Traveling, vicariously

Since the Hero is generally very busy with schooling and has very little time for travel -- occasionally we find enough time to make it to Target together -- I travel vicariously through my hair stylist, who seems to be always jetting around Europe. Her husband, who generally prefers to stay at home, is beginning to realize that this in no way discourages his wife from having a good time without him.


Each trip, whether with or without him, occasions rapturous praise when she returns.


"Oooo...you must go to Paris," she told me after visiting. "Everyone should go to Paris. Such a romantic place. The buildings are romantic, the cafes are romantic, the food is romantic, the people are romantic...everyone's in love in Paris." She sighed and looked as if she might break into song.


But as much as she loved Paris, and loved Italy when she was there, and of course loves her home country of Ireland, it is Greece for which her most rapturous praise is reserved.


"Oh! Crete! Rhodes! Just amazing places," she said recently, with another sigh. She does do a good sigh.


"I want to retire to Greece," she continued.


This alarmed me, as I am still training her to do exactly what I want with my hair, and the thought of having to begin training someone else was not pleasant.


"Surely you have a long way to go until retirement," I protested.


"I could retire right now," she declared, which alarmed me even more.


"But," she said, returning her attention from retirement to my hair, "I'd like to go to Hawaii. I've always wanted to go to Hawaii. I'll probably never get there."


"Greece is much better anyway," I said, having been to both places. 


This seemed to cheer her up a bit, and she returned to the subject of Greece.


She told me how her husband, who speaks fluent Greek, keeps this particular talent a secret when they go to a restaurant in Greece, preferring to let the waitstaff believe he is a dumb tourist. A dumb American tourist who can only speak loudly in English and has no concept that he offends everyone and might, therefore, be taken advantage of.


"You know when you're a tourist, and the bill comes, the prices are not what the menu says they are," she confided. This had been the one thing I myself did not like about Greece -- prices of things like a bottle of Coke change minute by minute, with no warning.


"So halfway through a meal my husband will suddenly start speaking in Greek, and then the waiters realize that this is not someone to fool with. And what do you know, our bill matches the menu prices!"


I thought briefly that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for them to retire to Greece. Should the Hero and I ever make it that far in our own travels, we could casually invite them to dinner with us. Every night. Lunches, too. Maybe breakfasts.


But I am really not ready to break in a new hair stylist quite yet. So in the meantime, hopefully she will continue to travel, and continue to return, and the Hero and I will continue to find time to tour Target, where we need no interpreter, and where the prices don't change for tourists.