Last night, a good friend of mine came into town with his wife. They were up in New England to see the Brazil-Venezuela soccer match in Foxboro, and then they came on up to Lowell. They were the first visitors I've ever had to my place, and everyone had a rollicking time.
We hit the Natty Park Visitor Center this morning, and it dawned on me that I haven't even started to take advantage of all the tours and historical stuff that regularly goes on there (note to self: do this more, not just when people are coming from out-of-town). We hit a lot of the usual downtown haunts before they had to take off down to Logan to make it back to Virginia.
Rather than just let this be a "Dear Diary" sort of entry, however, I want to use it to make a point about visits -- the rules of gratitude on these things is often bass ackwards.
Here's what I mean: If someone comes to visit you, they are the one expending their own personal time and treasure to make it happen. You haven't really *done* anything other than open your door to welcome them in. So when all is said and done, when someone comes to visit me, I end up thanking them, as opposed to doing it the other way around.
An exception, I guess, would be something like a vacation home where people come to visit to *use* what's there -- access to the beach, mountains, or golf, for example.
But for a more standard, normal visit, I'm more impressed by the traveler than I am by the host.
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