Things happen in Threes
I thought I would write up our four day visit to the Saarland as it was quite eventful on top of the primary reason of celebrating H’s oldest sister M’s 80th birthday and also to see her other sister and our nephew C and his children.
The plan was to drive down on the Thursday, celebrate on the Saturday and drive back on the Monday. For accommodation we booked into a local hotel for the four nights. Well overall everything went according to plan. Only there was, for a better word ‘incidents’, that occurred to accompany the proceedings. As you may gather from the title three in number.
As part of my clearing out action at home, I took the opportunity to pack for C my collection of Astronomy and telescope magazines and an odd assortment of magazines and books for the Apple II computer. My 4” Newton reflector and original Apple II he took with him at a previous visit to us.
In total I packed in the car about 170 Astronomy and about 50 Apple magazines. I didn't think paper (glossy in the case of the Astronomy mags) could be so heavy! Following a few weighings and calculations it totalled to about 65 kg.
I had about the same volume, and weight, again with Omni and Wired magazines that I also planned to take with us. But on the Wednesday evening while packing the car with the magazines between down pours and a forecast of heavy rain all day for the trip down I decided to leave the others until our next visit. Didn’t want to over load the car in wet weather.
Glad I didn’t fill the car for two reasons one the weather and in hindsight another that I will relate to below. By looking at the rain radar there was to be a break in the constant rain at about 11 o’clock. So we planned to leave just after. The prediction was correct for once and so we finished packing the car and was off at about 11:15.
Although the weather was predicted to rain again almost immediately it stayed dry for the first 100km. Then the rain came back with a vengeance for the rest of the trip (200km) with a continuous heavy down pour. I’m not for long driving sessions at the best of times, but in heavy rain where one has sometime less that 20% visibility, and what seems like very little space when passing container lorries, it just gives me the willies!
Normally we take a break about half way to spend a penny and stretch ones legs but due to the bad weather I decided to drive on and not get drenched trying to get from the car park to the service area. After a while I realised that this was not a good idea. The closer we got to Waldmohr the rain increased from cats and dogs to bucket loads and everything slowed down even further.
Due to the stress of keeping highly concentrated on the hardly visible traffic around us, my right leg playing me up no end complaining it needed a walk about and above the din my bladder was constantly asking me to spend a euro, I decided to stop at the motorway service area just before our leaving the motorway.
It was a good move as the complainants dept. closed shop for the day and we could then with less stress drive straight to the hotel to check in before driving on to C. Just as we pulled up in front of the hotel the rain stopped and the sun came out! Why couldn’t it had done this two hours beforehand!?
This time the journey had taken nearly four hours instead of the normal three hours.
The hotel/restaurant was known to us as we had celebrated H’s fathers 75th and 80th birthday there. In the meantime the place had exchanged owner’s multiple times. We had never needed to stay there as over the 40 years of visiting the family we usually stayed at first with H’s parents and later H’s sisters house. Now staying with the family was not possible and so in the last years we tried out various hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments in the area, none which was optimal.
It was either the distance to drive evening and mornings, the overnight cost or more importantly the condition of the beds and their compatibility to our backs. This time as the hotel was supposed to be newly renovated and a good restaurant we thought we would combine our stay and have a family brunch there on the Sunday before we left for home on the Monday.
Even with the short break at the end of the four hour stint, the drive had taken its toll on my legs and back and I had great difficulty getting out of the car. Although it was three in the afternoon the hotel looked as if it was deserted.
The main door was glass and while peering inside we could see no signs of activity and as the door was locked we decided to ring the bell. We waited awhile hoping the bell had rang inside because outside we had not heard it.
Before we were about to press again, an elderly woman wrapped in a blanket appeared. Sleepy eyed she opened the door and starred at us. As it didn’t seem likely she was going to say anything we started to explain that we were guests and we would like to checkin. Without a word she moved to the side, waved us in and indicated that we were to go up the stairs.
I also pointed to the stairs and to keep the ‘conversation’ going I also added a nod to my smile. I presumed she was still half a sleep because in response, without any change in her mimic, I got a new wave of the hand in the direction of up.
With this I carried our large hard case and H our soft case up the stairs until we reached a landing where I could see five rooms, four of which had a key in the lock with a key chain dangling from them. Also to one side there was a narrow steep wooden open staircase to another floor. I realised at this point that this was not a hotel with restaurant but a restaurant with guest rooms.
Later we learned that the door without a key was the apartment that belonged to Mr. B who ‘managed the hotel’ and was also the chef and only cook of the restaurant. The room at the top of the ladder belonged to the ‘in resident’ cleaning woman that had let us in.
After the woman had followed us up I asked which room we had. With a more friendlier smile, maybe indicating she was now fully awake, she pointed to the only open door on the landing. I thanked her and asked if we were to checkin later. With an embarrassed look and the classical raising of the shoulders I realised not only was she out of her depth concerning anything to do with hotel procedures but that she hadn’t understood anything I had said apart from the smile!
Again we thanked her for letting us in and said we would talk to the Mr. B later. She nodded smiled and said with a strong east European accent something that could have been a ‘Ja’.
