When we discovered that two of our rooms had been given away, Steven got busy looking for someplace else with enough available rooms to accommodate our whole group.

He was able to find only one place, and it was almost 20 minutes away in the opposite direction from the restaurant as our original booking.  He booked it, got a confirmation, and after we paid our check we hopped in our cars and started driving.

We were basically driving from one little town in Germany to another, so the 20 minutes consisted of driving down two-lane country roads in the dark of night.  We arrived at the new booking.

It was more of a boutique hotel, or bed and breakfast type place.  From what we could see in the dark, it was a building a few stories high, set right on the main street of the small country town.  The owner or property manager lived on site, and there was a buzzer on the main door to ring him.

Keep in mind it is now after 10pm.  We have encountered few cars on our drive from Bruchhausen-Vilsen, and the countryside and homes were dark and quiet.  Everyone seemed to have gone to bed.  The man at this hotel had clearly done the same.

Steven rang the buzzer.

A tired-sounding, cranky voice said in German, "Hallo?"

Steven: "Sprichst du Englisch?"  (Do you speak English?)

Grumpy: "Keine Englisch.  Kein Zimmer. Auf Wiedersehen." (No English. No rooms. Goodbye.)

Steven: "We have rooms here.  Umm... Reservierungen?  Zimmer?"

Grumpy:  "Nein."

Steven: "Right here see... I have the paper... confirmation... Ja Zimmer."

Grumpy: "Nein."

Steven:  "Bitte... 9 Personen... Zimmer..."

Grumpy:  "NEIN!  NICHT ZIMMER HIER!"

And he hung up.

So apparently we weren't going to be staying there.  After a frantic phone call back to the owner of the original hotel, we were able to claim the the three rooms from our original reservation that he hadn't given away.   He agreed to hold them for us.

Another mad drive through dark country roads to the tiny little town of Englen.  The owner didn't even bother with check-in: he handed us the keys and went back to bed, with the promise that we would take care of everything in the morning.

After a short while of trying to figure out who was bunking with whom - it was lights out.