No Ho For Me
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Paris. I am eating ALL the chocolate. ‘Nuff said.
No Ho For Me
As my husband will attest, I am sometimes a bit of a princess. I’m flexible about anything that is not on my things-I-am-not-flexible-about list. That list includes waiting in lines (our eldest gets that from me—he, too, hates lines to an obsessive degree). I have no choice in airports, but otherwise, I will go to extreme lengths to avoid waiting in a line, even if it means sacrificing something I thought I wanted to do or see or eat. The following are a few of the things I have refused to wait in line for:
Ho Chi Minh’s preserved body
Brunelleschi’s dome
Molecular tapas in a food court
Anything in a food court, including Michelin-starred chicken-rice. Especially if the food court is a Singaporean hawker center and it’s a thousand degrees.
A sandwich full of cold cuts on slightly stale, unsalted Tuscan bread.
Frida Kahlo’s house
This line aversion is how I came to acquire a year-long membership at The Hermitage Museum, in St. Petersburg. That was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The day after we arrived in St. Petersburg, I walked past the museum, and saw the line. A long line. Super-long. So I went on the website, trying to figure out whether there was a way to skip the line. There was—I could become a Friend of the Museum. It cost about four times more than a single entrance, but that’s about how much I hate waiting in line. So I clicked ‘purchase.’
Every day, for the rest of our time in St. Petersburg, I’d walk past the museum and see the endless line of tourists, waiting in the sun or the rain for their chance to enter. Seeing that line, of course, I’d think, well, I should go in, since I don’t have to wait. And I’d go around the corner to the special door and sail in. I’d wander aimlessly, for an hour or so, and look at a few things, then I’d exit through the same door, and go on about my day. Unless I got lost trying to find the way out, which happened a lot. It’s a HUGE museum.
Anyway, one day a week or two after I joined, I got an email announcing a members-only showing of a new exhibit. It was a few days before we were planning to depart, so I went, just because I’d never done anything like that before. I was at the door of the gallery when it was opened, and I was the first person into the exhibit.
It was a selection of Dutch masterpieces (mostly Rembrandts) from a private collection, owned by a super-rich New Yorker. I was almost totally alone in the room—the curator of the collection was there, making sure everything was level and dust-free, and taking photographs. I found myself nose-to-nose with a Vermeer, and just stood there, slack-jawed, not quite believing my good luck.
Because that’s what it was: good luck. I hadn’t bought the membership because I knew the painting would be there. I had bought it because I hate waiting in lines.
Unless the line itself is the point. The big, glorious market (Machne Yehuda) in Jerusalem provided me with the exception that proves the rule. We were walking through the market late one afternoon, and a significant line had formed in the middle of an aisle. I wondered aloud what all those people were queuing for, and Lee suggested I hop in line and find out. So I did.
After a few minutes of shuffling slowly forward, I realized the two gentlemen in front of me were speaking English, with heavy Russian accents, so I leaned forward and asked, trying not to sound too insane, what, exactly, we were waiting in line for.
Bread, it turned out. The bakery had a deep discount at the end of the day, so we were all waiting in the bread line. (The historical meaning of the phrase bread-line is not lost on me.)
One of the guys finally turned around and looked at me.
“You got in line without knowing what it was for?”
I shrugged. “Sure. I was curious.”
“What are you, Russian??”
I didn’t really need any bread. But it was totally worth waiting in that line.
Take care,
Lisa
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