Four weeks of B&B misery
In the past few months, we've told family and friends of our plans to open a small bed and breakfast. The responses were diverse and unpredictable. Some were enthousiastic and foresaw interesting people visiting us, paying us good for a night's sleep and a croissant. Others focussed on preparing breakfast before sunrise and having noisy strangers in your bathroom.
Here's a short account of four weeks of guests in our house.
Let's start at the bright side
It's a part-time job. Never a dull moment! Get up half an hour earlier than your guests to prepare their breakfast, clean up the remains and put the dishes in the dish washer. Remember to buy fresh bread, every day. Keep the bathroom clean, empty the bin in their room and hand out clean towels, every day. Don't forget to leave in time for your day job.
After guests depart for their next destination, clean the room thoroughly, change the sheets on the bed, start the washing machine, rearrange the tourist info and prepare the room for the next guests.
The dark side of all this joy...
We had guests coming from the USA, Ireland, Germany and France. People with stories about their culture, family, food, past travel experiences and so on. You can imagine the horror of talking about these things over tea or wine. Not only were we forced to improve our foreign language skills, we even had to hand over Dutch words at request.
On a serious note
We've had four great weeks. We learned new words, recipes, music and facts about the life in other countries. Any minute spent on household activities was worth it. Our guests were decent, interesting people.
July 2011 guests, a big thanks to each of you!
