1987

In 1987 I made my last trip to Europe. Before I left home, I had arranged for a rental car for a month for myself, my daughter and a friend from Houston, to be picked up at the airport in Frankfort. We traveled happily through southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria always finding rooms whenever and wherever we decided to stop for the night. But we had two unpleasant days in Czechoslovakia and had almost to sleep in our car the one night we were there, cutting short our visit to Prague. This communistic country at that time wasn't set up for tourists and nobody was helpful in finding us a room.

At the end of our month, we returned the car to the airport in Frankfurt, I saw my friend off on her plane to Houston, my daughter off to San Diego, and I was on my own. The Frankfurt airport is a tremendous place, and it has a train station in the airport. I bought a ticket for West Berlin and took the train in to the city. A kindly young woman helped me with my baggage, and she informed me that the next train for West Berlin wouldn't leave until later that afternoon. I was a bit distressed that I should get into West Berlin fairly late at night. I don't know why I didn't fly, but I had decided I'd take the train.

So it was after eleven when I arrived at the West Berlin Railroad station, and I had no room. I'm a seasoned traveler, not least of which was my experience of six months in South America all by myself the year I was 70, but I have seldom made reservations except when I have to meet a friend on the first day of an overseas trip.

It just hadn't occurred to me that I couldn't get a room although rooms had also been in very short supply in Frankfurt. I called several hotels listed in Frommer's DOLLARWISE GUIDE TO GERMANY - I've used Frommer's guides from perhaps his first one of $5 a Day in Europe - but there were no vacancies.

Suddenly I was a bit afraid. The West Berlin RR station wasn't exactly the pleasantest place to be in, in the middle of the night. Since I speak some German, I went to a ticket seller and explained my problem. He sent me to a "Mission" at the back of the station where I could see two women in a well lighted but locked room. Explaining my need for a place to sleep that night, they tried to solve my problem by making a few telephone calls. They asked if I had German money, and I said, "Naturlich -Of course". Finally, they said, " We have a BED for you. Take a taxi to this address", giving me a slip of paper with an address. "Take this in and ask for a key. Have the taxi wait for you."

Strange directions, I thought.

A taxi outside the station was driven by a very pleasant woman who spoke some English, and she drove me to the address I had. When I went in, I found myself in a poorly lit but very noisy beer parlor. It was now about midnight. At the bar I said, " Haben sie ein schlussel fur mich?".

"Ja, Ich komme mit." said one of the bar tenders. So he came with me and we drove a few more blocks. I paid the taxi driver, and my companion picked up my luggage and led me through a dark court yard, up several flights of dimly lit stairs, and then through a brightly lit room, and down a hallway. At one door, he knocked. I wondered why knock on an empty room?. But I soon learned that my bed was in a dormitory room with two occupants already there. One was a man, and when I demurred, he said, "I won't eat you." And that was that.

As is customary in European hotels, a shower and wash basin may be right off the room, but the toilet is down the hall. After many trips to Europe, it finally dawned on me, that when we say "bathroom", they take the words literally to mean where you wash and take a bath but it doesn't include the whole complement of fixtures that we include in the word "bathroom". So I found the rest of what we call "bathroom" down the hall, and then took a shower in the bathroom right off the room, put on my money belt again, which had my airline ticket, railroad ticket, passport, and money, and my long zippered head to toe robe and went to sleep, and slept soundly until morning. I was vaguely conscious of others coming in later that night, but I got up early, and never saw any of my roommates again.

The big well lighted room I had gone through the night before was a dining room, and we were served a big breakfast, This was included in the price of the room, which I think was about $3.00. The next night I had a single room here. I decided a fourth floor attic had just recently been converted to a hostel for groups. It was bright and clean with white walls, sparkling white linens, and bright red curtains at the windows. Every door to the rooms was painted a different color. It was a pleasant and inexpensive place for a younger person to stay, but the three flights of stairs and the several blocks to the subway, were too difficult for my arthritic bones, so a few days later I found a room in a private home with an elderly woman through the Berlin Tourist Bureau. Here I had an elevator and was just across the street from a subway station.

So I was saved from having to sleep in the dirty, and possibly dangerous RR station in West Berlin.