The world’s most laidback celebrity
I’ve traveled next to lots of celebrities–Nicole Kidman, Sylvester Stallone, Billy Joel, to name just a couple. I even spent a 14-hour flight from Australia to LA playing cards with ski movie superstar, Glen Plake, minus the mohawk.
But the celebrity I met on my recent trip to Quebec City was, by far, the most agreeable. Not once did he complain. Or refuse to sign an autograph. Or balk at the never-ending demands of his handler. When he accidentally spilled pizza sauce on his beard while dining at Savini Resto-Bar on the Grande-Allée, a trendy street frequented by lots of hipsters, he didn’t pout or insist on immediate clean-up. No, he happily posed while groupies eagerly snapped photos while tomato sauce dribbled down his most treasured feature.
Yes, I’m talking about Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome who, like me, was visiting this 400-year-old city for the annual New France Festival. He’d already visited Quebec City during the famous Winter Carnival. That he came back, after being forced to sleep frozen in a block of ice at the famous Hotel de Glace, is a testament to his unwavering affability.
The well-known spokesgnome even agreed, in order to get into the spirit of Les Fetes de la Nouvelle-France, as they call this Signature Canadian event, to don a black, three-cornered hat on top of his signature red, pointy one.
I’m telling you, the guy can roll. Over the course of our four-day trip, he posed for countless photos, drank mass quantities of apple cider (without a single hiccup) and endured six swords all aimed at his pointy little head, not once forsaking his enigmatic little smile.
Even when people would gush, “mon petit mignon” (which I think means, “my cute little darling”), he, unlike most short dudes I know, took it all in with an uncommon stoicism.
It’s no wonder Travelocity keeps renewing the little guy’s contract.
August 14, 2012
psgrout
George Clooney Slept Here 