Sleep with the fishes no more

I was really startled the week before Christmas to hear that the AquaDom in Berlin had ruptured and that hundreds of the fish it housed were dead. The aquarium was in the Radisson Blu hotel, and when I booked there in 2018 I chose a room that faced it rather than one overlooking the street.

Ordinarily I prefer a view of street life, as long as I’m insulated from the noise, but I thought the aquarium was something unique; it was. It was a bit weird to open the drapes and watch fish swimming at eye level just a few meters away.

Occasionally I also caught housekeeping cleaning the interior walls.

It was actually a tourist attraction—the tank surrounded a glass elevator and people lined up in the hotel lobby to go up and be surrounded by exotic fish.

At night they turned the lights down to give the fish a rest.

Well, I don’t know whether they’ll rebuild the AquaDom, or what the Radisson will do with the otherwise cavernous atrium—it’ll take some time to repair the damage done by tens of thousands of gallons of salt water flooding the place. It’s a grace that the rupture (cause still undetermined, though under investigation) occurred early in the morning, and that only two people were injured.

But I’m glad I had the opportunity to sleep with the fishes for a few nights.