So we had a big day today. This is the reason no update until now. Jenny and the rest of the Spine Campers sprung from the hospital! While the hospital is nice, the place can give you some cabin fever. We made it into Bremen and to the Park Hotel. Google the place if you want to see the grounds and what the spa looks like. In a word, Swanky. Jenny calls it a good place to do some healing. I do agree but, I had to do laundry, change money, get snacks and lunch, and get a lay of the land.
Laundry was not so much fun. First you had to find a place to do laundry. The hotel is happy to wash a shirt for 3 Euros and such. Well, a weeks worth of laundry was going to cost me more than a week’s salary. While a rase would be nice, no dice on paying the hotel to send a shirt through the dishwasher. So after finding some money at the bank and a long walk through a neighborhood built in the late 50’s and 60’s (because of 1940’s bombings), I ran into a couple of nice moms waiting on their kids at a sporting event and found out where the “washerhouse” was. Another nice taxi ride, and soon I found myself at the most confusing of places. Yes, there were washing machines, but one central place with lots of buttons in German. One guy strolls in and stuffs his dirty rags in the wash and soon it was full of soap and water and the machine was spinning. I thought to myself, well I will just follow him and push the same buttons and off I go. Yeah, right. 20 minutes later I had a couple of girls laughing at me and telling everyone that I was a typical guy. Somehow, don’t ask me how, the machines were off and spinning with some soap in them. This was a 5 step process all in German and I am sure I payed twice for the same load of laundry. THEN I had to dry the wet mess. So it was 1 Euro for 12 min. of dry time. So every 12 min. (I set a watch) I was off to feed the central money machine which controlled every washer and dryer. I watched some other girls come in, stuff a bunch of money into the dryer and some money into the really confusing money machine and leave and never come back. In the same time I was doing laps just to keep the dryer spinning! So somehow I got this all done, a few people came in a pointed at me but the important thing is we now have clean clothes! Jenny, she slept and read.
Well back at the swanky hotel I was walking through the lobby and up the stairs to go down the hallway with the fresh smelling luggage in tow and was stopped dead in my tracks smelling smoke. I realized that this place is an old place and has no sprinklers (the funny stuff I notice) but here I am smelling smoke. Not the kind of smoke one smells at a structure fire but smoke like a camp fire. Well this is spine camp after all, why not roast a few here? My trrusty nose found the source of the fire in no time, it was the lobby fire place, with real fire crackling and popping, but no roasted marshmallows. Oh well, soon enough I can fix that.
Well, it is close to midnight as I write this so… More adventures later, I just hope to include a few photos next time.
ML
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3 Euros a shirt!!! Wow! Highway robbery. But then that’s a hotel for you. They assume you’re on an expense account (or wealthy) – especially if you’re staying in a Swanky place.
Real wood in the fireplace! That IS swanky! Can you get marshmallows over there? I wonder how the hotel constabulary would respond to some crazy American guy putting a stick with something that looks like it might be an explosive glob on it in the fireplace…? 🙂
We tried to Skype you guys around 8:45 your time, but of course you were busy being launderer and Jenny was probably not too tuned into the computer just then.
I checked the hotel website – definitely looks NICE! Does your room have a sitting area with nice (comfortable) furniture?
I’ll bet it doesn’t have anything resembling a kitchen, so you get to eat out – probably expensive (unless it’s included in the package).
Keep up the good work, all!