I pushed open the door and we deposited our cases in the room and I went back and removed the key from the lock. In the mean time the woman had disappeared presumably to finish off her nap. I left the door open and went back to the car and got the rest of our bags and coats.
On coming back to the room, I placed the door key in the lock on the inside and shut the door with the handle. I noticed that the key was unusually loose than what one would expect from a normal key & lock and that the key could be rotated more than once in either direction without that much resistance. I thought this was a bit strange but as I was tired I decided to look at it later when we got back that evening.
Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the room which was facing the main road with a slanting wall with a large skylight in it. I also noticed that the window had two long cracks. At closer inspection I didn’t think any rain had or would get thought. The room was small and the beds were placed either side of the skylight against the opposite walls. After checking the wardrobe we found only two coat hangers hanging in it.
Because we were delayed due to the weather we were late in meeting up with the family and our late lunch/afternoon tea, so we decided we would comeback later to unpack. That is if we were successful in drumming up a few more coat hangers beforehand.
We went out and with the key in my hand I pulled the door closed. As there was only a round door knob I didn’t see the need to lock the door with the key. On leaving we passed Mr. B talking on the phone in the entrance to his apartment.
We stopped hoping to have a word with him but as the telephone conversation didn't seem to be finishing anytime soon we just waived while heading for the stairs. He waived back and went on talking with what sounded like a future guest.
Note that the detailed information to the key and lock will become relevant later on after returning to the hotel that night.
We drove to the house of C and had a pleasant afternoon and evening catching up over tea and later homemade pizza. At about 10:30 in the evening we left for the hotel so as to have a chance to talk to Mr. B about officially checking in.
When we arrived the restaurant had finished business and there was only two of the staff clearing up for the night. We talked to one one of them being told that Mr. B was not there and that there was no need to checkin and everything was sort of informal.
He asked if we would like something to drink to which we at first declined but after he asked again and as it was on the house we diplomatically said yes and H had a water and I a coke. After a few pleasantries we went up stairs to our room to do some unpacking before bed.
Thing No.1
After a few moments trying to get the key to open the door I gave up and went down to the restaurant and with an embarrassing look explained that the key just kept going round and round in the lock in either direction without opening the door. And that there was no resistance while turning the key as one would expect when the lock would engage to open.
I got a blank look from, lets call him R1 as I never learnt his name, and we both ascended the stairs to let him have a go. After a few minutes of key turning he realised I was not as stupid as he initially thought I was indicated in his look at me downstairs and went off to get R2 from the restaurant kitchen and a few tools. R2 also took his turn at turning the key and after a call to Mr. B they was allowed to take more drastic measures in opening the door.
After about 15 minutes Mr. B turned up and we explained for the 2nd time that our cases where in the room and therefore we couldn't just have another room as suggested. Mr. B started his turn of key turning and added, by the sound of it, cursing in a language I didn't quite understand.
H overheard Mr. B mumbling something about it ‘worked last time’ which gave us the impression that this wasn't the first time something like this had happened which was in someway a contradiction to being told earlier in passing that we were the first guests!
After being told we could go down to the restaurant and wait there instead of standing around on the landing, we left the three of them to their task. After again declining another drink Mrs. B turned up and after some small talk she decided to go up and see why ‘the boys’ were taking so long opening the door.
With all the hammering and banging I was thinking they will have to eventually drill out the lock. The question was when they finally got round to drilling, would they have the appropriate drill for the job.
After a while Mrs. B returned looking a little perplex saying it was a security door and they were really having a problem to ‘break in’. As it was now about an hour since I came down with our ‘little problem’. I said it was at least a good advertisement for the hotel that it takes at least an hour to break into a room here. This at least got a half hearted laugh and prompted again if we would like to have something to drink to which we again declined.
In the meantime the rhythmical hammering had stopped and was replaced at last with the sound of a drill being used. After a while there was a short pause and then the drilling continued. This went on for some time and I suspected they were slowly using up their arsenal of drills. Eventually Mr. B came down to give us the good news that the door was now open and that we could now collect our luggage and move into the room opposite.
On arriving at the landing we found R1 sweeping up the debris of the attempted demolition of the door and R2 clearing way the tools used in the attempted demolition. When the coast was clear of cleaning and clearing up we approached the now open door and saw half buried in the lock a drill. I asked R1 if he had turned the jammed drill in the lock to open the door. He smiled and said that is exactly what he did.
We were then left to transfer our belongings to the new room. I was a little wary of opening the new door with the key sticking in the lock but it turned without difficulty and with a half turn we had access to the room. I waited until the coast was clear and went back and took a picture of the door.
After unpacking our cases we finally got to bed at about quarter to one. As I was drifting off to sleep I tried to recollect with the hotels I had stayed at over the last half a century if it had been necessary to BIBU (Break In Before Use).
Nope, this was a first..
