How to Make House Guests Feel Special

 Once in Madrid, we stayed in a hotel where the bars of soap where the size of razor blades and the sheets were so threadbare that I put my foot through one. The street we were on wasn’t named “Skid Row”, but it should have been.  Immediately outside our window was a blinking, neon sign that blinked Hotel – Hotel – Hotel. It did this dance  all night long, lighting up our room like a 1970’s disco.  To make matters worse, at around 1 am every evening, the driver of a garbage truck parked directly under our window while he went to a nearby bar. In his absence, the truck’s grinder chewed on its cargo like a dragon eating metal parts and killing cats in heat. In hindsight, we should have just gotten out of bed and joined the derelict driver.

Yet, this wasn’t the worst place we have stayed in our travels. We have stayed with friends who were so ill-prepared for guests that we almost thought of Hotel Monaco in Madrid lovingly. Continue reading →