Friday, August 5, 2011

The two Costas go to the Royal Wedding



In Porto Heli, where we live there is one famous Costa. He is the ex king of Greece, Constantine, or sarcastically referred to as Costakis by the locals that are not royalists; the royalists actually refer to him as Your Majesty.

However, there is another Costa, a friend of ours, he is Greek and has lived over 40 years in England and worked at a public, Eton type school. He has retired about a kilometer from us here in the Argolida.

Evidently Kate’s brother went there and invited some of the staff from the school to the wedding, including our Costa. This obviously was pretty exciting for us, and I promptly told the whole town about our Costa going.

So our little village in Greece had two going to the Royal Wedding, and both named Costa.

This had to be unique, cannot imagine any Greek village, even Athens having two Costas going to the wedding.

Off he went, electronic ticket, first class, stayed overnight at the dorms of the school, limo to the wedding.

We were glued to the TV, watched every minute of the festivities hoping to get a glimpse of our Costa, or even the ex King, no such luck, lots of famous people but not the two Porto Heli Costas.

We enjoyed it and were amazed at the manners of the crowds, and wondered what would have happened if they were all Greeks.

The next day we were invited to our Costas house at midday for a drink and mezedes to hear about his amazing trip.

Some other friends were there and we assumed to celebrate Costas return, I also was hoping for some souvenirs from the event.

I, as is my manner, sat next to Costa and asked him a load of questions.

“ Who had the biggest hat?”

“Did the Queen greet you?”

“Did you have good seats?”

“Did you say hello to Elton John?”

“Did any queen say hello?”

I was so involved asking questions, that I never noticed that the rest of our “ friends”, sneaking in, dressed in fake royal gear and waving paper Union Jacks, singing “ we fooled you Greg, we fooled you, Costa never went.”

It finally dawned on me, this was an elaborate joke…and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. They were all in the know; Jeannine and I were the only suckers. I was being paid back for all my years of practical jokes.

Costa never went, this was mainly his wife’s idea, and quiet, sweet Gwen got me. Who knew she had that side to her, you never really know people.

How do I get back at them? Do I just let them worry and get them when they are least expecting it, or let them anticipate my revenge forever…and maybe not do anything? I have to think about this.

In town at the cafenion, I maintain that Costa went to the wedding, I do not want to make a complete ass of my self.

Hmm…what will be my revenge?

4 comments:

  1. That was a good one, although Gwen almost gave it away when Greg offered to pick his friend up from the airport...She did some fast talking that sounded a bit confusing at first.....

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  2. ha!!!
    vanilla ice cream ring a bell?

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  3. King Constantine definitely went to the wedding because I saw Barbara Walters interviewing him on TV about it afterwards. He's a friend of my husband Nick and even came to our house in Grafton MA with his wife Ann-Marie shortly after Nick's book ELENI came out in the 1980's. He's just folks and very un-snooty and loves telling jokes and funny stories.

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  4. Very funny. Nice to see you get it occasionally.You probably deserved it, knowing you.

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