Originally Posted by
Cheetah_SA
Yes, but... may I play devil's advocate for a moment?
- I accept that you made friends for life. But you are obviously a lovely, gregarious person - has that not happened to you far more often in other circumstances? Was it the hotel that afforded the "life changing experience" or was it merely the coincidental backdrop?
- The people you met in those circumstances: were they not actually pretty much "in the same mould" as you - people with the same tastes and interests as you - and hence "life enhancing" rather than really "life changing"?
Not trying to be argumentative - just trying to explore what "life changing experience" means in the context of this thread. Maybe I'm wanting it to be more like
Kage's "epiphanies". Some flash of light... a deep insight... an realisation or awakening of some sort.
Making life-long friends is obviously fantastic. I even rate brief, but meaningful, interactions with strangers as among the great boons of travel. But they have never seemed to me to be specific to the hotel where they happened.
You make some good points and yes, you are probably right. However, there are few places in which you can get together with like-minded people these days. Our lives are relatively insulated, so when we do make life-changing connections, this has a huge impact, and you do, of course, remember the initial meeting in terms of the location. Certain hotels draw specific types of people (especially Amans) - not always people I get on with by any means, but over the years there have been a substantial number of good friends that I have met in hotels/resorts that I would not have met otherwise. Very Celestine Prophecy!!
