Four hotels in three hours – Vancouver
A grueling journey from the chaotic border checkpoints of Canada through a nightmare of musty accommodations, leading into the high-stakes world of Calgary casinos and an unforgettable midnight gamble.
Home / Stories
CHAPTER I: The Airport and the Unfriendly Welcome
When we stepped out of the plane into the arrivals hall, we were astounded. More than two thousand
passengers were crowded together, waiting at several customs counters. It was incredibly loud. The
security guards and airport staff were trying to organize the lines. For a while, we barely moved, all while
new passengers continued to flood into the already overcrowded hall. Half an hour later, we finally moved
a bit. After just a few steps, we were at a standstill again. We wondered why so many passengers wanted
to enter Canada on this particular day. Twelve o’clock noon. Perhaps this was the peak time for arriving
flights, something we couldn’t have guessed in our overtired state.
Another half hour passed without us moving a single meter forward. Meanwhile, even more passengers
arrived. It got even tighter. The staff no longer knew how to manage the crowd. Thick ropes were used to
divide the entire arrivals hall into parallel lines, so that when you finally moved forward, you ended up in
the exact same spot, just on the other side of the rope. Half an hour later, we shuffled forward maybe ten
meters. And then, we waited again.
At some point, I felt pressure on my back. It was an Asian man in a light, long trench coat. He was
unusually tall, much like our accountant back in Hawaii, who was a Chinese man of the same height. I let
him pass in front of me so he wouldn’t keep pressing painfully into my back. A few minutes later, he was
already at least twenty meters ahead of me. What he had done to me, he was doing to everyone else. He
kept pushing his way forward. By the time he had shoved past about two hundred people ahead of me, I
went over to security. I pointed out the spot where Mischko was standing, then pointed to the man and
told the security guard that he had originally been behind us. I told the official, “He pressed so hard into
my back that I let him pass just to stop the pain. He did the exact same thing to all these people.”
When the airport security guard heard this, he walked past the passengers right up to the rude man, while I
returned to Mischko. Once I was back with her, I watched to see what would happen up ahead. The
security guard pulled him out of line, marched him all the way back to where he had started, and made
him stand at the very end of the queue. You bastard, I thought to myself.
There were at least twenty-five winding lines, each a meter wide and at least thirty to forty meters long. It
brought me a great deal of Schadenfreude to see him at the very back of the line.
Gradually, meter by meter, at a snail’s pace, we crawled from the beginning to the end of a line that was
about thirty-five meters long, only to turn left and head all the way back. It took more than two hours
before we finally stood in front of one of the fifteen open customs counters. As we stepped up impatiently,
a young Canadian woman sat behind the glass.
As usual, I was wearing my sports clothes, my face pale with exhaustion. I probably looked like a poor
guy trying to sneak into Canada to find illegal work. The truth was, we were coming to Canada today
because we wanted to buy an apartment right in Vancouver.
The customs officer’s first question: “Why are you coming to Canada?” I was friendly as always and
smiled. “We are here to have a good time and visit relatives!” Officer: “How long do you plan to stay?”
Then came all the formal questions. She was very aggressive and unfriendly. I slowly started to feel
uncomfortable, wondering why I was visiting a country where the border officials were so hostile. I
figured she was being rude because I didn’t look like the other travelers, who were wearing elegant,
proper clothing. When she repeated a question she had already asked, I’d had enough and grew aggressive
myself. My expression hardened, and I told her loud and clear that we were visiting my relatives. I offered
to give her their phone number right then so she could call them herself. I told her loudly, “We are already
at least two hours late. She has to go back to work soon. She is waiting out there in the hall just to pick us
up, and then she has to leave immediately.”
When she saw that I had convinced her we were genuinely visiting relatives, she finally let us cross the
border. Inwardly, I cursed her unfriendly reception. We hadn’t dared to tell the rude customs officer that
we were actually coming to Vancouver just to look at apartments, and that if we liked one, we would buy
it immediately. If she had known that, she might have been jealous and actually denied us entry. That’s
why we didn’t tell her the whole truth.
