Someone asked me once how to see a city like one lives there. And I thought, why would you want that? If you live there it's same-old same-old. You've seen the Empire State Building a hundred times as you passed by, you've grumbled about the traffic circle that ends the Champs-Elysees and given passing glances to the Arc De Triomphe, you keep meaning to visit the British Museum but you're always busy or tired. And you've seen plenty of the more grimy streets that they don't gussy up for the tourists, you've seen muggings and brawls and drug busts. Blech.
Better to live in a place and experience it like a tourist. It’s
always worth seeing your own life from the perspective of someone who’s
never seen it before. And also you get to ride around on a fancy bus
while someone on a loudspeaker explains things to you. And you can laugh
at all the things they get wrong. The tourists will wonder what is so
amusing about someone saying that the Cafe Ritz has the best coffee in
the city. They will look at you with suspicion. You may have just blown
your cover. You can throw yourself off the side of the tour boat to the
horrified gasps of everyone on board, but you know the underwater
entrances to the municipal drainage pipes and they do not. Thus you
shall make a clean getaway and be the subject of the next news cycle.
You will thus need to hide your face for a while, preferably by wearing a
trench coat and a fedora. Everyone will assume you are a tourist
playing dress-up.
Or you could just read the tourist guides and see what they have to say.