Stories of Europe... Crazy Long

I've decided that every time my brain randomly calls up a memory of my time in Europe I will post about it. This way, when it feels as though it never happened and so very much impossible to achieve again, I can look here and see that it happened once and that it can happen again. 

Now I want to give a brief description of our hotels, mostly because I have time to. 

Hotel 1 > Outside of Heidelberg > This was our first hotel, and thank goodness because it left our standards low for all of the following. It was very much of the 70s era and I remember distinctly that the bathroom was covered in dark olive green tile and was missing a blow dryer... I think one wall was orange and perhaps the other was a rather busy wallpaper? This was also my first rendezvous with a duvet cover. However, I at least knew what it was. I went to say good night to the BF on our first evening only to discover that the boys thought they were sleeping bags and had crawled inside of theirs. Now that was a fantastic moment... 

Hotel 2 > Munich > This hotel was oh so beautiful compared to the last. It had an elevator for one and a blow dryer! The bath tub was ginormous (and actually the only bathtub of the trip I think) and my lovably determined little Mac was able to steal wireless internet from the lobby at a distance impossible for a PC. These were good nights. Plus Munich was one of my absolute favorite cities : )

Hotel 3 > Vienna > This hotel sucked. We had just spent an hour lost in the red light district of Vienna so our impression of the city thus far had not been favorable. Eventually we found our restaurant and then were off to the hotel. I remember driving far outside of the city and suddenly there being a giant factory producing smoke from a thousand different orifices on our right, it was all lit up and looked a little like a city, like a skyline almost. It looked cool, but it didn't look like a place for a hotel... Eventually we found it, an airport hotel. The rooms were decorated with red and the sink was outside the bathroom kind of next to the TV. There was not a blow dryer. I remember thinking that the red board running along one wall acting as a headboard to the two beds was somewhat clever and decor savvy, before I realized it was unfinished plywood shellacked with red paint. When I went to the lobby to get a code for the wireless I had to wait for Peter to get the attention of the couple behind the desk sitting on each other's laps and canoodling because they wouldn't come help me. Figured their internet didn't work anyway...

Hotel 4 > Budapest > This is where we all learned that four stars in America is not equivalent to four stars in Hungary. This hotel was circular, which was weird, and the rooms were smaller than my dorm room. It was a nice hotel though, few complaints about it. There was some odd artwork on the walls though, it made me think of a doctor's office. Whenever I go see Dr. Shively I wonder why there are horses in this exam room and a cottage with flowers in the other or some such thing. I wonder who picks them, they seem to be chosen with abandon. Anyway. This is the hotel that we walked from to a bar in town on my second evening there. I remember worrying about losing my kidneys on the walk...

Hotel 5 > Prague > Prague was beautiful so it was only fitting that this hotel was quite splendid. It was very tall and in the thick of the city! This was where Luna and I got stuck in the elevator. We did no realize that there was a spot in the elevator where one was supposed to swipe one's key. If one doesn't swipe one's key the elevator goes to the floor you chose and hovers between it and the one below it. We were quite worried we were trapped for awhile but eventually we figured it out. This place had the best breakfast too, it was completely fantastic. Luna and I had our own room this time too which we felt was very cool. We took the opportunity to take out every single item we had bought thus far and lay them out on our beds so we could look at em. Our beds were totally covered. The BF knocked on the door at some point and I let him in but I remember Luna and I had very guilty looks on our faces, like we were little kids caught making a mess in our room, he just rolled his eyes, I don't think the things I do surprise him anymore : )

Hotel 6 > Berlin > This was the hostel. I hated the hostel. I hated it as soon as the proprietor sat us all down in the lobby and told us the house rules. House rules? Really? They weren't bad rules, but college kids don't like rules regardless. No blow dryer. Very nice and modern decorations, but it was about half the size of my dorm room with two bunk beds for the four of us. Not the ideal place to end our trip since we all needed to do a bit of repacking and reorganizing. That was quite the challenge. We literally couldn't all open our suitcases at the same time!