The major advantage of all this breaking and entering was that the new room was much larger and had a balcony facing away from the main road and therefore quieter. There was no slanting ceiling/wall and the beds were next to each other and not a half a mile apart. The bathroom was equipped with all mod cons but was just a little less claustrophobic as the other one. As in keeping with the now lockless room across the landing this wardrobe was also only inhabited by two cheap plastic coat hangers. Although this room looked like it was ready for use, that is freshly made beds and a set of new towels, one could see that with a wet pad still occupying the coffee machine and a single toilet paper roll with just enough paper for two sessions, the sleepy cleaning lady was not up to her job. The management was not any better as there was, as you can see from the picture, only one bedside lamp.
Next morning we left the hotel without seeing anyone and drove to H’s sister for breakfast. She was just finishing preparing a cake for the party on the next day. H was also asked to bring one with us. But instead of baking one in the week which would have been in no way fresh on the Saturday we decided to order one from the local bakery when we arrived. After breakfast we went over to C’s house. H spent sometime with C’s children and later, with her sister, went back to her sisters flat to prepare some table decorations for the party.
I spent the day playing around with my old Apple II computer that C had got going again. It was a little weird trying to recall the commands and find out from at least 200 floppies which ones were boot disks and for what OS.
Frustrating as it was, my cryptic or non-labelling of computer media has at least been constant over the last 40 years! I didn’t have time to browse through all the disks but I did find my original game of Zork from 1983 and it worked! It was weird to have to enter texts at a prompt like ‘go south’ or ‘open door’.
To get the apple working C had to remove all the capacitors in the power supply unit and check their values. They were all way off and he had to replace them all! Above the new and old are placed next to each other.
If he hadn't checked before turning it on it would have destroyed the PSU after 30 years of non use.
He also cleaned up the motherboard, it looked like new!
To add the 16k extension memory card to the motherboard you had to first remove one of the memory chips from the motherboard and plug it in the empty socket on the ext. board then plug the flat cable from the ext. board into the then free memory socket!
Did that take me back!!
Later that evening after a Chinese/Thai takeaway we walked back to the car parked in front of H’s sisters flat with the back of the car facing the small access road. As my leg was playing me up H went with her sister up to the flat to get a few things, including a new towel roll and couple of coat hangers, and I went and sat in the car.
Thing No.2
As I waited I started to play around with the radio looking for some decent classical music this being a hopeless task most the time. As I was stepping through the radio stations I caught sight in my peripheral vision of something in the rear view mirror passing the back of the car.
On focusing on the mirror the blur was gone and as I was about to turn away thinking the light was playing tricks with me there passed a much larger gestalt in a light brown colour going in the same direction. As the whole of the back window was full with whatever it was, it must have been quite close to the car as it passed!
As I turned to look out of the side window I saw in the street light two horses, a smaller one just in front of a much large one, trotting quite fast up the road. Both of them appeared to have no harnesses.
Although I hadn’t felt any contact as they passed I decided to get out of the car and take a look. As I got round to the rear of the car I found a considerable amount of horse manure deposited almost directly behind it!
While returning to the driving seat I saw a man in what could have been a police uniform talking sporadicly into a walkie talkie and getting a burst of loud unidentifiable static back. At the same time he half heartedly, in what looked like a combination of short sequences of jogging/running, moved in the same direction as the horses.
I returned to sitting in the car and noticed blue flickering lights reflecting in the glass balconies of the flats in front of me. If the police was in the near then that would mean the horses must have escaped from the local stables some time back and therefore they must have been running around for quite some time trying to catch them. This could explain the reason that the policeman I saw was not sprinting after the horses.
On H arriving at the car I told her about the horses and the deposit they made. H laughed saying from their advantage point in the flat, they had also seen the blue lights which was from the police cars parked in front of the bank.
They had then jokingly speculated that I had got bored of sitting in the car and had gone and tried to break into the bank to get some ready cash to pay the hotel bill! I joined in and added that of course I had let loose the horses earlier that evening as decoy for the spontaneous break-in hours later.
I manure-vred the car out of the parking space without having to drive over the steamy present from the horses. We took our time and drove very slowly back to the hotel in case the horses were still on their trot-around.
On the Saturday we had a 20 min drive to the venue where the family get together was to be held. We were 30 in total. The program was that at noon there would be a buffet lunch followed later around four o’clock by cake tea and coffee. Well more cake coffee and tea as we are in Germany. Although the tea culture here is improving in general, it isn’t good enough to stop us having an emergency supply of our own tea with us when away from home.
I was asked, more like commanded, by M to document the celebration by taking pictures and make a video with her camera even though I had brought my own camera with me. The weather was hot and sunny even for the begin of April and this thankfully allowed the children to play outside without getting too bored inside.
We all started to realise while we were catching up that this was the first time in a very long time that we had come together for a happy occasion and not for a funeral.
I took a lot of pictures and video sequences that I now have to cut and paste together. As there was live music (a duo, quite good in fact) for most of the day, I made a number of recordings of them playing complete songs. I will extract this sound track and use the songs in the finished film. This will give me continuity when cutting the film and blending in still pictures.
As I was not the only one taking pictures I created a cloud so they could upload them and also get access to my pictures. This will give me a larger collection of pictures to choose from for the film. This clouding of pictures for events worked well last year when on holiday in Switzerland.
At about five in the afternoon everybody started to pick and choose what they wanted from the rest of the buffet and pack it in plastic takeaway like boxes supplied from the caterer. This was a very good idea as there was quite a lot leftover.
