Encounters entangled with expectation

It took me an hour to walk up that hill: a pilgrimage of no mean size! At least it was a pleasant one under the shade of a forest of trees. The road slowly wound up the hill with many twists and turns making it difficult to judge how much further I had to go. It was a communal hike with strangers and we exchanged smiles and huffs and puffs as we passed one another. At every bend I was hopeful: hoping to catch a glimpse of the building until finally I saw a sliver of it through the leaves: Notre Dame du Haut (Our Lady of the Heights), Le Corbusier’s masterpiece.
I approached the chapel slowly; dancing around it with the others in a captivated state. I had built up expectations of imposing grandeur. Yet it was a quiet building. The dark roof hovered above its thick walls and beautiful light filtered in through playfully coloured openings. The chapel stood peacefully at the top of its hill, looking like an elephant watching over the quaint town of Ronchamp.
I had stopped at Ronchamp with the sole purpose of seeing Notre Dame. Already my trip had been quite an adventure! I was staying in Belfort, the nearest sizeable town. On arriving at the dreary train station, I had no idea how to get to my hostel. I searched for maps and people who could speak English, all to no avail until a friendly car rental lady helped me (still without a word of English but a far better understanding of my sign language!) When I arrived at the hostel I stood there for a minute hoping I was mistaken. It looked more like a cheap motel for male students. Foreign men speaking foreign languages were everywhere: on the pavement, at reception, and even with me in the elevator!
That night I didn’t sleep a wink. The walls between our rooms were paper thin. I heard shooting games on one side and heavy music on the other. At 3am two guys knocked on my door for what felt like half an hour, calling at me in French or Spanish (I couldn’t tell at that time in the morning). I imagined having to escape out the window; running down the road in the dark of night, being chased by a group of strong men.
Finally the sun rose and I opened my door with my heart thumping in my chest and my eyes darting up and down the corridor. It was empty. I left that hostel as fast as my legs would carry me and next thing I knew, I found myself walking up the hill to see Notre Dame du Haut. It was like a balm of relief to my shattered nerves and I thought to myself: “How on earth did I end up here, alive?”