I actually think that much of my remaining faith in humanity comes from exactly these things! In a world where politics and media get more depressing every fifteen minutes, a random act of kindness, regardless of how small, can be a great way to remember that humans can be pretty fabulous at times. This example is super tiny, but it's these ones that I love the most:
So I was with a friend and we were staying in Trieste in Italy. We'd decided to go to Venice for the day and had booked tickets for the last train back from Venice to Trieste (which is about a two hour trip). After an early dinner, we'd gone on a little boat ride, out around the islands. There were two boat rides of this kind and we'd accidentally got on the wrong one - the one that lasted 2 hours.
When we arrived back at the central station, we had all of a minute until our train. We ran for our lives and got on the train by a hair's breadth. We sat down in our seats and then realised - a full five hours after dinner - we would have to go to the buffet car and get something to eat. So when the ticket guy came, I asked him where the buffet was (in horrifically bad pigeon Italian). He told us there wasn't one and asked where we were going. We explained to him about our misadventures, but he told us we'd be unlikely to find anything open in Trieste, as the train didn't arrive til long after 1am.
We were a little sad, but we would live. The important thing was getting the train and not sleeping on the street somewhere.
Five minutes later, the guy comes back with a bundle of chocolate bars. He explains that his wife gives him one each day with his packed lunch and that he sometimes keeps them by as an emergency stash. He wouldn't let us give him anything for them and insisted we ate them. What an absolut gentleman. :)
