So, having loaded us all on to the aircraft in Stockholm, Lufthansa then informs us that we’ll be delayed an hour because of bad weather at Munich (I can’t believe they didn’t know this before they put us on the plane, but we were on board by then). Sure enough, we’re late leaving and then have to wait a little outside of Munich too. The connection to London was already tight, but they keep telling us all departing flights are delayed too. Just before we land they tell us that passengers for the London flight should go as quickly as possible to gate G46 to get on the plane.

We land, and they park us at G02 – the opposite end of the airport. So, we rush all the way over to G46, passing through a passport control on the way, only to get there and be told the flight already left. Apparently, it never occurred to them to wait for the 15-20 passengers coming in from Stockholm.

Next, we’re told there’s no more planes to London. A little pressure though and they get us on the BA flight, leaving at 9:15pm, but also delayed until 9:30pm. The catch? It is in the other terminal and there isn’t time to process all of us and get us paperwork for the flight. So we’re sent over to Terminal 1 (a 10-15 minute fast walk from where we are, and return back through passport control) without any papers at all. At Terminal 1, we line up at BA checkin to get a boarding pass since we can’t get through security without one.

Then it is back through passport control (3rd time since landing at Munich) and security and we’re all waiting now at the gate for the BA flight to London. Hopefully this one will be uneventful, though it is only 10 minutes before it is due to leave and we’re still not boarding 🙁

In Stockholm now for about a day (I leave tomorrow morning, early). The city here, or at least as much of it as I’ve been able to see so far, seems pretty amazing. Not sure it would be so much fun in the winter, but it is great at the moment.

The photo shows the lift in the hotel. Max 3 people, and it would be a tight squeeze at that. The room is not much larger. The bed pretty much fills it, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise the bed is a 2’6″ single! I think the only place I’ve found rooms this small was Japan, and there they did include larger beds at least!

Rather than any cliché photos of tourist attractions in Berlin, I present a urinal from an Irish pub. OK, I was in the pub for a reason: my laptop needed charging and they had a table next to a power outlet and a Wi-Fi hotspot on the premises for me to use.

The mens urinals though were equipped with little ball games (as shown in the photo). I’d heard of these before, but never actually seen one. The orientation seems a little odd on these ones – I can only guess they were designed for a different brand of porcelain fixture!

Still, the little red ball fades to a pale pink as the shooter hits; a feature no doubt intended to encourage more precise aim 🙂

Remember you can keep up with the more serious aspects of my travels around northern Europe at the Devicescape blog.

Front of the high speed train from Aachen to Berlin. Unlike the Thalys train I took from Paris to Aachen though, this one did not have power outlets for every seat, nor did it have complimentary food & drink service. All in all, rather annoying for a 5 hour train journey, but, since all my electronic devices were pretty much out of power following a busy morning in Aachen hunting down Wi-Fi networks, it was a good excuse to catch up on some sleep.

Now in Berlin for a few days, and the weather here is glorious; total opposite of weather.com’s forecast – last time I trust them when planning what to wear on a trip!

Those of you who have been watching my photo stream in Flickr will have noticed that I have been posting photos from France over the last few days. Paris was the first stop in my trip around northern Europe to get more Wi-Fi hotspots supported by Devicescape‘s auto-login tool. Keep up with the trip and all the hotspots that I find over at the Devicescape blog.