Just Don’t Staycity Aparthotels Heidelberg
June 28, 2022
It is in Heidelberg, so that’s good!
And there are some great people in town at the same time to have some fun with. So that’s good too.
For what it’s worth, NPS actually knows better! We should have stayed at the arthotel or maybe even Hotel Ritter with the old people.
I mean, any hotel actually named Staycity Aparthotels is gonna be exactly like this. So just don’t. LOL.
Hamster cage 223 is just like every other hamster cage here. Looks great in pictures because of the veneer and plastic. But it is made of veneer and plastic. And it has the design sensibility of a modern TV. Big black slab with some fake wood veneer pasted on.
Speaking of the TV, here it is splotted prominently on the plastic veneer architectural feature.
The toilet does get its own plastic room.
What a nice touch to add those moth orchids! They are easy to care for after all. And… Oh no wait, they are plastic. LOL.
Whatever you do, do not steal the hangers! They are very valuable as they are not made of plastic.
The shower area looks great and there is even glass! But really, the floor is all thin bouncy plastic. (We will give them props for good water pressure and plenty of hit water.)
So just don’t.
We’ll leave you with some Heidelberg to cleanse your pallet.
Over here on the “used to be an American Army base side (which is quickly transforming into a high tech center, Mandy’s Grill is a great place for breakfast. Very much international and tasty.
The walk to the center is not too bad from here (about a mile), and there in tourist zone you can find most anything. Read some science with a Hugo or a Capari Orange.
Anyway, two showerheads and no hope for redemption for the Staycity Aparthotel. We’ll be smarter next time.
There was that pandemic thing that put a kibosh on business travel. Some hotels and hotel chains (looking at you Kimpton) slumped, starting with their customer experience department. I mean, no customers so no customer service? Or something wrong like that. Others rose to the occasion. The Umstead Hotel in Cary, NC rose to the occasion. Well done Umstead!
First off, the hotel remembered that we have stayed on their property before. They left a note. They provided an excellent room. The only problem was not a problem at all…that was that arrival was rushed due to late aircraft arrival and there was no time to appreciate the calm ritual of the umstead. In the end, it all worked out.
After delivering a 6:30pm lecture, it was back to the Umstead and its world class restaurant, Herons, for dinner. Just wow. Excellent food. Impeccable service. Great company. Dinner could not have been better executed.
The Prix Fixe dinner menu is world class, and fun too. Elk, caviar, fois gras, and a cheese desert that was a blast.
Then it was up to 512 (a garden view balcony room) for some sleep on birthday eve.
NPS was greeted with presents hidden away in our luggage. Yay! Birthday. (NPS is 38 for those of you wondering.)
What else is there to do around Cary on your birthday? Well there is Krispy Kreme.
And a visit to the NCSU lab.
A little too secure if you don’t have an ID card.
Then a VERY early dinner with Michael Rappa, who once again is always right about restaurant choice. Stanbury is fantastic.
After dinner it was back to Cary for a nightcap at Mayton Inn‘s bar. Fernet was available. The waitress was a newb.
Birthday fernet shot with a server in three pictures (her first) pic.twitter.com/rRhkMv1ySU
— noplasticshower (@noplasticshower) February 26, 2022
All in all, a great celebratory day with three renditions of the happy birthday song…all terrible.
A walk in the park was in order before flying back home. Umstead State Park is built around an old Mill complex. A nice warm day for a walk.
Hurray for a visit with bright young grad students!
Five showerheads and a fervent wish for an early return (or maybe often…or maybe both).
Back in Oslo at the Hotel Christiania Teater
November 20, 2021
Being back on the road again is so good! And we’re not even stuck in the good old US of A. Oslo even! When in Olso, NPS always likes to use the Hotel Christiania Teater as the base of operations. Heck, we even know our favorite room (620) which not only has an interesting shower but also features non-rectangular architecture.
Be forewarned, however, that the “getting into Norway” thing at this phase of the global pandemic is non-trivial. The rules are tricky and they don’t have things set up for Americans to visit. The problem is the EU covid passport requirement. Since the good old US of A has its own digital records system (times 50, one for each state) there is no way to get the QR code signed by the EU authority.
What we did to prepare was download digital records from the Virginia Department of Health for vaccines (NPS is triple vaxxed) and then store them in the Common Health app on our phone. We did the same thing with covid test results generated the day that we flew (get them done less than 24 hours before entering Norway). Make sure you practice pulling up the records and displaying the QR code when the police ask you for it at the gate of your arriving plane! And practice being super nice and explaining, “well, these are the records my government makes available.”
That’s right, even though we were flying in through the EU and had been admitted into Germany with our records with no issue at all, the police met the EU-origin plane in Oslo and asked all passengers for passports and vaccination/testing documents. After ten minutes of “sweating it” in the hall, we were admitted.
Getting to the hotel from the airport is a breeze. Just take the express train in from the airport and go one stop past the central station. Even though we arrived a bit too early for checkin (which is a 3pm), the wait for room cleaning final check was only 10 minutes.
Then it was up to 620 to shower off the metal tube and start the attempt to stay up until at least 20:00.
Here is the bathroom from 620, built next to one of the cupola rooms. The shower is over a huge stone tub inside the shower room area. Very not plastic, and a very nice shower indeed.
Here’s the rest of the room.
Covid has put a small damper on the bar at the hotel, which is still good but is not as relaxing and excellent as it used to be. We’ll hope that gets back to normal when the pandemic is over.
Breakfast is fantastic. A beautiful room, a machine that makes fresh orange juice, excellent espresso drinks, and, well, just a great spread. Sneaking in for breakfast would be a good move.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First we had to stay up. So we started at the bar with an arbitrarily constructed not very good Negroni (how can you fuck that one up?!), and moved on to an Indian restaurant in search of spicy food.
Seeing my friend Gøran was a great pleasure. The food at The Great India was plenty hot, the wine was good, and they made a much better Negroni. Soon it was time to slink off to bed and crash for 10 hours straight.
The next day, after an excellent breakfast and a visit with the orange smashing machine, it was time for some work in Oslo.
Visiting @TranscendentGr in Oslo and talking #MLsec pic.twitter.com/UvLrf4TRSI
— Gary McGraw (@cigitalgem) November 17, 2021
And then it was out into Oslo with friends old and new. We started at Torggata Botaniske, a very nice cocktail bar where they were shooting a movie scene as we arrived.
We had an excellent but way too risky dinner at Habibi. Absolutely outstanding food, but crowded and stuffy. No venues in Oslo are requiring vaccination proof (though the double dosed vaccination rate is 87.4%). In Oslo on the street it feels like the pandemic is over. It is most assuredly not over.
Then it was a visit to the always outstanding Himkok. We were once again pressed to finagle the door. Done.
Our obligatory bottle of Aquavit was delivered.
All in all Hotel Christiania Teater remains a five showerhead kind of place. Tops on the Oslo list! Can’t wait to be back when the pandemic is actually over.