Sunday, July 26, 2009

I'm in your continent, growing mah beards

The young people of Europe do not seem interested in growing beards. Moustaches, goatees, and sideburns do make appearances, but never in the unified glory that is a beard. As mine continues to develop, it has been affecting the way the people I meet regard me. In Venice's Jewish quarter, a young Orthodox Jew lit up when he saw me, taking me for a foreign Jew going on a pilgrimage of sorts. Partying in Rome, I was called Jesus, and spent the evening turning water into whisky (and since, I have heard numerous passers-by call out "Jesus!" or "Amen" to me). It pleases me most to hear those I meet comment on my beard while intoxicated, and therefore uninhibited. A Frenchman told me I needed to borrow his razor: "You are looking like a Pakistani." An Englishman, "you'd be quite an attractive chap if it weren't for that damn beard." I feel the least out of place in the many museums I visit, hanging out with the likes of St. Paul and Hercules.

2 comments:

Brian Michael Evans said...

I am happy to get a beard update from you. You will be pleased to know that you have started a trend and Nate, Sean and I are all cultivating our own facial gardens (continuing the metaphor: Nate's if more like a scraggly patch of weeds, Sean's is no doubt glorious [I have yet to see it] and mine is somewhere in between). I look forward to your return so we can all hang out in a public space with our beards and be bad asses.

Anna said...

Strange, I imagined there to be more rather than less beards. But I suppose I am thinking of old Russian people and not young British ones.