Day 14: HotelTonight

ALERT: I must add that, yesterday, I also went to the hardware store. It was farther than I remembered. And yes, that was me walking back with a mop in my hand. This pushed my day over 20,000 steps. Booyah!

So, Chris going back to work has been interesting. We're definitely missing him during the day. And for two nights this week, he's gone for dinner and bedtime, so it's a bit of a shock to our system, being without him for so much. We figured today was a good day for us to meet at his work. See HotelTonight's Berlin office, meet his coworkers, and have lunch with him. 

I got my photo of Chris as the HT logo! (left) The door to HT (middle) The kids (right)

The kids and I walked to his office at lunchtime. We were able to get a quiet tour of the office space (it was mostly empty with everyone out to lunch) and meet a few coworkers (and use a free bathroom!)

The offices are bright with wooden floors. Sparsely decorated. Clean.

It is in a building that is also with a few other offices and some residents. They think their offices used to be an apartment. It was either a very large apartment, or maybe two? There are many cool nooks and crannies in terms of side rooms here (for the server) and rooms there (for conferences). A nice kitchen with lots of drinks, and did I mention, free bathrooms!

There is a room dedicated to a ping-pong table. The kids were so excited to finally get to play! Funny side note: When meeting more coworkers, I asked them if they had any suggestions on where to find a sports store, where I could find ping pong paddles and balls for purchase. They hemmed and hawed a bit while they thought, one person suggested the Berlin Mall (a large walking area with lots of shops), but in the end, they all said, in unison, "Amazon." I'm in good company, Amazon is often my answer, too.

We enjoyed sushi rolls for lunch. They roll the sushi but they don't cut it into pieces, you get (maybe half) the roll and just nosh on it. There were interesting choices and we all enjoyed our meal (even though the bees were chasing the kids away every now and then).

After lunch, there were more coworkers returned from lunch. It was good to meet them all and put faces to the people Chris has been working with. They were all super friendly and willing to help if needed. Most of them are not from Germany. So, they are all pushing for us to visit their homelands as side trips (Austria, Czech Republic, and others). We're getting good advice and a lot of choices. We'll see. It's hard to not get excited by their homeland excitement and hard to not go out and see them all. But our pocket book and clock will force us to pick and choose. In any case, they are all nice people and Chris has a good office environment.

On the walk home, I had the kids follow my path that I've been taking on the way home from my morning walks with Chris. I had passed several parks and thought we could slowly make our way back home by briefly stopping at each park.

The kids complied.

First, a water park (with limited water turned on). Then some swings. Then another park with great "different" equipment to explore. Then a giant "web" to climb.








Then for the "hill" portion of our return trip. It isn't a big hill, but at the end of a hot walk, it can sure feel tiring. So, when we reached the top, where there was one more park to explore, we looked at it and I said we could either go home and try it another day, or we could make one last stop.







Xander was super hot and wanted to wait, but after I said there was a cool looking slide in there (maybe just one go on the slide?), Venice said she wanted to do just one slide and then we could go home. Xander hesitantly agreed. 

Um, hello! 30 minutes later, we left the park. Good thing we stopped, the slide was crazy fun for the kids. It's a pretty steep slide, I'm not sure the pictures create a clear picture as to how steep this slide is. The kids felt like, if they took a "luge" position, it looked like they were standing up.

They even got me to try it.

So, it was a good walk back with lots of exploring. And the best thing about getting back to our apartment, we get to try out our new Brita that Chris bought from Amazon.de (and had sent to the office, so yesterday it was a mop, today it was a package you saw me carrying all over town). The kids approve of the water coming out of the Brita. Yay! We might hydrate this family after all!

P.S. Tonight, Chris is out for a tech-meet-up, so we're on our own for dinner. Side note: Sometimes we get bored and play with the cartoon app: