William Reardon’s Blog

Arriving in the lobby of my hotel, there was nothing I wanted more than to get into a shower with water pressure and lay in a comfortable bed. I imagine that’s what motivated to say “No worries… I can carry my own bags” when the desk clerk informed me it would just be a minute for the bellhop to return & take me to my room. In my defense, she never said he’d show me how to turn on the lights too.

Entering my pitch black room, I used the pocket flashlight I had brought along (hey, never know what you might need on a train) found the light switch, and pressed it to make the room come alive with light.

A few minutes into unpacking, the room goes dark. Huh. That’s weird. I walk over to wall, push the button, and light returns. More unpacking and a few minutes latter, the lights go out again. WTF, I wonder.

Imagine six or seven more iterations of this and you can visualize me standing in the middle of dark room wondering what the hell is going on. I wanted to call the front desk, but there’s no way in hell I was going to be the stupid American who figure out how to turn on the damn lights. (Besides, I’m supposed to be good with electronics, dammit!)

I figure there’s got to be something else I have to do and odds are they’d make it easy for tourists to find in the dark. I notice a couple of green LEDs on one of the walls, part of angular plastic device, just above the light-switch. But you can’t push it in, turn it, or do anything. I’m stumped. With my flashlight I notice there’s a credit card slot. Hmmm… maybe stick my room key in there?

It’s actually a fairly clever idea. You have your card in the slot when you’re in the room and the lights automatically go off a few minutes after you take it out. You never loose your room key, you conserve energy by automatically turning off the lights, and room service knows without knocking if someone’s in the room or not.

The light-problem resolved, I was then able to fully appreciate how my room just dripped with Euro-hip. Check out my sink — it’s a rectangle!

Instead of a little plastic “Do Not Disturb” door-hanger, you got a few little foam balls on chains to hang outside you door for similar purpose.

And, of course, as this was Europe, next to the toilet was the midget’s bathroom sink. Never really understood that; Midgets must be more common in Europe.

First step, the Spanish Steps…