16 May American Hospitality

So, why do I love America? I could name so many things! For example the fact that the people at the market where I always shop already knew me after 3 visits, and they’re just so nice! Back in Amsterdam I went to the same market for almost every day for about 4 years, and never would they ask me how I was or even say ‘hi’ with a smile. I must say that that’s like a chain of big supermarkets in the Netherlands, but hey.

Another thing is that people in general are so nice and helpful. I couldn’t even count the times when I was staring at a map and people would just hop off their bikes to give me directions. I also had such nice talks with strangers, just interested where I’m from. And I still remember my first day on Haight street, where someone came up to me and said “You look amazing today!” and then just walked on, without wanting something from me (yes at first I thought “why the hell are you saying this to me?”) and just to be nice.

But what happened to my friends and me is one of the highlights of people that are just so nice and helpful. My friends and me went on a roadtrip to Yosemite this week, I know; in the middle of finals, but this was the only option left to go since we’re kinda running out of time here. We left Thursday at 8 in the evening, without a map and a GPS that didn’t recognize the address of the cabin (in the woods, yikes) we rented. You could call this being unprepared; we prefer to call it ‘very spontaneous’. Around 12 at night we slowly started to freak out because our phones didn’t have reception anymore and we were driving on a windy road next to a cliff. Shouldn’t we be there already? Or at least be close to it? So we stopped at a gas station, but it was closed.. My friend screamed: ‘O my god this is just like the beginning of a horror movie!’ and yes then we were creeping each other out (imagine four girls scared of horror movies, that’s us). But we kept on driving and thankfully we came across some houses, even one with the lights on! We stopped, three guys we’re hanging out there and it even turned out to be a hostel. So we asked them how far our cabin at Yosemite bug would be, and if we could still make it. They started to laugh and said: “Yes you could but it is another 2,5 hour drive, and if you get off the road, it is a long, long way down”. The Yosemite bug cabin turned out to be on the other side of the park, and the park itself was only an hour away from the hostel we were now. Thought about it, and decided that there was no f-ing way we were going to try and drive there. So, my friend asked if we could stay in the hostel, maybe even with a discount (pretty please)? Yes of course we could stay, “stay for free!”. How sweet? They even carried our bags and everything, totally without other intentions other than just to be nice and helping out. Damn, I just LOVE America! The only room that was still free was the suite, so we got to stay for free in an awesome and comfy room (instead of our far, far away and cold cabin..). How lucky are we. Drank some wine with the guys, went to bed and the next day had an amazing hike on the ‘mist trail’ (you get soaking wet on this trail since it’s right next to a waterfall) and left a bit earlier for the way back to SF. Yosemite is amazing, I thought I had a pretty good idea how it would be, but hell no. It’s unimaginably beautiful. It was an amazing and exciting roadtrip, incredibly spontaneous but in the end it was so much fun. Thanks to American hospitality, it all worked out perfectly.