Back in the late 1970s friend and I decided to hitchhike through Europe - we were living in London. We got zero rides from Calais and ended up catching a train to Paris, arriving at nearly midnight. The hotels near the station were too expensive, and we were sitting in the gutter looking at a map when a young man asked if he could help.
He said he knew where there were cheaper hotels, and offered to walk us there. He was charming, funny and warm, and we had a great conversation as we walked. After a mile or so he said, well this is crazy, why don’t you come and stay at my place? My mother won’t mind.
He took us to a grand Paris apartment, like from a film. His mother was already in bed, but she called out instructions for putting fresh sheets on the sofas. Hearing that we hadn’t eaten all day, he took us out for a meal at a couscous restaurant nearby (it was after 1am by now). He explained that he had to leave early in the morning because he taught at a school for special needs children outside the city, but that his mother would give us breakfast.
And that is what happened - she was charming and warm, and acted as if it was perfectly normal to feed two random foreigners her son had brought home in the middle of the night.
I’ve loved Paris ever since.
When I was visiting Berlin several years ago, I was walking past Hermannplatz Station to meet up with a friend for breakfast. I was on the opposite side of the street from the station entrance/elevators when I noticed some commotion near one of the elevator doors. I went over to see if everything was cool but I was horrified to find three small dogs being pulled down by their collars into the closed elevator doors. They were flailing for dear life as the elevator had started to go down to the platform with their collars still attached, which was strangling all three of them. There were people around but either they didn’t notice or didn’t know what to do. I quickly bent down to them and started digging my thumbs under the collars to pry them off and was thankfully able to get two without too much issue. But the third dog was proving much more difficult. It’s possible the elevator had gone further down in that short time. I used all of my strength to try and get the extremely tight collar off but I just couldn’t get my fingers underneath. The dog was losing strength and I stopped hearing its wheezing, desperate voice. I turned around and there were a few people behind me screaming and yelling out of horror. I don’t know German and it seemed that everyone there couldn’t speak English; I made a sign for a scissors but nobody seemed to have anything sharp. But in that moment an older gentleman quickly bent down and pulled out his pocket knife. He was thankfully able to cut the collar off for the third.
After all of that, I just sat there with these three tiny dogs all climbing into my lap shivering and still breathing heavily. I stayed with them for a bit until two police officers showed up (who also didn’t speak much english or just chose not to). The group of people that formed around the elevators were holding the dogs and I just kinda left at that point. Seeing that the dogs were good and that the police showed up and were talking to the locals, I just left to meet up with my friend. We had a nice breakfast after that.
So glad you were there at that moment for those dogs. That story had me on the edge of my seat in distress for a moment!
And I’m so grateful for the man with the pocket knife. I think my head would be in a very different place at this point had it gone the other way.
The first time camping with my girlfriend. We drove 25 miles down a dirt road to get to the campsite but found it was full. (We hadn’t realized that it was opening day of hunting season.) So we drove 25 miles back and started looking for a hotel. No luck after multiple tries. It was getting dark and we were tired.
The surprise? We still got along just great! Even with the setbacks we took it easy on each other and still found humor. Eventually we found a hotel room, then the next day a beautiful campsite.
So I married her.
I’ve lived on the road and traveled a lot, so it’s difficult to choose.
My last stay in Japan I was jet-lagged and struggling with a konbini self-checkout machine that was broken but I didn’t know. Some kind Japanese couple patiently helped me figure it out, even through a few “wakarimasen” (“I don’t understand”) on my part. Afterward I sighed a deep “arigatou gozaimasu” (“thank you”) to them, and they smiled big at me, and walked off.
This experience and many others sealed my love for Japan and the Japanese.
Coffee, seafood and a hot tub. Not a good combo, it turns out.
