With all this never-ending hate on social media, one gives
up faith in humanity. The mentality you see on social media be like, ‘You
commented badly about my religion, I’ll insult yours through my atrocious
comments’, ‘You just made fun of my country, I’ll google everything bad about
yours and comment all that shit here’ and so on. Why we forget the idea of humanity before
religion? Planet before country? Anyway, I won’t go off-topic. This incident
happened with me recently and made me believe good humans do exist.
I planned a two-day trip to Strasbourg, a small town in Eastern
France (French-German border). Planned very spontaneously, as most of my trips
are, I booked a room through Airbnb. At the spur of the moment, I didn’t check
the exact location as the address read ‘A small cottage in Strasbourg’ (and it
was very cheap so I didn’t think twice). Left early morning from Munich and
enjoyed afternoon at Baden-Baden (a German city at the French border). Took a
late evening bus to Strasbourg and that is when it struck my mind to check the
exact location of the cottage I booked. It showed 55 km away from Strasbourg. I
got bent out of shape over the misleading advertisement but soon realised it
was my fault. I called up the guy. I could barely understand his English so I
asked him to text me the exact location and conveyance to reach there.
‘Take the bus to Saverne’ he texted. I called again to
confirm ‘Yes, the bus to Saverne.’ He confirmed.
I reached Strasbourg bus stop. The last bus to Savarne left
in 20 minutes from the central train station which was 10 minutes by tram from
the bus stop, could it get any worse? Yes. Language! All the French I learnt,
went down the drain. But thankfully my broken German helped. Reached the station 5 minutes earlier but still
needed to find the bus. Luckily I saw the bus leaving the place while I ran in
front of it to stop it.
“Saverne?” I asked the driver. “Oui! (Yes)” He replied “Ticket?”
“Can I buy it from you? The ticket-machine is in French and
I ….”
He interrupted “Oui, Oui!” with a big-smile on his face.
I finally relaxed at the window seat to enjoy the Alsace
region. An hour after I woke up to realise I slept through the journey. It was
almost midnight and I was the only passenger in the bus. I ran to the driver to
ask him about the address (A world without google maps isn’t easy).
“This is 20 kms away from here!” he was equally surprised as
me. I was rooted to the spot.
“Fuck! Any buses? Taxis?” I asked looking around the
deserted roads with dashed hopes.
“Noi. Wait for me. I’ll park the bus and come” he said with
a smile.
“Sorry? You will return?” It was totally unexpected.
“Yes. Wait for me. I’ll be back in 15 minutes”
The driver returned in his car and waved at me. An amazing
gush of feelings waved through my spines as I saw him. He told me he lives 15
km in the opposite direction. I couldn’t thank him enough. Through our small
discussion, I found out he was into automobiles studies but gave it up to drive
bus and trucks (big vehicles, as he put it). He enjoyed it.
We reached our destination. He didn’t desert me till he saw
the guy come out of the house.
“I can’t thank you enough” I took out my wallet “Please keep
this as a token of thanks. Please” I extended 30 euros to him
“No” He batted my hand away “Have a beer from my side” He
smiled and drove away.
Maybe a small incident but it essentially gave me a
feel-good feeling. Good and selfless humans do exist. I hope the driver
(Strasbourg to Saverne bus- Course 30188) reads it and accept my huge acknowledgements.
Maybe, bated breath in the beginning but a very beautiful
start to know 'French' people or as I'd say good people from France.
A big thumbs up for writing up about it, a bigger one for travelling alone and the biggest one for your friend for being awesome!
ReplyDeleteContinue writing more and keep sharing it ;)