So the last two nights I'd been in a hotel slightly out of the city, Kami, Mark, Beth, Kim and Joe were arriving from the US today so i was changing hotels and would be with them all for the next 2 weeks.
Kim and Joe were due in around 9am, Kami, Beth and Mark around 1pm. took a cab over to the Park Inn hotel around 11am and tried to check in. The lady at the desk said they didn't have the three rooms all on the same floor ready yet so i was unable to check in. i told her it was fine if the rooms weren't on the same floor and she immediately allocated me a clean corner room on the 27th floor overlooking the Berlin TV tower.
I’d remembered booking this for us all a few months ago the second i entered the room as the bathrooms were like a glass pod within the room itself. it had lines of frosted glass on the sides which gave a bit of privacy but unless you are very familiar with the person you're staying with i wouldn't recommend it!
After unpacking my case i headed down to the lobby to wait for Kami and Mark and Beth to arrive. Kim and Joe were in the lobby and had arrived a couple of hours ago and were unable to check in their room so had been off exploring. Kim told me about this bowling lounge they had found across the street and was very enthusiastic about us all going there sometime. i took them both over to the reception and managed to get them checked into a room on a different floor,the 26th, one floor down from ours. I then headed back down into the lobby. it wasn't long before the others arrived, it had been nearly 3 months since I’d seen Kami, the longest we’ve been apart during the last 2 years! They were pretty tired, then arrived at Heathrow at 7am, then had 10am flight to Berlin.
Lots of other friends were coming to the Berlin show too. Wendy and her husband Chris were due in tomorrow morning. Ole and Stuart the same but later in the day and Jens, Emil, Kevin, Phil, Laila, Frank, Bluenose Matt and many others were all coming in within the next 48 hours. Kami and i also had two friends in town who we last saw in Buenos Aires in march 2012. Marcelo and his wife Veronica were on their honeymoon and had been touring around Europe for the last 3 weeks and had 3 more weeks ahead of them. They were leaving the next day so i called them up and arranged to meet them for drinks at the top of the TV tower tonight at 6pm as Mark had already made reservations for the 6 of us before leaving the US.
Beth, Kami, Joe, Kim and Mark, 3 hours after arriving The TV tower and our hotel
We headed over to the tower around 5:30pm only took a 10 minute walk and Beth was excited as we passed both a Dunkin Donuts AND a Starbucks on the way over there! We headed up the tower and took a seat at the bar, al of us needed a drink and it was our first drink together while on our German vacation.
Mark and Kami heading up the tower Kami, Beth, Mark, Kim and Joe Mark, Kim and Joe discuss German beer!
10 minutes later i called and spotted Marcelo, they had just arrived, it was fantastic to see them again. Kami and i had so much fun hanging out with them down in Argentina and it was good to catch up, just shame we didn't have more time and they were leaving tomorrow. Kim mentioned about having dinner at the bowling lounge, everyone pulled their faces up and Kim continued to tell us it was like no other bowling alley she had seen, with awesome couches to hang out in, bar areas etc etc
Marcelo, Kami and Veronica Myself, Marcelo and Veronica.
None of us had eaten most of the day, some had eaten airline food earlier in the day, others had eaten sausages and toast with brown sauce at Heathrow! I got Mark hooked on HP brown sauce the last time i was in Virginia, i took a large bottle over with me and he loved it! so when he saw it in Heathrow he couldn't resist. We decided to give in to Kim and the eight of us headed over to the bowling lounge. It was raining when we came out of the tower and after the 10 minute walk to the entertainment centre and finding it was all closed up, we headed back towards the hotel and had a nice dinner at a restaurant attached to the hotel. It was around 11 when we said our goodbyes to Marcelo and Veronica and the rest of us headed up for an early night and to get some sleep ready for a day of sightseeing on the “hop on, hop off” bus tour around Berlin tomorrow.
