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Published: June 12th 2019
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It was a rough night: hot, thunder and lightning, NO air conditioning. The room (the same room we had when we were here 10 days ago) has a system on the wall that has all the dials for a heating/air conditioning system … but all you can do is turn the fan on as the temperature dial does not work. This was discovered when John asked the front desk to fix the system. “We don’t have air conditioning; most hotels in Berlin do not have air conditioning.”
John told them we would be leaving and went off on a rented bicycle to find another hotel! Turns out most don’t have air conditioning and there is a huge convention coming into town today. Like Oliver hew would get off his little bike and go into the lobby of five different hotels and ask: “Do you have any rooms for three nights?” “Why, yes young man, we have a room for ONE night … but NO air conditioning.” Frustrated John took a room close to the Reichstag and returned to our current hotel to find out that they had installed an air conditioner in our room! Perhaps not the top of the
line in output, but the room was cooler.
After breakfast we went back to the “other” hotel and cancelled the reservation, then proceeded on the S5 tram to Zoolooscher Garten and the KaDeWe Shopping Center. This immense building (one entire block) has five floors of normal shopping (great and broad selection and price) and then two floors of food halls and restaurants. The entire place is one store so you have every kind of food stuff imaginable on floor 6 and every kind of restaurant (with a view) on floor 7. Like Harrods in London or Le Printemps in Paris … but bigger. We enjoyed looking around and Peggy found a casual dress on sale (they had a “Pre-Sale” sale going on – what is a pre-sale?) and John a small shoulder bag.
We wandered via taxi back to the restaurant we enjoyed last visit, Gendarmerie, near Galleria Lafeyette. A relaxed and enjoyable meal and then back to the hotel to rest before going out again into the wilds of Berlin. We took one of the Spree River Look-I-Loo boats for an hour excursion around the north end of the city. It was not really special but the
guide, Alex, was quite entertaining. Got a few pictures of the riverside activity and buildings and had a beer while traveling. Upon return we sat at an outdoor restaurant/bar and watched the street scene go by. Most relaxing and enjoyable. Walking through the hotel that was part of the restaurant, the Radisson Blu, we enjoyed the multi-storied fish tank in the middle of the lobby. Two scuba divers were cleaning the inside of the tank while a group of tourists were going up in a special elevator through the middle of the tank. Impressive.
We walked back to the hotel to enjoy the air conditioner in our room … which had turned off! Calling the front desk after 7:00PM did nothing so John worked it over and discovered that you had to empty the collected water to keep it working, something he did four times during the night. How much did we pay for this room?
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