Thing No.3
We took our goodbyes and we drove back to C’s house where we stayed until late evening. At about nine we drove H’s sister back to her flat.
As we were just about to park in front of the flat I saw a red text warning from the console that there was something wrong with the tire pressure.
As the light wasn’t that good I thought we would look into it later with a torch before driving to the hotel.
It couldn't have been more that half an hour before we came back to the car and found the right rear tire totally flat!
Brilliant I thought it was Saturday night and we wanted to be homeward bound late Monday morning. While waiting for H’s sister to get her car keys so as to drive us back to the hotel, I phoned C and told him the problem. C said he would go and have a look at it Sunday morning and ask a friend whose son-in-law has a garage for selling, mounting and storing tires if they had our make of tire in their store.
C got feedback that they did and said we should be at the garage (a 15 min drive) at eight o’clock Monday morning and hope they had time for us. It was good that we could use the Sunday to find out where to go on the Monday.
Sunday morning H’s sister picked us up from the hotel and when we arrived at her flat, C was there looking at our flat. C had brought a foot pump to blow up the tire enough to get a portable jack under the car to see where the hole was and how big.
Well we could easily hear the air escaping, it was quite loud in fact, but there was no sign of where the leak was. We concluded it must be on the rear of the tire. C released the jack and pumped the tire to what should have been its normal pressure.
Anything higher might further damage the tire.
We drove the car to C’s garage carefully, but as quick as possible, trying not to aggravate the hole from increasing in size. The journey was less than three mins and after jacking up the car C was able to remove the again almost deflated wheel.
The picture shows the extent of the damage. We were both surprised at the damage and condition of the rear side of the tire.
It certainly didn’t look like the hole was caused by a foreign object the previous evening but more like a spontaneous rupture.
Although the tires were eight years old I had hardly used the car in the last seven after retirement and the profile looked quite okay.
If this tire represented the general condition of the other three we had decided correctly the previous evening that we would replace all four tires and not just the back two. I tried not to think too much about what may have happened if the tire had decided to rupture two days previously while we were driving down on the motorway in the pouring rain.
The rest of the Sunday was uneventful apart from the family lunch at the hotel which was disappointing and nothing like the positive hearsay from others that had dinned there.
That evening on returning to the hotel for the last time, we had a semi-heated discussion about the payment of the hotel bill with intermittent declining offers of something to drink.
The discussion reminded me more of the patter when trying to buy something at a bazaar. Mr. B in too many words and with multiple permutations kept going on about that he was originally hired to be the chief and in-charge of the restaurant. And that he had been also roped in’, by the owner, to look after the running of the guest rooms.
This reluctancy in running the guest rooms explained the unprofessional way he ran the place. This also included the restaurant as we had experience at our lunchtime meal. Well we could definitely cross out this location from our overnight short list in the area.
Monday morning at 7:45 we were packed and waiting outside the hotel for our pickups. We had been told the previous evening to just leave the key in the lock when leaving. It was fortunate that I had asked because we saw no one that morning apart from what appeared to be another guest wandering about looking for someone to give up his key and get back his 30€ deposit back.
We wondered later which room he had occupied, as on the landing all the other rooms had their keys in their locks. As he saw that we were leaving he asked if we had also to get our deposit back. We said no as we had no needed to deposit anything when we arrived. This seemed to stump him somewhat and with a closer look at his key chain there was a thick blue/white round object hanging from it.
I remembered that on our key, that was at that moment dangling upstairs in the door of our now unoccupied room, had a similar key chain but the object was completely flat.
We advised him to ring one of the numbers listed on the piece of paper sellotaped to the inside of the glass door. He thanked us and we wished him luck in getting his deposit back. Before we could speculate together why he had to give a deposit for the key and we didn’t the cars of H’s sister and C arrived.
As the man got out his mobile and went inside to scan the list we packed our luggage into H’s sisters car. H wished us luck with the tires before being driven off to the flat. I got into C’s car and with the wheel plus deflated tire in the boot we drove to the garage. Traffic was fortunately light and we arrived just after 8:00.
It was confirmed that they had the make of tire we wanted but they only had available summer tires and not the all-weather tires that was ‘ok-ed’ on the phone. It looked like the indirect communication with owner of the garage on the Sunday had not gone through without a slight mishap.
We of course decided to take summer tires if they didn’t have anything else. The owner of the garage went through a list of manufacturers and I let C decide which to take as I really have no idea when it comes to cars. I was just happy that we would be driving home on four new tires that afternoon and not running round looking for all-weather ones and possibly having to stay an extra night before getting them delivered and fitted.
Lucky we didn’t have long to wait before we were driving back to C’s house with a working wheel. C then fitted the wheel on the car and we drove back to the garage to get the other three fitted. Again no real delay. I paid the bill and we were back at C’s house at 10:00. We were all surprised and happy that the action had gone so smoothly and quickly.
As C had to go and pickup one of this kids from kindergarten we said our farewells and drove to H’s sisters flat and spent sometime there before getting the tank filled and driving home.
