in Berlin

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?