DINNER WITH WHO?

A couple of weeks ago we received a mail from a guest who was coming to stay with us during the summer. The gentleman made an unusual request which has required a bit of research and is now the topic of this particular blog.

Mr Gregory Lesson had recently been on a vacation to Paris and had a unique experience of having dinner at a private residence of someone he had never met before. This experience turned out to be the highlight of his trip…which is saying something because Paris is a truly beautiful city. Anyway, he asked us if we could organize something similar for him and his daughter when they arrived in August.

So, being the lovely hotel that we are, we did a bit of research and it turns out that this is not such an unusual experience. There are a number of organizations in the world that promote such comings together. One organization is Servas.

Gregory and his daughter are staying at the Grand Canal Hotel from August 8th – 10th and anyone interested in having them over for a bit of grub and culture can contact him on gregoryleeson@hotmail.com.

“My unusual request is to ask you how we might find such a welcoming family while in Dublin. Obviously I would be most interested in a family with a daughter near my Jennifer's age. I have a Skype account and would be happy to do a video meeting first. As a second choice, I might be willing to buy dinner at a restaurant for all,” read Gregory’s mail.

I did find one particular organisation who promote cultural tourism. Servas is an international network for making contact with people from all over the world, set up over 60 years ago. The idea is for people to meet and talk to each other, which can be a good way to help promote peace and international understanding. It's for travellers who want to understand how other people live, work and think, and who want to find out about the places they visit from the people who live there.

So I’ll pass this information on to our guest. But that said if anyone out there is interested in welcoming a lovely family, father and daughter, into their house for dinner let us know.

Check out the Servas website for more information http://www.servasbritain.org or contact ireland@servas.org for the Irish part of the organisation.