Mr B: Hotel Mystery dissolved by icy, wet and naked spy
I love staying in a hotel. It associates with mystery, spy novels and freedom. A stranger in a foreign city, as well. A secret hiker that no one has control over – except for mother of course, and Mrs. B, and at least two booking systems.
Since my financial conditions have varied over the years, I have lived on the entire scale of hotels, both those where they look at one when booking a whole night and those where the shoes are magically plastered if you leave them outside the door. But the level does not matter, I always treat myself to feeling world swan.
Except then at Scandic in Örebro. Not because there is something wrong with the hotel, but you hear yourself: « Scandic in Örebro » does not scream « enigmatic globetrotter ».
For a couple of weeks Then I crossed the continent by train and it struck me what professionalization happened, even at the cheaper hotels. It has become easier, albeit less exciting, to be a guest. Even at Britain’s largest hotel, with over 1600 rooms, everything flowed smoothly.
But no matter how skilled administrators have become, there is a problem left. A worthy task for those who have already come up with booking systems, emergency exits, breakfast chaos and how to treat the sour German on floor three, which is sometimes a Chinese on seven, but on my trip was three hundred enviable drinking Newcastle supporters whose team was on the way to take their first English trophy in seventy years.
I admit, I pushed myself into the hotel pub and spatched their euphoria, jumped and drank and screamed in « Gimme Gimme a Striker From Sweden! » At the final signal, hundreds of beers flew in the air and the tables were filled with bouncing men and at least one table went to pieces – but a few hours later everything was clean and fresh.
Hotel staff around Europe can simply their stuff. So why in the whole red hot, or icy, hell is it impossible to create a predictable system that makes you not have to be scalded or screamed when you put on the shower. Not even the most intense fantasies of being an international agent on the way to saving the Swedish government’s honor – « a tough job, » they said, « but someone must do it » – can handle such shocks.
Instead, the thoughts are starting to be about how good EU administrators should give up a legal proposal for mandatory « so this works the shower » signs, and it is not quite as intoxicating.
Read more
Last Mr. B-Kåsiet: What I think when I don’t get my morning coffee
Mr. B-classic: Is there anything better than having a knee pain together? (2018)