When we finally made it past the barriers, someone waved at us impatiently from a distance—a person we
had never seen in our lives. We didn’t know what she looked like either, but we had told her in an email
what we looked like and what we would be wearing. She laughed from afar and came toward us with
open arms.
CHAPTER II: A Miraculous Escape
Adela, slightly taller than me, had short hair like Mischko and was very talkative. Her father, Ibrahim, had
fled across the Austrian border right after the Second World War. He spent some time as a prisoner in a
labor camp, working as a mechanic repairing Austrian military vehicles.
One day, while watching from the garage where he repaired the vehicles, he saw a troop of soldiers march
into the prison camp and divide the prisoners into two groups. It seemed suspicious to him, and he was
right. One group was to remain in the camp; the other was to be taken away and shot. He had prepared for
this moment, having formulated an escape plan weeks in advance so he could flee the camp unseen.
While the prisoners were being divided into two groups and one group was forced to board the trucks, the
other group stayed behind. Adela’s father seized the perfect moment, slipping out of the mechanic’s garage
unseen. Weeks prior, behind the shed where he worked, he had prepared the wire fence with pliers,
leaving the opening looking as if the wire had never been cut.
When he reached the prepared spot behind the shed, he pulled the wire apart with his bare hands. Once
outside, he closed the gap so no one could tell which direction he had fled. Since the forest was right
nearby, he immediately vanished into the woods, heading to a hiding spot where, weeks earlier, he had
concealed an old, discarded motorcycle. He had secretly repaired and fueled this discarded motorcycle.
During a test drive with a truck, he had loaded the bike onto the flatbed and covered it so the guards
wouldn’t spot it. While on that test drive, alone on an unpaved forest road, he had pushed it off the flatbed
far from the road and covered it with branches.
On the day of his escape, crouched and terrified under the branches next to his motorcycle, he listened
clearly from his hiding spot as the trucks carrying the condemned prisoners drove past him, just twenty
meters away, to be executed.
He waited until dark, and meanwhile, it started to rain. Soaked and shivering from the cold, he bided his
time. It wasn’t until around midnight that he dared to move, pushing his motorcycle in the dark between
the trees and through the mud onto an unpaved village road. Not daring to take the main roads due to
checkpoints, he drove over the mountains until his tank ran dry. Somehow, he managed to walk across the
border into Germany, eventually arriving at a farm. To survive, he worked for the farmer until he
eventually moved on to a small town, where he got a job as an auto mechanic. After a year in Germany, he
traveled to Hamburg. With his saved money, he bought a ticket and sailed to Canada.
If he hadn’t escaped that day, we would never have met Adela at the airport in Vancouver today, because
he likely would have been shot as well.
CHAPTER III: Four Hotels in Three Hours
Adela, his daughter who had just warmly welcomed us at the Vancouver airport, was born in Calgary. She
has two sisters and three brothers. Her mother is German. Even though her mother is a quiet German
woman just like my Mischko, all the children of her father and his German wife have Bosnian names.
Because Adela is an adventurer seeking the wide world—just like me—she said goodbye to her family
and is the only one living and working here in Vancouver. It’s an eight-hour drive from her family in
Calgary. Today, she had left work specifically to pick us up and had to return immediately. When we got
to her car, it was a compact vehicle, and the interior was packed with books. There was barely enough
room for us two travelers. She knew we would have four suitcases. Those four suitcases just barely fit in
the back.
She drove through Vancouver just like the locals do—really fast. She knew we loved the ocean and
figured she would book a hotel for us right by the sea. We had no idea where the airport was located in
relation to the city. As we talked, the streets flew by. She knew exactly where she was going.
Eventually, she stopped on a side street that looked more like a residential neighborhood and dropped us
off right in front of a hotel. She promised to call us at the hotel after she finished work, leaving us alone
out front. The main street wasn’t far away, maybe fifty meters.