This time the journey was less stressful as the weather was dry and we took a slightly longer route but with less heavy duty traffic and road works. We were home about three in the afternoon.
The plan was to drive down on the Thursday, celebrate on the Saturday and drive back on the Monday. For accommodation we booked into a local hotel for the four nights. Well overall everything went according to plan. Only there was, for a better word ‘incidents’, that occurred to accompany the proceedings. As you may gather from the title three in number.
As part of my clearing out action at home, I took the opportunity to pack for C my collection of Astronomy and telescope magazines and an odd assortment of magazines and books for the Apple II computer. My 4” Newton reflector and original Apple II he took with him at a previous visit to us.In total I packed in the car about 170 Astronomy and about 50 Apple magazines. I didn't think paper (glossy in the case of the Astronomy mags) could be so heavy! Following a few weighings and calculations it totalled to about 65 kg.
I had about the same volume, and weight, again with Omni and Wired magazines that I also planned to take with us. But on the Wednesday evening while packing the car with the magazines between down pours and a forecast of heavy rain all day for the trip down I decided to leave the others until our next visit. Didn’t want to over load the car in wet weather.
Glad I didn’t fill the car for two reasons one the weather and in hindsight another that I will relate to below. By looking at the rain radar there was to be a break in the constant rain at about 11 o’clock. So we planned to leave just after. The prediction was correct for once and so we finished packing the car and was off at about 11:15.
Although the weather was predicted to rain again almost immediately it stayed dry for the first 100km. Then the rain came back with a vengeance for the rest of the trip (200km) with a continuous heavy down pour. I’m not for long driving sessions at the best of times, but in heavy rain where one has sometime less that 20% visibility, and what seems like very little space when passing container lorries, it just gives me the willies!
Normally we take a break about half way to spend a penny and stretch ones legs but due to the bad weather I decided to drive on and not get drenched trying to get from the car park to the service area. After a while I realised that this was not a good idea. The closer we got to Waldmohr the rain increased from cats and dogs to bucket loads and everything slowed down even further.
Due to the stress of keeping highly concentrated on the hardly visible traffic around us, my right leg playing me up no end complaining it needed a walk about and above the din my bladder was constantly asking me to spend a euro, I decided to stop at the motorway service area just before our leaving the motorway.
It was a good move as the complainants dept. closed shop for the day and we could then with less stress drive straight to the hotel to check in before driving on to C. Just as we pulled up in front of the hotel the rain stopped and the sun came out! Why couldn’t it had done this two hours beforehand!?
This time the journey had taken nearly four hours instead of the normal three hours.
The hotel/restaurant was known to us as we had celebrated H’s fathers 75th and 80th birthday there. In the meantime the place had exchanged owner’s multiple times. We had never needed to stay there as over the 40 years of visiting the family we usually stayed at first with H’s parents and later H’s sisters house. Now staying with the family was not possible and so in the last years we tried out various hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments in the area, none which was optimal.
It was either the distance to drive evening and mornings, the overnight cost or more importantly the condition of the beds and their compatibility to our backs. This time as the hotel was supposed to be newly renovated and a good restaurant we thought we would combine our stay and have a family brunch there on the Sunday before we left for home on the Monday.
Even with the short break at the end of the four hour stint, the drive had taken its toll on my legs and back and I had great difficulty getting out of the car. Although it was three in the afternoon the hotel looked as if it was deserted.
The main door was glass and while peering inside we could see no signs of activity and as the door was locked we decided to ring the bell. We waited awhile hoping the bell had rang inside because outside we had not heard it.
Before we were about to press again, an elderly woman wrapped in a blanket appeared. Sleepy eyed she opened the door and starred at us. As it didn’t seem likely she was going to say anything we started to explain that we were guests and we would like to checkin. Without a word she moved to the side, waved us in and indicated that we were to go up the stairs.
I also pointed to the stairs and to keep the ‘conversation’ going I also added a nod to my smile. I presumed she was still half a sleep because in response, without any change in her mimic, I got a new wave of the hand in the direction of up.
With this I carried our large hard case and H our soft case up the stairs until we reached a landing where I could see five rooms, four of which had a key in the lock with a key chain dangling from them. Also to one side there was a narrow steep wooden open staircase to another floor. I realised at this point that this was not a hotel with restaurant but a restaurant with guest rooms.
Later we learned that the door without a key was the apartment that belonged to Mr. B who ‘managed the hotel’ and was also the chef and only cook of the restaurant. The room at the top of the ladder belonged to the ‘in resident’ cleaning woman that had let us in.
After the woman had followed us up I asked which room we had. With a more friendlier smile, maybe indicating she was now fully awake, she pointed to the only open door on the landing. I thanked her and asked if we were to checkin later. With an embarrassed look and the classical raising of the shoulders I realised not only was she out of her depth concerning anything to do with hotel procedures but that she hadn’t understood anything I had said apart from the smile!
Again we thanked her for letting us in and said we would talk to the Mr. B later. She nodded smiled and said with a strong east European accent something that could have been a ‘Ja’.
I pushed open the door and we deposited our cases in the room and I went back and removed the key from the lock. In the mean time the woman had disappeared presumably to finish off her nap. I left the door open and went back to the car and got the rest of our bags and coats.
