A Barbie House

The Monday after my Dad had gone into hospital, May 30, saw me getting up very early - I had a train to catch at 6:30 for a business trip to Berlin. Having seen that my Dad was already much better on the Sunday, and knowing that my Mum and my sister were going to see him every day, there was no need for me to cancel the trip. And so I was on trains for many hours until I reached Berlin Ostbahnhof (East Station) at around 2:00 pm after half an hour's delay thanks to overcrowded trains and construction work going on along the route.

A walk of maybe 20 minutes along the river Spree and the remainder of the Berlin Wall (now all painted and decorated by various artists and called East Side Gallery) took me to the hotel that had been booked for me by the association of Data Protection Officers upon whose invitation I was here.

I had looked up the hotel's website before, and so the interior did not come as a surprise - still, it was unusual; definitely not your typical business hotel! Actually, it felt like being inside a Barbie house from the 1960s or 70s. Look at the pictures and see what I mean:

I had just about enough time to check in, put my things away and freshen up a bit before the meeting started. Several meeting rooms on the ground floor shared a foyer where everything was ready for coffee breaks; breakfast the next morning and lunch were in a seperate dining room.

The theme of the hotel is music - there are real vinyl records for decoration everywhere, record sleeves and concert posters on the walls, and each of the lifts has a different music playlist from one music genre, from jazz to blues to rock'n roll to heavy metal to disco to pop.

I took a few pictures in the foyer, but you can see many more on the hotel's website. The man next to the bubble gum machine is a colleague, kindly posing for me to show the size of the machine:

Everywhere was clean and tidy, the staff were friendly and the food nice. I slept well in the big comfy bed and was ready to continue the meeting the next day.

My trip home took a bit longer than planned, thanks to the ever-late German railway; it was around 10:30 pm that I arrived at my flat.

Here are a few more pictures of the hotel's outside and of what little I saw of Berlin:

View from my window

View from my floor of the hotel, from where the lifts are

The hotel, as seen from the river terrace

Looking one way along the river Spree...

...and looking the other way.

Walking back towards the train station, the TV tower at Alexanderplatz comes into view.

Maybe some of you remember how in 2019 I was also staying at a very unusual hotel, also in Berlin (and also with the same association); my post from that trip is here.