Hello everyone!
With the year quickly coming to a close, I thought I would reflect and share with you my favourite guest and the interesting hosting experience they brought me this year.
As hosts are we allowed to have "favourites"? I've heard as a parent you're not meant to, or teachers now to think of it...as hosts surely it's fine as our guests don't know where they fall in the ranking (unless you most multiple guests at the same time of course!)
My experience with my favouite guest actually started out pretty badly: she lives in China and couldn't write or speak English, so the Airbnb app (poorly) translated the very few interactions we had before she arrived!
She instant booked, was new to the platform, didn't have a profile picture or any information up and her first question to me was to ask if I would collect her and her husband from the airport! I was planned to be working when they arrived so I had to decline, but I agreed to pick them up locally once I had finished work.
Radio silence for weeks and then a message to say due to a family emergency she would travel alone, and could I still pick her up, of course I agreed and the following evening went to the local station to pick her up- having explained as much as possible how to arrive there from the airport.
She didn't show up! I still waited. 30 mins later I got a frantic call from a taxi driver saying he had a Chinese woman in his taxi, she was crying and gave him my phone number to call...so I explained the situation and he drove to the station to pick me up, and then drop us both at my place.
Even though she couldn't speak English or I Chinese, we still spoke to eachother as if the other could understand and she seemed much better after I got in the taxi. Because I didn't know what she was going to look like as she didn't have a profile pic, I was surprised she was around my mothers age, around 65 years old.
At home we chatted through a translation app, and even though it didn't translate everything quite as we'd liked we communicated well!
I went to work the next day, taking my guest with me to the underground station to buy a pass and explain how to travel around- she wanted to go to China Town, and off we went our separate ways. I worried about her all day! She sent me a message later to say she had bought food and would I like some, so I said yes.
I reached home, walked down to my door from the street to some amazing smells, to find her cooking up a storm in my kitchen, and she had cooked the most amazing Chinese meal for us from scratch, it was so wonderful, and she looked so happy and bright for the first time since she arrived, I didn't have the heart to say that I don't allow guests to cook in my kitchen!
She stayed for 3 days with me, and insisted on cooking for me everyday, she couldn't understand why I was living alone, and was concerned that I wasn't able to look after myself or cook properly as a single man...my lack of a rice cooker very much worried her 🙂
We got on so well, had some brilliant chats through the translation app, and I ate very well for those 3 days...I really felt like I had my mum living with me and not a guest!
That was when I was new to hosting: I didn't manage my settings especially well and I wonder now if I'll ever have an experience like that again...probably not, and maybe that's why I look upon this guest with such fondness 🙂
Feel free to tell me about your favourite...if you allow yourself to have one!
Paul 🙂
*Part of the Community Center's Month of Celebration
