Sheraton and Rafeal hotels in Munich

On the bus to the Sheraton one of the infamous plain clothes inspectors got on and asked for our tickets. He simply indicated the clicker machine, clicked the tickets and returned them to us.

At the Sheraton, although we arrived 15 minutes late, we had to wait half an hour, and again fill in forms. We were seen by a lady who liked us, but she said that she only had place for us in March, and even then she had promised the places to others and had to check if they were still interested. So we were told to get back to her on Monday. We went to the Rafael Hotel next. Again we were kept waiting, and eventually we were seen by the chief Housekeeper. The interviews have all been pretty similar: how long will you stay, do you have experience, etc, this time however the housekeeper marched us through the hotel foyer, with its plush pink carpet. They had very tall well built doormen, who must have been employed specifically for their height. She sowed us one of the average rooms - it was huge, with a lounge area, a marble bathroom and a bed that could fit four people. Very classy. I asked her how many stars the hotel had and she said: "Oh, we consider ourselves above all that", and indeed they are. We found out later that they are the most expensive hotel in Munich charging $350-$650 a night, and that's not for a suite! Anyway, the same story, call us Monday.

We went to the supermarket, and stuffed our faces with chocolate. We headed home, made some more spaghetti, and shared the kitchen with some funny Korean gentlemen. They had brought all the food they were going to eat for their entire trip, with them from Korea.

We stayed at the hostel for the whole of Saturday, mostly sleeping and eating. We also found an English newspaper and read it cover to cover.

Photo of Rafael Hotel, from Yahoo travel