Karlsruhe’s Finest Room At the Train Station

We make it, they have parking, they are open, they are going to give us breakfast in the morning, and they have an internet connection. They do not have air-conditioning or a non-smoking room. I slap down my credit card and grab the camera. I don’t even care if there is no shower at this point; I just want a bed. The room is giant compared to what we have been staying in and at first whiff the lingering smoke isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, it’s hot – really hot. We have to open the windows, which leads to the second problem: we are at the train station, so naturally, there are trains and strassenbahns and cars and drunk people all competing in a battle of decibels. I decide to ignore this, as best I can. Scott is deep deep in work mode and there is nothing on TV but an episode of Veronica Mars and while the storyline is interesting the person they chose to dub her voice is freaking me out so I have to turn it off. I lie down on the very comfortable bed and discover at that moment why it is important to have a non-smoking room. The blankets and pillows and mattress and everything else are rife with old, moldy cigarette smell. I find if I lay on my back and turn my head in the direction of the brightest streetlight known to man, I might just be able to handle it. I am pondering whether this would be considered second hand smoke or third hand and wondering about the health effects. For example, if thirty people smoked in this room over the last six months, am I breathing the remnants of thirty times second hand smoke? Even if this isn’t causing cancer, it certainly is causing a symptom known as “irritable Alexis with stiff neck,” not to mention a boyfriend who wakes his girlfriend throughout the night mumbling “disgusting, just disgusting.”