Less

A few pounds overweight and about to turn fifty, Arthur Less is an American novelist who travelled to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan. He appears in the fiction written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer. 

That’s an entertaining story for my Greece trip. Arthur Less felt strange to be almost fifty. It’s like, to quote his words, the last day in a foreign country. “You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won’t ever be back.” 

Few metaphors can match the beauty of such comparison. What better ways to see how we face the stage of going-to-be-fifty?

On second thought, this isn’t a must to be so when we turn fifty. Or to leave a county, for that matter. For Arthur Less, he found his flight to be overbooked, and was happy to be volunteer to accept a flight later. 

It so happens that I was leaving Greece today. We remember the suggestion by The Rough Guide to Greece: “to go where Greeks go, often less obvious backstreet places that might not look much from outside but deliver the real deal.” Our family have been graced with the best travel companions who are from Greece. We ended up knowing the best ways to eat and drink at Athens and Chios ever since day one. 

We simply are wired to enjoy the country at its best.