I thought of Christophe, the sweet man who had picked us up an hour before Paris yesterday, and taken us directly to the public transit station so we wouldn’t get stuck trying to hitch through the city. I thought: I believe in people. It’s not the mystical benevolence of god that count I count on day-to-day, it’s the goodness of other human beings, the kindnesses lying ready in the human heart. I believe in the goodness of people and people bring me goodness. It was this wash of gratitude that I stuck out my faithful thumb on the A-10.

off the map