Where in the World?

I started off my business travel week with a less than wonderful stay at the Holiday Inn near the Helsinki Airport. The room was small, but I can manage that. The problem was that the temperature was in the 80’s. It was quite warm and humid. I called reception to ask for an air conditioned room.

“All are occupied,” says the clerk. She asks, “Are you using the fan?”

“Yes, but it is only blowing the hot air around in the room,” I say with a big smile on my face. (I’m trying to keep my attitude up). I ask for a bigger fan. It takes 5 calls and 7 hours to finally get a new one.

Next, I open up the bathroom and I’m greeted with the smell of sewer. Oh my! Can you guess? All the rooms were booked. In fact all hotels in Helsinki were full. The final problem was that the internet and T.V. couldn’t work at the same time. Not enough plugs. I’m a multi-tasker so I can do both. This was a minor inconvenience. I was working on the more serious problem of how to take a shower without using the bathroom.

I leave Helsinki for Germany on Wednesday. There were a total of 2 1/2 hours of delays. Here they are in order of occurrence: weather related flow control in Munich, baggage stuck on the lift belt into the plane, baggage door stuck open on plane, flow control delay again, thunderstorms in Munich delay.

I arrive in the Munich airport. Everything is closed except for the Lufthansa Service Center. They will pay for a hotel room, dinner and breakfast. Fantastic! I’m thinking things are turning around. The agent then says, but we have a small problem. I’m amused at this point.

“What’s the issue?” I say.

“Well, there are no hotel rooms left in Munich. In fact the nearest one is a one hour taxi ride,” says the agent.

“I’ll take it,” I say. I calculate that I’ll get about 4 hours of sleep by the time I get to the hotel before having to wake up to ride back to the Munich airport.

I find a taxi outside. The driver was fantastic. He was very nice, very accommodating, and drove incredibly fast. It seems to be common here. Nearing the hotel I see that the area was really nice. I could just barely see a lake and some mountains. We turn into the hotel area and I’m astonished at what I’m looking at. The Seehotel Uberhafrt Tegernsee hotel was luxury at its finest. The service and room were on very high standards. This was quite the change from the Holiday Inn in Helsinki.

The overall moral here is simple. Keep your attitude up. Laugh at the situation. Go with the flow.

It was a great trip plus I got a good story out of it.

Michael