Enjoy your stay! – Column by Roman Schatz

TURKU TIMES COLUMN

The Phoenix Hotel pictured in 1908. The hotel was located on the edge of the Market Square along the street Venäjän Kirkkokatu (now Yliopistonkatu) and operated from 1878 to 1922 after which it became the main building of the University of Turku. The building was demolished in 1959.

Enjoy your stay!

Written by roman sChatz

So you spent the night here. Or you’re about to. Or both. Are you here for business or pleasure? Relaxing with your family? Relaxing without them?

Well, you’re absolutely right, that’s none of my business, and surely, you’ve already filled out your registration form at the reception desk.

I just want to remind you of the fact that you have entered the twilight zone, that you’re in a very special place. Hotels are much more than just a home away from home, they’re at the same time private and public spaces. Some people check in, because they don’t want to be seen together, others do it for exactly the opposite reason.

And while the bed, the breakfast, the friendly staff and the quality of the toilet paper are of course important, the most crucial thing about hotels is their magical potential.

Every Once in a while, hotels are the setting for events of historical dimensions. Some of the world’s biggest deals – both legal and illegal – were made in a hotel: peace treaties were signed, empires founded and buried. Hotels have been the backdrop of many political, cultural and technological breakthroughs.

The very first telephone call in London was placed in 1877 from a hotel, and by none other than inventor Alexander Graham Bell himself. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed 1929 during a fete in a Los Angeles hotel. Rumor even has it that the first sketch of the Oscar statue was sketched on a hotel napkin. In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King wrote his famous speech "I have a dream" in a hotel room in Washington D.C. In 2007, author J.K. Rowling finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a hotel in Edinburgh.

And then there’s the martini cocktail, a timeless classic. The very first one is said to have been shaken – or stirred – by a hotel bartender at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City.

It’s clear that the world would be a different place without the before-mentioned achievements and without the hotels that made them possible.

And so would Finland too, because in the early 1900s, when Finland was still part of Russia, the separatist intelligentsia used to meet at a hotel in downtown Helsinki. It’s here that guys like Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Jean Sibelius and Juhani Aho dreamed up their own national state.

Makes you wonder what their wives did while the founding fathers were drinking and discussing politics, doesn't it? Be that as it may, it’s safe to assume that without that hotel, Finland would not be what it is today, maybe it wouldn’t even exist as an independent state.

HOtels are Often history in the making. But it doesn’t always have to be world history, it can also be rather personal: While not a lot of people are born in hotels, quite many babies are put on their way in a hotel bed. As a matter of fact, a group of Italian hotels are offering a free stay for couples who conceive in their rooms in a bid to tackle the country’s low birth rate. Couples who can produce a birth certificate of their child nine months after their stay will be entitled to a reimbursement for one night’s stay.

You feel intimidated now? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put you under any pressure. No sweat, you don’t have to do anything dramatical or achieve anything of historical dimensions while you’re here. Just enjoy your stay!

All I’m trying to say is: You’re in the right place to do something truly great, if you’re so inclined. Anything can happen in a hotel. And you’ve been warned. s

Roman Schatz is a writer, journalist and radio host who moved to Finland from West Germany 35 years ago. He has spent at least two years of his life in different hotels, both for business and pleasure…