Already on
the first evening in Berlin we had several hours’ talks with local people –
Lala, Marcel, Sasha and a judo teacher with an old dog. Isn’t Germany a great
place to visit? Not really...
We arrived
at a hotel an hour before the official check-in time. There were some girls at
the reception that asked us to return later - at the official time. So we did.
Unfortunately there was nobody at the registration at that time. Except an old
man sitting with his beer and informing that the personnel will be „gleich
zuruck”. It took at least some 10-15
minutes until this „gleich” was our and we finally received a key to our room,
but as the receptionist was a Spanish girl that did not speak any English. I’m
not sure if she even speaks German.
So we tried
to find our room. It is on 9th floor. We step in the elevator. Hm... on the
buttons it says: 6, 8, 10... No 9th floor. We get on the 10th. It is 10th. We
get on the 8th. It is 8th. Where is 9th floor? On the 8th we luckily found an
evacuation plan that showed that there are some outside stair through the
balcony, so we used them to reach the 9th floor. Later we found out that
elevators to 5,7, 9 etc. floors are on the other side of building.
After a walk in the city at around 9pm we
returned to hotel as I had to prepare for my tomorrows presentation. We opened
the apartment room, but the door of the room (where we left some of our bags)
could not be opened! The key just didn’t work. I tried. Ilze tried. I tried.
Ilze tried. After some minutes I was in the right mood to go down and try my „Spanish”
skills. Luckily there was another Spanish girl who spoke English. So you meet
Lala. Doors didn’t open also to her. That was a part when they started to offer
us free drinks... So she called a boy from some nightclub next to the hotel –
Marcel. And as he also couldn’t open the door, he called some kind of a manager
Sasha. Meanwhile we were sitting in the registration that is kind of a little cafe
and talking to a local woman that lives in the same building and is a judo
trainer and has an old dog with sad eyes. Those sad eyes are for the dog, not
the woman. Sasha tried to open our room by the key of his home. So this key got
stuck in the key locker. Anyway, after 2 hours they finally broke the key
locker and let us in.
When I
arrived at the conference (not perfectly prepared because when I finally get
into the room to my materials I was already exhausted), it took a while to find
the right building. My surname was wrongly spelled. Some of the planned social
events did not take place and there was quite a lack of information. This was
not a high quality conference...
When
returned to hotel I asked for wireless access password. They gave me one. But
in the room the right network couldn’t be found. But I had no more power (and
will) to go downstairs again and try to explain the situation to that only-Spanish-speaking
girl. Tomorrow is Lala, I think she could help. Maybe. And Sasha gave us his
phone number – just in case. Germans are nice and country is a nice place to
visit, isn’t it?
