Traveling With Ellen

Ellen and I have elected to go on a last-minute Eastern Europe romp with a tour group that originated in Australia. That’s really all I know about it. Ellen found “this great deal” on a Tuesday and we were signed-up by Friday. She’s very efficient that way. We leave in two weeks and I haven’t really paid attention to any of the accompanying details. Ellen however, has been researching things and places and spots in Budapest (she calls it 'Buda') and telling me about all of them at once while I’m busy doing something else. Ellen likes to call and chat when it’s convenient for her and doesn’t bother asking if you’re busy. Then you must either stop what you are doing or carry on with your task but be very careful to respond to Ellen with enthusiasm and/or sympathy (depending on the origins of the phone call) or else she will chastise you for not paying attention. 

Every time I go on a trip with Ellen I come home and take a vow to never travel with her again. On one of our first international trips we went to Paris and we each brought a friend. I brought Ari. Ellen brought a noisy, over-packer named Arlene and we had to take turns lugging her suitcase through the metro. On this trip Ellen and Arlene did their “high-school girl” thing while Ari and I pretended we we’re in our late twenties and saw the city as a world of potential. Here we are, not yet seasoned enough to know better than to dress like Americans.

Due to our distracting travel partners, I was not entirely aware of Ellen’s behavioral tendencies whilst in the globetrotting arena. And so Ellen and I ventured out again, and again, until I noticed the pattern.

In this photo, I was acutely aware of The Pattern and saw the dark clouds of Ellen’s mood brewing up just beyond the horizon.

Ellen loves to travel. If you ask me she merely “Pops – in” rather than travels but I won’t harp on this point. Ellen is a bucket-list tourist and she moves through foreign cities with the same brisk productivity that catapults her through a routine day in her hometown. She does not stop and point or notice charming details. She walks at a high speed and plans her next move before finishing the one she’s started. To Ellen this is normal and sensible and highly efficient. When she has snapped a photo of the Eiffel Tower she will immediately scamper off to take one of the Louvre. She will look in the Colosseum, taste the gelato, and dip a crunchy piece of bread in Italy’s best vigin’s oil. She will admire the sparkling Mediterranean Sea, purchase an Aegean blue keychain of a Greek windmill, and when she has checked everything off of her list, she turns on you. She will not walk another block. She will not express interest in any sites you may want to see. She might just hop in a taxi bound for her hotel room and leave you standing on the street corner with no real plans. If you force her into a restaurant or store she will drop down into a chair, purse her lips, and wait silently. Her eyes will burn with hatred or she will close them in a dramatic display to prove to you just how sleepy she is. She might pipe-up to remind you that you are the problem she is currently enduring.

This version of Traveler Ellen is present more often than the excitable one that planned the trip months ago and created a binder full of maps and available excursions. Grumpy Ellen shows up either around 2:00 local time or the third day of the trip. It depends on how interested she was in the particular location to begin with. Ellen’s mood can be lifted, however it is an agonizingly lengthy process and takes a trained expert with a least a decade of experience in the field.

(Pro Travel Tip * Ellen’s mood cannot be lifted by any expert anywhere if there is grey or rainy weather.)

So why did I agree to a nine-day tour through a new part of Europe with a grumpy, black cloud of disinterest? Well, since it’s a tour group, I’ll have twenty other friends around when Ellen goes down for her nap.