On coming back to the room, I placed the door key in the lock on the inside and shut the door with the handle. I noticed that the key was unusually loose than what one would expect from a normal key & lock and that the key could be rotated more than once in either direction without that much resistance. I thought this was a bit strange but as I was tired I decided to look at it later when we got back that evening.
Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the room which was facing the main road with a slanting wall with a large skylight in it. I also noticed that the window had two long cracks. At closer inspection I didn’t think any rain had or would get thought. The room was small and the beds were placed either side of the skylight against the opposite walls. After checking the wardrobe we found only two coat hangers hanging in it.
Because we were delayed due to the weather we were late in meeting up with the family and our late lunch/afternoon tea, so we decided we would comeback later to unpack. That is if we were successful in drumming up a few more coat hangers beforehand.
We went out and with the key in my hand I pulled the door closed. As there was only a round door knob I didn’t see the need to lock the door with the key. On leaving we passed Mr. B talking on the phone in the entrance to his apartment.
We stopped hoping to have a word with him but as the telephone conversation didn't seem to be finishing anytime soon we just waived while heading for the stairs. He waived back and went on talking with what sounded like a future guest.
Note that the detailed information to the key and lock will become relevant later on after returning to the hotel that night.
We drove to the house of C and had a pleasant afternoon and evening catching up over tea and later homemade pizza. At about 10:30 in the evening we left for the hotel so as to have a chance to talk to Mr. B about officially checking in.
When we arrived the restaurant had finished business and there was only two of the staff clearing up for the night. We talked to one one of them being told that Mr. B was not there and that there was no need to checkin and everything was sort of informal.
He asked if we would like something to drink to which we at first declined but after he asked again and as it was on the house we diplomatically said yes and H had a water and I a coke. After a few pleasantries we went up stairs to our room to do some unpacking before bed.
Thing No.1
After a few moments trying to get the key to open the door I gave up and went down to the restaurant and with an embarrassing look explained that the key just kept going round and round in the lock in either direction without opening the door. And that there was no resistance while turning the key as one would expect when the lock would engage to open.
I got a blank look from, lets call him R1 as I never learnt his name, and we both ascended the stairs to let him have a go. After a few minutes of key turning he realised I was not as stupid as he initially thought I was indicated in his look at me downstairs and went off to get R2 from the restaurant kitchen and a few tools. R2 also took his turn at turning the key and after a call to Mr. B they was allowed to take more drastic measures in opening the door.
After about 15 minutes Mr. B turned up and we explained for the 2nd time that our cases where in the room and therefore we couldn't just have another room as suggested. Mr. B started his turn of key turning and added, by the sound of it, cursing in a language I didn't quite understand.
H overheard Mr. B mumbling something about it ‘worked last time’ which gave us the impression that this wasn't the first time something like this had happened which was in someway a contradiction to being told earlier in passing that we were the first guests!
After being told we could go down to the restaurant and wait there instead of standing around on the landing, we left the three of them to their task. After again declining another drink Mrs. B turned up and after some small talk she decided to go up and see why ‘the boys’ were taking so long opening the door.
With all the hammering and banging I was thinking they will have to eventually drill out the lock. The question was when they finally got round to drilling, would they have the appropriate drill for the job.
After a while Mrs. B returned looking a little perplex saying it was a security door and they were really having a problem to ‘break in’. As it was now about an hour since I came down with our ‘little problem’. I said it was at least a good advertisement for the hotel that it takes at least an hour to break into a room here. This at least got a half hearted laugh and prompted again if we would like to have something to drink to which we again declined.
In the meantime the rhythmical hammering had stopped and was replaced at last with the sound of a drill being used. After a while there was a short pause and then the drilling continued. This went on for some time and I suspected they were slowly using up their arsenal of drills. Eventually Mr. B came down to give us the good news that the door was now open and that we could now collect our luggage and move into the room opposite.
On arriving at the landing we found R1 sweeping up the debris of the attempted demolition of the door and R2 clearing way the tools used in the attempted demolition. When the coast was clear of cleaning and clearing up we approached the now open door and saw half buried in the lock a drill. I asked R1 if he had turned the jammed drill in the lock to open the door. He smiled and said that is exactly what he did.We were then left to transfer our belongings to the new room. I was a little wary of opening the new door with the key sticking in the lock but it turned without difficulty and with a half turn we had access to the room. I waited until the coast was clear and went back and took a picture of the door.
After unpacking our cases we finally got to bed at about quarter to one. As I was drifting off to sleep I tried to recollect with the hotels I had stayed at over the last half a century if it had been necessary to BIBU (Break In Before Use).
Nope, this was a first..
The major advantage of all this breaking and entering was that the new room was much larger and had a balcony facing away from the main road and therefore quieter. There was no slanting ceiling/wall and the beds were next to each other and not a half a mile apart. The bathroom was equipped with all mod cons but was just a little less claustrophobic as the other one. As in keeping with the now lockless room across the landing this wardrobe was also only inhabited by two cheap plastic coat hangers. Although this room looked like it was ready for use, that is freshly made beds and a set of new towels, one could see that with a wet pad still occupying the coffee machine and a single toilet paper roll with just enough paper for two sessions, the sleepy cleaning lady was not up to her job. The management was not any better as there was, as you can see from the picture, only one bedside lamp.
