World's fairs

When I  was at the history museum  in  Seattle on Sunday, I overheard one of the guides tell some visitors that the Seattle World's Fair of 1962 (for which the  Space Needle was built) was the first World's Fair after WWII.

One of my father's cousins married a a Belgian woman and I remember getting a postcard when I was young showing the Atomium outside Brussels.  It's still there - I see it every time I take a train north out of Brussels.  I had at the back of my mind the idea that it was built for a World's Fair and  quick check on Wikipedia confirmed that there was a World's Fair in Brussels in 1958.  There is a complete list of officially recognised World's Fairs there, starting with the Great Exhibition of1851 in London.  Curiously, the Festival of Britain in 1951 isn't on the list and Brussels was the first after WWII.

Where's the manual

Spent yesterday afternoon travelling to Spokane by Amtrak.  The train left a bit late around 16:45.  It went through some spectacular scenery in the Cascades mountains.  There was also a running commentary about historical and geographical features we were seeing on the trip. Just about every other one ended by pointing out  that rivers were low and the mountains had none of their usual snow, due to climate change.

The train was scheduled to arrive in Spokane at 00:45 (where it links up with a train from Portland before going on to Chicago) and although it was 20 minutes late at its previous stop, it actually arrived just after midnight.  I'd checked in my suitcase in Seattle and had to wait for that to come out and then it was just a four-block walk to my hotel.  I was in my room by 00:30.

I have never found an hotel room more confusing when I got into it.  Firstly, I couldn't close the curtains and a quick examination showed that the curtain rails didn't actually go over the window; the curtains are just for show and don't close.

There seemed to be a blind in the windows but no obvious way of closing it.  There's a cable coming out of the wall next to the window, but that disappears into a socket near the ceiling.  Finally I spotted, on the other side of the room, between then air conditioning control and the light switches, a white panel with buttons with white arrows on a white background, and pressing the down arrow closed  the blind.

There doesn't seem to be a plug for the wash basin.  There is no lever to close the drain like you get in many basins.  I'm assuming  that you are supposed to wash under running water as in many European hotels.

Next to the bed is an alarm clock, a large triangular prism that looks like it's made of wood.  If you physically move it, it shows first the time, then the date, finally the temperature.  What I couldn't work out was how to set the alarm time.  In the process, I managed to do a complete reset and had to enter the time  and date again.  At least I was able to get it to use the 24-hour clock and display the temperature in Celsius.  But there doesn't seem to be a short cut to setting the alarm time other than going through a complete set-up cycle.

I finally switched of the light at about 01:15 and almost immediately noticed the wall opposite the bed was bathed in a faint glow.  I was so curious I got up without switching the light back on to see where the  glow was coming from. There is no bathroom door, just an alcove.  (No bath, either, just a shower.  I much prefer baths.)  On the wall opposite the wash basin is a light switch and that has a small white illuminated panel above it, about a couple of centimetres square.  I assume the idea is to be able  to find a light switch in a darkened room.  That light was being reflected in the bathroom mirror and diffusing into a patch about two metres square on the wall.

An accident waiting to happen

I had breakfast in my hotel this morning.  This is the first hotel I've stayed in for a very long time that didn't have a breakfast buffet.  I ordered a traditional bacon, eggs and hash browns.  It came with toast or muffin.  And you didn't get the little individual plastic packets of jam but a small china pot of strawberry jam.  And there was also a small pot of tomato ketchup.  And they looked identical.

Fortunately, the waitress separated them and I didn't get them confused.