Mont-Saint-Michel with Northern Lights
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People will forget what you said, forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.
~ Maya Angelou
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I was working full time for a US-based travel agency that catered to university students. In the past I had led a six-week Europe 101 trip for high school and college students. I also served as a host for one week charter trips to Mallorca for the beach and Sweden for the heritage.

Now my job was to scout out moderately-priced, clean, well-located hotels where students would be happy to stay on their Grand Tours of Europe. Currently I was looking for venues in Brittany because one of the stops on the upcoming tours was Mont-Saint-Michel.

I was living with friends in Basel, Switzerland at the time. And, that semester a cousin of mine was studying in St. Gallen. So I drove across Switzerland (not as small as it appears!) to9n pick her up and the two of us were off for a French adventure.

I have visited France several times and found it to not be the friendliest of places. I found that, at that time at least, not many people spoke English and, though I had studied French in high school, my ability to speak was close to nil. During my visits, I had been rebuffed many times for my poor French. I often felt like an unwelcome intruder. I remember, for example, being on a train with a man in the compartment with me. His distain for me when he found i couldn’t speak French was palpable. As a result, sometimes I was wary of reaching out.

When we arrived in the lovely city of Rennes, Brittany, at about 5 pm we stopped at a market to get bread, cheese, salami, and fruit for our dinner. But what cheese to choose? There were so many. A couple was shopping near us. I decided to take a risk to see if they spoke English. They did! What great luck. So we started a conversation about cheese and, from there, moved on to getting to know each other a bit. They asked why we were in Rennes. I told them about my travel agency work. They were excited and offered some ideas of possible hotels in Rennes. They agreed that it would be an ideal place to stay for a day trip to Mont-Saint-Michel which was about 50 miles away.

Then they went a step further and offered to show us some hotels and also to show us some of the cultural heritage of Rennes which they said was worth a visit whether it included Mont-Saint-Michel or not.

Long story short, all of this led to them inviting us to stay overnight with them. They had a beautiful home in a several hundred years old renovated building in a thousand year old village – with a castle yet – just outside of Rennes. We were on a very limited budgetWe were on a very limited budget because the travel agency operated on a shoestring and often had cash flow problems so after sleeping mostly in the rental car, it was glorious to anticipate having a bed with fresh linens! We talked together about many things while they cooked us an authentic and delicious French meal. The next morning they gave us a tour of the city. As we were expressing our gratitude and preparing to drive to Mont-Saint-Michel, they invited us to spend a second night with them. “Dinner will be ready at 8 pm.”

The next morning as we said our goodbyes, they handed us a large cloth bag. In it were bread, cheese, salami, and fruit. In addition, they added two glasses, a wine opener, and a bottle of wine as well as two cloth napkins. Such thoughtfulness and generosity.

Visiting Mont-Saint-Michel was an awesome experience in and of itself. But, given that it was impersonal – as many tourist destinations are – it could not compare with the joy and depth of having connected with these kind humans. They offered us gifts of hospitality, nourishment, guidance, trust, and more. We blessedly received so much more than we ever expected from our adventure!
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Our full humanity is contingent on our hospitality; we can be complete only when
we are giving something away. When we sit at the table and pass the peas
to the person next to us we see that person in a whole new way.
~ Alice Waters

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