My recent three-month community college sabbatical, a whirlwind tour of the best college reading programs in the United States, was scattered among 14 colleges in 11 states. In anticipation, I packed two suitcases feeling like they contained a mini-Barcalounger, or two, apiece.
"Be prepared" is my traveling motto, along with "Be gracious" and "Bring gifts to calm the infidels," my relatives. One never knows...
The first stop, my favorite, was San Francisco in April. Two days of campus tours was punctuated by stupendously fun rides on the front of cable cars careening down Nob Hill or zooming towards Fisherman's Wharf. My room, a Holiday Inn with incredibly nice personnel, felt simple, clean, and New-ish. I belong to the "best surprise is no surprise" school of hotel selection. I believe traveling is about experiencing all the local culture and flavor to the fullest: Do it all!! Stay up late. Get up early. See everything. Fortunately, I have been blessed with needing very little sleep. However, at night when exhaustion finally sets in, lead me to a clean room with clean, fresh linens, no weird smells, and a firm, solid bed.
Suddenly it was Saturday in the a.m., and my early Sunday departure loomed in thought like a bag piper playing "Oh, Danny Boy" in the near distance. I had a bad case of the I'm-leaving-my-favorite-city blues. Where to go? What to do? I caught a cable car, natch, and head nowhere, everywhere, trying not to cry, and get off at China Town.
I Passed windows with their chickens and pigs hanging like Christmas tree ornaments in a department store hearing the sellers, suppressing a sniffle. On the next corner, I got stuck in a crowd being wooed by a Salvation Army band. It was both moving, and awakening.
Suddenly, I spotted an Asian woman with well-coiffed hair heading down the sidewalk, and I figured out what I want to do. Get my hair done. Why not?
"Excuse me," I asked her. "Where do you get your hair done?"
"Up there," she said smiling and pointing to a long, thin flight of stairs. "The man, he is really good. Cheap, too."
Okay, why not? A great adventure. After all, this was not only supposed to be a sabbatical from my work, but also a great adventure. I had never traveled like this before: alone. A bit scared but mostly immensely excited me. Life was really happening to me. Just two weeks before I bought my first house all by myself down in Rainier valley. I then plunked down $9,000 at the Three Coins Travel Agency to cover the sabbatical trip and kissed my dog good-by. A great adventure, I told anyone who was polite enough to listen. Really.
Okay, I wanted another one.
The salon was tiny in the way that those small espresso stand sheds are tiny: barely big enough for three. Old. Hot.
"How much for a perm?" I asked the handsome cashier/stylist. He stared- hard -at my wind blown, dried out frizzy hair for a minute, sighed, and said, "$20."
"I want to look like her," I said pointing at the woman who I'd followed up from the sidewalk. He and the gorgeous woman chatted in A Language Other than English before gesturing to me.
"She's got to be kidding. It'll take a miracle," I inferred.
First stop, salon chair to be washed. This was not your usual reclining salon chair. Nothing reclined here. I leaned way-y-y back in my chair, sliding down like a slippery cat, and he began a head massage and a hair cleaning like I'd never experienced. I felt like my head was in a washing machine's spin cycle: whoop, whoop! It was delicious.
Next, the perm solution and comb out. I noticed there was no hygienic bottle of blue-cleaning solution where combs are kept. No hygienic anything. Who knows who used that comb!? I refused to think about it.
"Remember," I calmed myself. "This is a great adventure."
Three hours later, considerably more relaxed, and most assuredly more beautiful, I pressed a $5 tip in his hand, big spender that I am, paid the bill, and floated down the steps a new woman on a new adventure.
After all, isn't that what travel is all about?
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