The Guests of the B&B

As you know by now I live in a Bed and Breakfast. A B&B. So it's not unusual to have random strangers coming in and out of our house everyday.
Some people are a bit iffy, expecting that we're a hotel or something. We're not. We're a family welcoming strangers into our home. They don't see that and expect everything a four star hotel has for a fraction of the price! We've four stars - heck, the inspector said we deserve five, but our rooms needed to be larger - but we do not work the same way as a hotel. Similar, but not the same.
However, that's only a small number of the people that stay here. Majority of the people that stay in our home seem to feel that they can't say thank you enough. They chat to us. They joke with us. They are welcomed home! Sometimes people even return years later. It's lovely! It puts a smile on my face to think we make people feel welcome enough that they want to tell their friends. They want to come back.
I love talking to these guests. You can meet some interesting and lovely souls. Today, for example, I was serving breakfast to a trio (a man with his wife and brother - in - law) from South Africa. The fact that they were from South Africa alone was spactacular to me - it's rare that we get anyone from there or many of the countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Then, I had mentioned I was saving up for a Nikon D3100 (I'm taking donations readers! :P), when taking a photo of the three of them with a professional camera belonging to the husband. We ended up chatting for a good while. Turned out he was a photographer. So, when leaving, they handed me €15 towards my camera savings andthe husband will be sending my parents emails with info and links to the best photography shops that he knows of in Ireland! Like, wow!!!!
They didn't need to do that at all and this is why I love the B&B -though I may often may say I don't like it at all. You meet some amazingly cool people. It's crap when they leave. Seriously! But the connection has been made and, maybe, we'll meet again some day if they return.

I really hope the South Africans return some time in the years to come... :)