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| The view from the sun-baked patio of the wonderful Hotel Eiger in Mürren, Switzerland |
Imagine this: You’re sitting in the dining room of a lovely little hotel in a famously picturesque mountain village in the Swiss Alps. Outside it is pouring rain so the large brightly colored awning covering the entrance and the umbrellas that ordinarily protect patrons from the sunshine are all put away. Most of the diners in the lively room with stunning views through the panorama windows are on a half-board, pre-fixe meal plan, as am I. It includes several choices of delicious main courses that follow a range of exceptional soups, a fish course or salad, and fresh bread. The wine is plentiful, the atmosphere convivial, and the staff are friendly, efficient, and engaging in numerous languages.
After a long, vigorous day of hiking I am ready for the
wonderful plate of beef stroganoff when it arrives, piping hot from the kitchen
and made with care. And then it happens. It really did; and I wish it hadn’t.
From somewhere behind me, I hear the uniquely loud and nasally
voice of an American. She says to the dining room manager (the always hilarious
and quite amazing Carla), in specific reference to the meal just placed in
front of me, “The smell of burning flesh is disgusting to me. We’d like to sit
outside”. I did not turn around. I did hear Carla ask gently whether they
realized that we were in the middle of an enormous and quite terrible rain
storm, only to be dressed-down by the nose-talker about how it can’t possibly
be hard to pull out the awning, dry off the table and chairs, and turn on the
heaters. The American and her companion promptly walked out and waited in the
hotel lobby, toe tapping, while the staff scurried to make them happy (or at
least less miserable). I went ahead and dove face first into my stroganoff with
vigor and more than a tiny bit of amazement. The staff bit their tongues.
I wish this had been an isolated incident. On that trip, I
had several other encounters just like it.
After the few worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I tip-toed back
into travel and eventually swan-dove in with vigor. In each of the last three
years, I’ve sought out and found some exceptional experiences hiking in
mountains far from home and getting to know some wonderful people. In my recent
travels, I have always been made to feel welcome without exception or
qualification and I have never felt as though I was being served by the people
who staffed the hotels where I stayed, the cafes and remote mountain huts I
visited, or the shops in which I poked around. Wherever I have traveled, the
local people have been universally hospitable in the best sense of the word.
This year, in advance of my trip to the Bernese Oberlandt in
Switzerland, I’d had in mind an article about the distinction between service
and hospitality. It was a perspective that I kept in mind as I roamed around
the car-free streets of Mürren and the surrounding villages perched on the
cliffs above the Lauterbrunen Rift. It’s as beautiful a place as you can
imagine, and yet it was the welcome of the people I found throughout the area
that elevated it into the realm of the “I wonder if I could stay here for a
long while” places. What stopped me from writing my article, what surprised me
the most, was the realization that many, dare I say most, of the Americans in
the bustling little village quite obviously did not share my view of how to
experience the place and the hospitality of its people.
Among my compatriots, there was a clear expectation of being
in receipt of service in Mürren, of being served, of experiencing the place
just enough to be able to say that they’d been there and to show off their
photos. There’s no other way to say it: the other Americans were noticeably and
loudly disinterested in the people of the area, in their language and their
culture. Their needy and entitled voices frequently interrupted my quiet
reverie. I’ve been telling the uncomfortably numerous stories of my run-ins
with cartoonish Americans to my friends here at home, selectively of course,
and we all understand that underneath the entertaining tales about ugly
Americans is a dark reality and a valuable signpost for the rest of us.
To be clear, I have zero issues with people preferring to
modify their experiences for personal preferences, comfort, health or welfare.
I do have an issue, a quite significant one, with people who treat the staff of
exceptionally welcoming places like servants. It makes my skin crawl,
especially when that staff is so committed to making all who come to their
corner of the world feel at home in their home. Ours was among the first
nations to cast aside social class as an essential component of how society is
ordered and I would hope that egalitarianism is a part of our DNA whether we
are at home or abroad, so this behavior really is challenging to my beliefs
about who we are as a people. Thankfully, when I gently confronted Swiss
villagers about whether this was a new phenomenon, their warmth with me
remained unabated and they often shared their frustrations in a way that was
always kind and made clear that they understood my own angst – their optimism
about Americans remained unqualified even when tinted by polite consternation. Having
the trust and confidence of the people there and being made to feel like one of
their own was exemplified by the resident dog of a mountain hut invariably laying
on my feet while having these conversations in French or my terrible German,
and it did make me feel good about the world and my own place in it.
In Aspen Snowmass and in mountain resorts throughout North
America, the common practice of staff wearing name tags that have their hometown
on them is a subtle but effective way of humanizing each of us. The staff that
work hard to keep the place clean and shovel the sidewalks, the wait staff in
restaurants and everyone else are named and identified as people, not anonymously
hiding like a nameless and faceless palace staff around the confines of a
formal dining room, invisibly and silently serving their masters. The hometown
on nametags indicates that we’ve each arrived here for a reason that often is
similar to that of our visitors, and that our geographic diversity invites mutually
respectful conversation and enriches our guests’ experience. I do hope that it
keeps all of us, guests and staff alike, feeling and being squarely on the
hospitality rather than the service side of the equation.
So, to my newfound friends in Mürren, danke schoen. Gracie
mille. Merci beaucoup. Thank you for having made me feel welcome and
for reminding me that true hospitality is neither transactional nor can it be
rehearsed, and that its effect on the people being made welcome is far-reaching
and quite wonderful.
I’m already looking forward to my next overseas
adventure. For now, I may just have to treat myself to another slice of
apfelstrudel at Bonnies on Aspen Mountain – it may make me feel soft around the
waist but it does always make me feel good about the world.
