2009-07-30 52 13

Location

Bundesallee 81, Berlin

Participants

Phoenix?
relet
HiroProtagonist - looking forward to my first hash! :)
Hiro will be dragging along her boyfriend and is trying to persuade two friends who live really close by

Plans

It's inside an apartment building. There don't seem to be any shops, but we might get access to the stairway.

It would be great to meet with u there, so plz tell my what time u plan to be there. -HiroProtagonist 20:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Oy! Welcome! And I think 7pm would be a safe bet for me. -- relet 20:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful! And can I rely on one of you to have a GPS? I still need to obtain such a helpful device :D -HiroProtagonist 20:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I shall bring one of these technomagickal marvels. :D -- relet 20:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

(relet failed in that respect)

Expedition

Hiro and friends

relet

Relet decided to take this yet-another-city-hash-of-uncertain-accessibility opportunity to make another attempt at a longboard hash. It is, alas, not of the electric variant. After doing whatever he does during the day, he dropped by at home, quickly grabbed the longboard, GPS and photo camera, and set off in direction of the hash. He had a good three quarters of an hour left to do so, and took the opportunity to roll in a leisurely pace. The many public clocks helped him in arriving just when the church bells rang seven (Or whatever they rang about, which usually is not the time of day in this very secular place).

Upon arriving on location he discovered the two girls climbing a handrail, which immediately gave them away as the kind of clear-thinking minds only geohashers possess.

Phoenix?

After finishing what needed to be worked upon phoenix realised that, contrary to what he had originally planned, he had to decide between hashing and shopping - and unluckily decided for the latter. Unluckiliy in the sense of missing an interesting hash that is - the shopping went quite smooth. better luck next time ...

On location

Phoenix had announced to arrive a little after 7pm, so all introduced themselves and chatted a bit while waiting for him. The group had identified the geohash as being in the building -hence the climbing of handrails leading to a cellar stairway- albeit geopositional proof was still required. However, as relet discovered, the batteries of the GPS so grandly announced, and so quickly grabbed - were empty. We shall therefore proceed with proof based on the available aerial imagery.

We walked around the building, to see if there was any other means of access, or if maybe the courtyards were closer to where we expected the hash to be. We met a nice lady, which unfortunately and easily withstood relet's meagre social engineering skills. She was reluctant to let us into the stairwell. We thanked her nevertheless and headed back to the front of the building.

When Phoenix did not turn up, we eventually decided to ring. We had, upon closer inspection of the location, decided that the stairwell of the building next to number 81 would be sufficiently close to the hash, while the one for number 81 was in the center of the building. Had we chosen to ring there, we would probably have to ask for access to someones bedroom. :D

So, we looked up the list of parties living in this building and decided to ring up the friendliest sounding name on the list. Lawyers being known to be excellent and open-minded chaps (and to work until late), we pushed the button saying "Lawyers".

The door's buzzer rang. Woo! Access granted!

In the stairwell, we took photos hugging the wall, and admired the inventory. There was a private mailbox (of the outgoing kind) inside the stairwell. It indicated that it would be emptied daily after 5pm. Maybe they considered us to be the mail service?

But the most prominent feature of the stairwell was a beautiful 1910 elevator, painted in white with manual doors inside and outside. We just had to take a ride. It was built for four persons (yay), and had a small bench. We decided to ride all the way to the top (the lawyers living on third floor). Unfortunately, the windows outside were frosted. Hiro inspected them for their closedness.

The three of them took the stairs back down (not meeting any lawyers - they don't seem to be very outgoing), while relet took another ride in the elevator. And got stuck five centimeters before reaching ground floor. Apparently he had opened the inner doors too early, causing the elevator to freeze. The outer door wouldn't open. What now?

After a moment of fiddling with the doors, and some concerned voices from outside, he decided to scan the instructions again. There it said: "If the elevator gets stuck, switch off and reactivate the drive train." relet correctly assumed the big red switch to be the manual hyperdrive override and toggled it. The elevator sprung back into motion. Five centimeters later, the doors would open and let him free.

We considered leaving a short thank-you message in the lawyer's mailbox. However, the mail boxes were new and shiny and mostly unlabeled (some upgrading seemed to be in progress). relet scribbled a "thank you for opening on one of his cards and left it in a corner of the stairwell. People who would be curious enough to look up the wiki address would certainly understand the importance of the mission. And be thanked for living there along the way (If you read this, you are eligible for an Cubicle geohash achievement, you know?)

Photos

Achieving the drag-along :D
The hash is behind this wall
Could it help to climb up here?
Studying house number 81
Whom should we ring? (Proof of longboard in bottom left corner)
Studying house number 80 instead
Woo for lawyers!
Listening to the hash (and pointing in its general direction)
Stupid grin: Check
Mail drop
A 1910 elevator
(Before?) entering the drive pit, turn off main switch. (Before?) entering drive pit, catch the cabin.
Beautiful and comfortable inside
relet next to the instructions he currently ignores.
Top floor reached
Armin Tenner installed this elevator in 1910
The instructions now carefully studied
Big red switches are meant to be toggled
A thankful card
After having cycled and skated for most of the day, I was greeted at home by a crate of complimentary (free!) beer. Yay.*

* Which I am meant to advertise a bit in return, which I shall hereby do. All I can say is that the Schoefferhofers are nice people sending free beer by mail (much more than I will be able to consume without inviting help) and that they have an excellent timing. I haven't tasted it yet.