September 21, 2015

 

 

Wasting a day again

Finally the 6 night string of one nighters is over.  We’re off to Berlin today for a four night stay which will seem like heaven. The flight connection will be a little tight so we plan to be at the gangway at 7:30 for an 8:00 docking. The Anastasia rolls into Helsinki right on time and we are behind only 3 other people to disembark.  If we spoke Russian we would know that the first class passengers were assembling in another hallway.

We glumly watch as about 75 people get off before us and we know that the passport control line will be way backed up, and we’re right.  The lines are long but we keep moving steadily.  We get through at 8:30 and have booked a driver to get us to the airport for a 10:55 flight to Riga, Latvia and then on to Berlin.  At 4:00 AM this morning it occurred to John in one of those wake up thoughts that we told the car company that we would be arriving on the Princess Maria, not the Anastasia.  So a hurried text to the company at 6:45 and hope for the best.

No problem.  The driver was there with a little sign and we reach the airport at 9:05, almost 2 hours before flight time.  We’re on Air Baltic and have a 3 across on a 737 to Riga and then 2 and 1 in a Dash-8 to Berlin with an hour layover in Riga.  Pat isn’t feeling well on the second leg so Mary and John pair up while Pat has a recuperative nap.

We gain an hour on the way to Berlin so arrive at 3:00 local time. Today we have been on a ship, two airport buses, a cab and two flights, and have been crammed and stalled and ignored and generally pushed around.  The plan was to get an air bus to Alexanderplatz and then walk 20 minutes to the apartment but there is no way we are going through any more punishment.  We catch a cab for door to door service and it is the best 26-euro investment of the trip so far.

We had called our VRBO renter, Ina, when we landed and she is waiting outside for us at the apartment.    It is a lovely 2-bed, 2-bath in the Mitte section of what used to be East Berlin near Alexanderplatz.  High ceilings, spacious bathrooms, a full kitchen and best of all a washer/dryer.  Mary begins the laundry service immediately sorting out two weeks of packed and repacked and repacked clothes to get load number one in the washer.  John gets all the computer connections established and Pat begins work on getting the lay of the land.

Once organized we go along a canal and under a major street to get to the neighborhood supermarket. Our mission is to load up with breakfast and beverages and all is accomplished.  Mary turns the washer into a dryer (there is a learning curve with our euro washer/dryer combo) and moves to the next phase before thinking about dinner.  The laundry equipment is pretty small so we can envision about 5 three-hour loads in our future.

Dinner is next door at the “Rotisserie Weinbar” primarily because of ease of access.  There are some big groups coming in with reservations and we are relegated to a raised counter in front of the kitchen.  Mary and Pat split a roast chicken and John has the ribs with gratineed potatoes.  Our server is very attentive and personable when around but she gets absolutely slammed and we don’t see her as often as we should by our standards.  The food was good but there was no follow through, a salad was missed, the wine order was a mistake and there was no one to fix it.  Our server was a victim of the system tonight. 

Home to bed after a day that was only devoted to getting from one place to another.  Not fun but this will happen again in the next 8 weeks.

What did we learn today?  We reinforced our belief that the American system of restaurant service is far and away the best in the world for the owner, the staff and the customers.  If anyone falls into the “greedy owners should just pay the servers a living wage so we don’t have to tip” camp, please see us after class so we can explain how and why it works for everyone.