Not a soul in sight. We dragged our four suitcases behind us. When we walked into the reception area, a
woman greeted us. She asked for our names and a credit card. After Mischko handed everything over, we
slowly walked up the stairs. The wooden stairs creaked under our feet. I had to carry two suitcases up
first, then go back down to lug the other two up. Since I’m a born mule and have been carrying things my
whole life, I didn’t mind. Once we got all our things up to the first floor, we had to walk down a musty
hallway. Somehow, I had a bad feeling. The air was stuffy, as if I were in a barn with animals. All it was
missing was the stench of cow manure.
We reached our room at the end of the long hallway. Mischko took the electronic key card and slid it into
the slot. When the door opened, we stepped inside and saw beds with uninviting blankets. Everything
looked like a cheap village inn. The worst part was the smell. It smelled like corpses.
The words immediately tumbled out of my mouth: “I am not staying here!” Mischko: “I don’t like it
either.”
Normally, before we book anywhere, we check the room first. But since Adela had reserved this for us,
we couldn’t do that. Mischko and I walked back down the stairs. The woman at the reception looked at us.
Mischko apologized and explained that we didn’t want to stay in the room Adela had reserved for us.
We asked for a different room. She gave us a key. We went upstairs without our luggage. The second
room stank just as bad.
We decided to leave the hotel on the spot. Mischko explained to the woman that we weren’t satisfied and
asked if it was okay not to charge us for the night. The woman said it was no problem. We didn’t have to
pay anything. We dragged our suitcases back out onto the street and had to pull all four of them behind us
for at least 50 meters to the corner where the main street was.
After completing the heavy lifting, we stood on the sidewalk of the main street with all four suitcases. We
waited for a while; it was almost four or four-thirty in the afternoon. Cars drove by continuously. In the
distance, we relievedly spotted a taxi. It was occupied. On the three-lane road, everyone seemed to be
driving much too fast. Taxis kept coming, but they were all occupied. Like fools, we waited for at least
half an hour. No luck.
We then decided to ask someone to use a phone. Neither of us had a cell phone working in Canada. There
were barely any people walking by. Whenever someone did approach, and we asked how to get a taxi,
they either hurried away from us, or if they did stop and we spoke to them, they didn’t understand a word.
Just like foreigners in Berlin who don’t speak German, the immigrants here in Canada were the same.
They come to Canada to live but don’t speak English. It was a neighborhood with a diverse population; it
felt as if we were somewhere in India. The men we kept seeing had their heads covered with turbans,
much like the population in India.
After another forty-five minutes on the sidewalk, with no phone, alone in a strange city, and having seen
neither a taxi nor another person in the last fifteen minutes, we decided to go into a barber shop to ask if
we could call our cousin. Since she was supposed to call us that evening to meet up, it wouldn’t be a bad
idea to let her know we were no longer at that hotel.
The barber was a Caucasian man and very nice. Mischko called Adela; she didn’t answer, probably still at
work. Mischko left a message telling her we would reach out once we found another hotel.
Then the owner took the phone and called a taxi for us, giving them the address of his shop. The friendly
barber, who was around 40 or 50 years old, had someone in the shop he had been talking to. It wasn’t a
customer. The man was curious about where we were from.
While we were talking, I told Mischko that I wanted to open a suitcase to give the barber some chocolates
as a thank-you for helping us. The barber was, of course, delighted. Just before the taxi arrived, our
suitcase was zipped back up. We thanked the nice guy and said our goodbyes. The taxi driver, an Indian
man, helped us pack the suitcases into his trunk. It was already dark as he drove us slightly uphill through
side streets until he eventually hit a main road. It was absolute chaos on the streets, with streetcars and
rush-hour traffic. The driver stopped in front of a Howard Johnson Hotel.
We got out of the taxi and walked straight in. This hotel felt like something out of an old Western movie.
Everything was covered in colorful carpets, including the stairs. The guests were loud, walking up and
down the steps. It felt like being on a crowded street in New York. The guy at the reception told us there
were no rooms available. We were already so dead tired from the long day that I considered bribing him,
but he apologized and said all his rooms were occupied.
