Love At First Lettuce

 Travel love stories are definitely the best ones! Here is mine. My sister and I reclined on our sun loungers, looking out the ocean horizon off the coast of Niue, a tiny island in the South Pacific with less than 1,000 people.

 

We were the only two people staying at the resort.

 

It also just so happened to be that the resort was being renovated by a bunch of hunky, tanned, and often shirtless New Zealand builders.

 

Needless to say, it didn’t take long to strike up a conversation with these handsome fellas. By the end of our first day, we’d scored an invitation out to Niue’s only club the next night. Romance blossomed between one builder and myself while my recently-married sister acted as my wing woman.

 

Each day we’d wake up to the site of these muscular figures wandering past our balcony with hammers, wheelbarrows and power tools hung low around their waist. We didn’t care about construction noise – we were mesmerized by the ripples of their tanned muscles with each whack of their hammer and vibration from their electric drill. The ocean view wasn’t too bad either.

 

My love interest would take time to sneak visits and give us recommendations of where to go around the island. He told us there was a farm that grew hydroponic lettuces and tomatoes that we should visit.

 

The next morning as we opened the door of our apartment to leave, there, neatly presented on the doorstep, was a bouquet of hydroponic lettuce and tomatoes.