Next morning we left the hotel without seeing anyone and drove to H’s sister for breakfast. She was just finishing preparing a cake for the party on the next day. H was also asked to bring one with us. But instead of baking one in the week which would have been in no way fresh on the Saturday we decided to order one from the local bakery when we arrived. After breakfast we went over to C’s house. H spent sometime with C’s children and later, with her sister, went back to her sisters flat to prepare some table decorations for the party.
I spent the day playing around with my old Apple II computer that C had got going again. It was a little weird trying to recall the commands and find out from at least 200 floppies which ones were boot disks and for what OS. Frustrating as it was, my cryptic or non-labelling of computer media has at least been constant over the last 40 years! I didn’t have time to browse through all the disks but I did find my original game of Zork from 1983 and it worked! It was weird to have to enter texts at a prompt like ‘go south’ or ‘open door’.
To get the apple working C had to remove all the capacitors in the power supply unit and check their values. They were all way off and he had to replace them all! Above the new and old are placed next to each other.
If he hadn't checked before turning it on it would have destroyed the PSU after 30 years of non use.
He also cleaned up the motherboard, it looked like new!
To add the 16k extension memory card to the motherboard you had to first remove one of the memory chips from the motherboard and plug it in the empty socket on the ext. board then plug the flat cable from the ext. board into the then free memory socket!
Did that take me back!!
Later that evening after a Chinese/Thai takeaway we walked back to the car parked in front of H’s sisters flat with the back of the car facing the small access road. As my leg was playing me up H went with her sister up to the flat to get a few things, including a new towel roll and couple of coat hangers, and I went and sat in the car.
Thing No.2
As I waited I started to play around with the radio looking for some decent classical music this being a hopeless task most the time. As I was stepping through the radio stations I caught sight in my peripheral vision of something in the rear view mirror passing the back of the car.
On focusing on the mirror the blur was gone and as I was about to turn away thinking the light was playing tricks with me there passed a much larger gestalt in a light brown colour going in the same direction. As the whole of the back window was full with whatever it was, it must have been quite close to the car as it passed!
As I turned to look out of the side window I saw in the street light two horses, a smaller one just in front of a much large one, trotting quite fast up the road. Both of them appeared to have no harnesses.
Although I hadn’t felt any contact as they passed I decided to get out of the car and take a look. As I got round to the rear of the car I found a considerable amount of horse manure deposited almost directly behind it!
While returning to the driving seat I saw a man in what could have been a police uniform talking sporadicly into a walkie talkie and getting a burst of loud unidentifiable static back. At the same time he half heartedly, in what looked like a combination of short sequences of jogging/running, moved in the same direction as the horses.
I returned to sitting in the car and noticed blue flickering lights reflecting in the glass balconies of the flats in front of me. If the police was in the near then that would mean the horses must have escaped from the local stables some time back and therefore they must have been running around for quite some time trying to catch them. This could explain the reason that the policeman I saw was not sprinting after the horses.
On H arriving at the car I told her about the horses and the deposit they made. H laughed saying from their advantage point in the flat, they had also seen the blue lights which was from the police cars parked in front of the bank.
They had then jokingly speculated that I had got bored of sitting in the car and had gone and tried to break into the bank to get some ready cash to pay the hotel bill! I joined in and added that of course I had let loose the horses earlier that evening as decoy for the spontaneous break-in hours later.
I manure-vred the car out of the parking space without having to drive over the steamy present from the horses. We took our time and drove very slowly back to the hotel in case the horses were still on their trot-around.
On the Saturday we had a 20 min drive to the venue where the family get together was to be held. We were 30 in total. The program was that at noon there would be a buffet lunch followed later around four o’clock by cake tea and coffee. Well more cake coffee and tea as we are in Germany. Although the tea culture here is improving in general, it isn’t good enough to stop us having an emergency supply of our own tea with us when away from home.I was asked, more like commanded, by M to document the celebration by taking pictures and make a video with her camera even though I had brought my own camera with me. The weather was hot and sunny even for the begin of April and this thankfully allowed the children to play outside without getting too bored inside.
We all started to realise while we were catching up that this was the first time in a very long time that we had come together for a happy occasion and not for a funeral.
I took a lot of pictures and video sequences that I now have to cut and paste together. As there was live music (a duo, quite good in fact) for most of the day, I made a number of recordings of them playing complete songs. I will extract this sound track and use the songs in the finished film. This will give me continuity when cutting the film and blending in still pictures.
As I was not the only one taking pictures I created a cloud so they could upload them and also get access to my pictures. This will give me a larger collection of pictures to choose from for the film. This clouding of pictures for events worked well last year when on holiday in Switzerland.
At about five in the afternoon everybody started to pick and choose what they wanted from the rest of the buffet and pack it in plastic takeaway like boxes supplied from the caterer. This was a very good idea as there was quite a lot leftover.
