When Dave & Kate arrived at Citadines in the Kurfürstendamm area to check in the manager happened to be behind the desk and saw they had booked through a last minute website. She revealed to them her amazement that she had only just put the offer up that morning when 5 mins later their booking came through.
The offer was so good and all the staff so welcoming it was 4 nights later before they could leave. Each morning they went down to the lobby to check the internet and each time they saw the offer still on they booked again. The woman behind the desk was amused by this and they joked about how they were the guests who wouldn't leave.
When the offer ran out and the time came to go, it was the first time Dave & Kate had felt a tinge of sadness at leaving a hotel. The staff were the friendliest so far, they had Kaisers supermarket across the road and could go down to the lobby to make themselves a free cup of tea or coffee whenever they felt like it. All of this felt like a real treat. The Buddha also appeared 3 times within the area.
Before they departed they had a few things they had to do. First of all, there was no longer any room for Jesus at the Inn and so he had travelled with them from Amsterdam to Hamburg and was now shipped off from Berlin via DHL to Edinburgh where he would eventually be told he didn't look like himself. Secondly, Dave & Kate felt the time had come to finally abandon their backpacks and buy some suitcases. They had spotted some in a luggage shop near Zoo Station.
Spending money on new suitcases at this time when they were almost out of cash seemed totally illogical and yet they had to do it. They may be going back to Edinburgh with the cases but at that time they knew they couldn't go any further forward with the old backpacks, which increasingly represented a weight on their backs. Why carry a load on your shoulders when you can let the earth take the weight?
The Rasta turtle from World Cafe in Hamburg seemed to think so, showing up next door to Citadines...
And funnily enough, the perfect place to dump their shells was round the corner from Citadines. Kate had spotted this big charity bin that the backpacks could fit inside. They zipped them up into their black body bags and disposed of them there.
