My hotel room from the door

Guess who’s arrived!
What can I say of Berlin on my first night…Not too much, because It is only the first night, but HOLY COW. I swear these people were raised on a steady diet of protein and steroids, because they are tall. I don’t mean oh, they’re above average.
NEIN.
We’re talking the human equivalent of redwood trees (which, for the rest of the world, are some of the tallest trees around in the west coast) Even most of the kinder are head and shoulders above me. I feel like I should just find Bilbo Baggins and company if I want to be an average height.

That aside, I can’t sing enough praise for Swiss airlines, which got me from Zurich to Berlin about a half hour ahead of time. One must love the German efficiency. As an avid lover of all things new, There is something special about hearing multiple languages ensconce you. For some reason, hearing all these different dialects made me feel like I was a part of something bigger, which, to be frank, is partly true.

Speaking of German efficiency, I must also mention (and hopefully successfully upload pictures of)  the hotel I am staying in for the night. The hotel, Motel One, is extremely space-conscious, like most establishments based in big cities. However, they take space efficiency and comfort and turn it up to 11. At the risk of sounding like a Yelp review, this hotel, (and the rest of Germany from what’s I’ve seen in my limited few hours) makes the most of the small space it has to offer, and somehow makes a sardine can feel like a luxury.

Since this is my first time traveling abroad and I am a simpleton, I had a blast figuring out how to navigate a German hotel room. After about five minutes of petering about the room looking for a light solution, I figured out how this hotel truly stuck it to the term “master key”. If you wanted anything to be done in your room, you had to put your room key into a specific little slot by the foyer. After I successfully managed to piece two and two together and slid the key into place, the whole room came together. Just like that, the lights I’d struggled with blazed, the TV shot up into alertness, and the electromagnetic something-or-other door clicked into place. And the minute I took that mysterious skeleton key out of the slot, the room was once again propelled into darkness.

And so it has *officially* begun!