Berlin
September 23rd, 2008
I took the train from Munich to Germany, and was glad that it took about seven hours, as it gave my stomach a chance to settle and me some time to reflect (by which I mean “nap”). By the time I made it to the flashy new Hauptbahnhof in Berlin, I was ready for a Döner Kebap in the city that invented them.
I arrived around 11:00p on a rainy Monday and was lucky to find a room immediately at Pension Kassandra* in Uhlandstrasse. I say lucky because it turned out that I was there during a week that saw the Motor Show, several design and household fairs, the Berlin Marathon, and a number of high school Abschluss trips.
On Tuesday morning I went round to 12 different hotels and pensions looking for one with a free room. At one four-star hotel they were explaining (though I already knew from the previous seven hotels) why the week was so busy when one of the guests checking in said his colleague wasn’t coming and I could have his booking. This was a mixed blessing because the colleague’s room turned out to be a suite — I had a room, but at a price that would have paid for a week’s worth of rooms elsewhere. After booking that room I tried another four hotels before giving up — I decided I would just stay up all night on Wednesday, the one night where nobody had anything available.
* I once had dinner with some friends at a restaurant where the waitress introduced herself — “My name is Cassandra and I’ll be your server tonight”. Later, when I said I would like my main dish without mushrooms, she said, “I’ll tell the chef”, and I got to say, “But she won’t believe you.”
