Lately it seems as though I’ve become prey to tourists asking for direction. I don’t know what it is about me that leads them to swarm and attack with buzzing questions like “Where can we find the museum of natural history?” and “What’s that building over there with the huge stairs and pillars? Do you happen to know when it was built?” I understand that whenever Harvard’s campus isn’t covered in icicles the tourists take it as an invitation to invade but COME ON. I’m not a walking information center, the real is in the Holyoke center. Au Bon Pain marks the spot people!

Today I had to explain where it can be found to a deaf couple for whom I had to draw a detailed map and pantomime the directions. My favorite tourist encounter was with an elderly woman who streamlined toward me as I was passing out the March issue of the Voice. She wanted to know how to get to Memorial Church but proceeded to interrogate me about dorms, dining plans, tuition costs, my social life, and even the profile of Harvard’s minority population. Seriously. At some point I kindly gave her the tip to go and Google what she wanted to know because, frankly, the internet knows more about this school than I do.

To think that this weekend I am going to be prone to these kinds of attacks by a clueless hoard of a thousand admitted students except they will want to know where the party is and not how to find the nearest bathroom. My prefrosh won’t know what she got herself into when I hand her a map and give her a pat on the back to send her on her way because I ain’t dealing with it no more.

Halloween will be upon us in only two weeks, and if you’re anything like 95% of the people I’ve talked to in the last week, midterms and papers have frazzled you far beyond the point of thinking about things like costumes (or sleep, or joy and happiness…). To help you out, we’ve come up with a few ideas to help you out with costume design:

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This Noice blogger was just strolling through the Yard admiring the fall colors when he happened upon this strange sight:

The tourist in question was obviously getting extremely over-excited about the colorful chairs — so he set about making his very own, erm, masterpiece with them. Noice thinks he was going after a Leaning Tower of Chairs/post-tornado statement. How profound.

"Can you speak a little louder?"

Tourists are a part of the Harvard experience. Freshmen hoping to sleep in on a weekday morning have their plans foiled by tour groups led by guys carrying umbrellas, wearing bright hats, or “Havhahd” shirts. We become accustomed to giving directions to Memorial Church, the Science Center, and Annenberg. And so, in true Noice fashion, we have embarked on a weekly photoblog, Tourist of the Week, to document the tourists’ crazy shenanigans (posing with a fire hydrant or with the latest fliers near Lamont).

This week, we bring you one of the biggest and oldest groups of tourists we’ve seen in a long time. Maybe the tour guide is asking if any of them remember when John Harvard donated books to the college?

So, if you see a tourist do something hilarious, crazy, or just plain stupid, tell us about it. Take a picture and send it in at thehvoicemail@gmail.com. We might just include it in our next installment of Tourist of the Week.