I’m a curious gal. I
love to travel. And under the right conditions,
it might even be possible to persuade me to move overseas. Imagine the adventures. Imagine the food. But in my imagination, there’s always air
conditioning. In Mr. Bear’s imagination,
on the other hand, there’s usually a rainforest, a horde of vampire bats, a
stolen idol and an appalling lack of turn-down service.
He’s never been able to give a satisfactory explanation of
this phenomenon, but I’m willing to bet that if we could plumb the depths of
his brain, the phrase “real men” might be floating around there somewhere. As in “Real men can protect their families
from man-eating lions” and “Real Men punch sharks.” Not a lot of opportunities for that kind of
thing at Colonial Williamsburg. Given
the choice, I’d rather go with fewer real men and fewer wild animals trying to
eat me on my vacation, but that’s where we agree to disagree.
Now, some of the places that Mr. Bear habitually suggests
for vacations are probably very nice places.
But since the only information he’s ever given me about them are phrases
like “Did you know that there are over 40 kinds of scorpions there that can
kill a man?” I tend to reject them outright whenever the subject comes up. But I can compromise. Here, for example, are a number of foreign
countries in which I’d be very content to live, and some compelling reasons
why:
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| Italy. Mmmm risotto. |
 |
| France. Mmmm crepes. |
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| Germany. Mmmm wurst. |
Are you seeing what these places have in common? That’s right. None of them are Australia.
