chore to be done with after work. It is the work. Italian women while shopping do not talk, do not smile, the gravity in their face demontsrtae concentration and dedication. In Italy no one makes a shoping list, they see what is good and they buy it.
One of my favorits place to watch people shop for food is the food market in Budapest. From Caviar to Safferan, You can find everything there. To me it is the last reminder of a long gone Empire, and the refuge it used to be for poeple beyond the iron curtain. The market is bright and cheery, no trace of the melancholy of the city. People inspect, taste, haggle and buy. The market tells you that it is a city that takes its food seriously.