Thing No.3
We took our goodbyes and we drove back to C’s house where we stayed until late evening. At about nine we drove H’s sister back to her flat. As we were just about to park in front of the flat I saw a red text warning from the console that there was something wrong with the tire pressure.
As the light wasn’t that good I thought we would look into it later with a torch before driving to the hotel.
It couldn't have been more that half an hour before we came back to the car and found the right rear tire totally flat!
Brilliant I thought it was Saturday night and we wanted to be homeward bound late Monday morning. While waiting for H’s sister to get her car keys so as to drive us back to the hotel, I phoned C and told him the problem. C said he would go and have a look at it Sunday morning and ask a friend whose son-in-law has a garage for selling, mounting and storing tires if they had our make of tire in their store.
C got feedback that they did and said we should be at the garage (a 15 min drive) at eight o’clock Monday morning and hope they had time for us. It was good that we could use the Sunday to find out where to go on the Monday.
Sunday morning H’s sister picked us up from the hotel and when we arrived at her flat, C was there looking at our flat. C had brought a foot pump to blow up the tire enough to get a portable jack under the car to see where the hole was and how big.
Well we could easily hear the air escaping, it was quite loud in fact, but there was no sign of where the leak was. We concluded it must be on the rear of the tire. C released the jack and pumped the tire to what should have been its normal pressure. Anything higher might further damage the tire.
We drove the car to C’s garage carefully, but as quick as possible, trying not to aggravate the hole from increasing in size. The journey was less than three mins and after jacking up the car C was able to remove the again almost deflated wheel.
The picture shows the extent of the damage. We were both surprised at the damage and condition of the rear side of the tire.
It certainly didn’t look like the hole was caused by a foreign object the previous evening but more like a spontaneous rupture.
Although the tires were eight years old I had hardly used the car in the last seven after retirement and the profile looked quite okay.
If this tire represented the general condition of the other three we had decided correctly the previous evening that we would replace all four tires and not just the back two. I tried not to think too much about what may have happened if the tire had decided to rupture two days previously while we were driving down on the motorway in the pouring rain.
The rest of the Sunday was uneventful apart from the family lunch at the hotel which was disappointing and nothing like the positive hearsay from others that had dinned there.
That evening on returning to the hotel for the last time, we had a semi-heated discussion about the payment of the hotel bill with intermittent declining offers of something to drink.
The discussion reminded me more of the patter when trying to buy something at a bazaar. Mr. B in too many words and with multiple permutations kept going on about that he was originally hired to be the chief and in-charge of the restaurant. And that he had been also roped in’, by the owner, to look after the running of the guest rooms.
This reluctancy in running the guest rooms explained the unprofessional way he ran the place. This also included the restaurant as we had experience at our lunchtime meal. Well we could definitely cross out this location from our overnight short list in the area.
Monday morning at 7:45 we were packed and waiting outside the hotel for our pickups. We had been told the previous evening to just leave the key in the lock when leaving. It was fortunate that I had asked because we saw no one that morning apart from what appeared to be another guest wandering about looking for someone to give up his key and get back his 30€ deposit back.
We wondered later which room he had occupied, as on the landing all the other rooms had their keys in their locks. As he saw that we were leaving he asked if we had also to get our deposit back. We said no as we had no needed to deposit anything when we arrived. This seemed to stump him somewhat and with a closer look at his key chain there was a thick blue/white round object hanging from it.
I remembered that on our key, that was at that moment dangling upstairs in the door of our now unoccupied room, had a similar key chain but the object was completely flat.
We advised him to ring one of the numbers listed on the piece of paper sellotaped to the inside of the glass door. He thanked us and we wished him luck in getting his deposit back. Before we could speculate together why he had to give a deposit for the key and we didn’t the cars of H’s sister and C arrived.
As the man got out his mobile and went inside to scan the list we packed our luggage into H’s sisters car. H wished us luck with the tires before being driven off to the flat. I got into C’s car and with the wheel plus deflated tire in the boot we drove to the garage. Traffic was fortunately light and we arrived just after 8:00.
It was confirmed that they had the make of tire we wanted but they only had available summer tires and not the all-weather tires that was ‘ok-ed’ on the phone. It looked like the indirect communication with owner of the garage on the Sunday had not gone through without a slight mishap.
We of course decided to take summer tires if they didn’t have anything else. The owner of the garage went through a list of manufacturers and I let C decide which to take as I really have no idea when it comes to cars. I was just happy that we would be driving home on four new tires that afternoon and not running round looking for all-weather ones and possibly having to stay an extra night before getting them delivered and fitted.
Lucky we didn’t have long to wait before we were driving back to C’s house with a working wheel. C then fitted the wheel on the car and we drove back to the garage to get the other three fitted. Again no real delay. I paid the bill and we were back at C’s house at 10:00. We were all surprised and happy that the action had gone so smoothly and quickly.
As C had to go and pickup one of this kids from kindergarten we said our farewells and drove to H’s sisters flat and spent sometime there before getting the tank filled and driving home.
This time the journey was less stressful as the weather was dry and we took a slightly longer route but with less heavy duty traffic and road works. We were home about three in the afternoon.
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