At that moment, we thought it was no wonder, considering what we had seen arriving at the airport. It
really seemed to be peak season for ships taking passengers to Alaska. Somehow, this hotel reminded me
of the first one. It wasn’t modern; everything was just old and musty. Even though the hotel was
completely full, the receptionist remained friendly, wanted to do us a favor, and called another hotel with
the same name, telling us they had a free room in an area called Burnaby in Uptown.
Because we were so tired, we didn’t care where or what the hotel looked like inside anymore. We
desperately wanted a room for this first night in Vancouver. We thought of our cousin again. We had to let
her know that we wouldn’t be at the second hotel either. How were we supposed to do that?
Disappointed that we hadn’t gotten a room, we grabbed our suitcases and went back out onto the street.
Under the streetlights, we watched cars drive by. Streetcar tracks were visible in the middle of the road.
An incredibly vibrant city. We stood in an area completely unknown to us, feeling as if we had just landed
from Mars. We were now two strangers in a strange city. We knew no one except our relative, and who
knew where she was right now. Greedily, we looked in the direction where taxis were driving in the
distance. The only thing that stood out was the sheer noise of cars and streetcars. We were exhausted from
the journey from Hawaii and now had to endure this deafening noise.
We took the first taxi that dropped off guests at the hotel. Once again, the driver was an Indian man.
Mischko told him the area where he should take us. After five minutes, the driver drove up Main Street
and shortly after turned left. He stopped right in front of the hotel on a two-lane street. After we paid him
and walked into the hotel, we finally got our room. We took the elevator, and once on the first floor, our
door was just a few meters away. This hotel seemed just as incredibly old as the previous two. When I
realized this, I didn’t expect anything good.
This time we didn’t care. When we opened the door and turned on the light, we saw two beds with white
sheets. It smelled of smoke. First, I opened a window. I checked the toilet and the sink. You could tell this
hotel was in desperate need of renovation. But since we were just glad to get a room at all, we agreed to
spend the night here, even if we had to sleep with the lights on because of cockroaches. Tomorrow is
another day; maybe we’ll have the luck to find something better.
Although we had spent the entire previous day in Hawaii, and preparing for our trip to Canada had been
exhausting, we were overtired. We had flown out of Honolulu at 11 PM, just before midnight. Even
though it was currently night in Hawaii, you can’t sleep on a plane—at least I can’t. Knowing there is no
food on night flights, we had filled our stomachs at fast-food joints before boarding.
The next morning, we were in San Francisco at 4 AM. Then followed a long wait until noon. Then the
flight to Vancouver. We were already dead tired at the airport. Then standing in line for at least two hours.
Then the first and second hotels. It had completely drained us. Still, we didn’t want to stay in this room
either because of the stench of smoke and suspected cockroaches. It seemed to be the only room the
reception had offered us. A smoking room. To avoid breathing in the smoke, we left the window open and
went back down to the street.
This street sloped up the mountain one way and down the other. Since we were tired, it was easier to walk
downhill, which is the direction we had arrived from, according to my orientation. The entire street was
dark. Next to the hotel was a building with two storefronts. One of them was a restaurant, but it was
closed.
The next building looked new. We saw the sign: Best Western Hotel. Knowing this hotel chain was from
the US, we figured the rooms here would definitely be cleaner. At the reception was a bald man around 50
years old. He was very nice. When he saw us, he greeted us. Mischko asked if he had a room for us, and if
so, how much it cost. He quoted a price of $110, including breakfast. We wanted to see the room
immediately, so he gave us the key. We went upstairs. When we walked in, everything was brand new,
sparkling, and spotlessly clean. We even discovered a fitness room. When we went back down, we asked
the nice man if we could check in tomorrow, since we had just checked into the place next door. He said it
was no problem.
Before leaving, we immediately reserved it for seven days. Mischko asked the friendly employee if she
could use the phone to call our cousin to tell her we would be moving into the Best Western tomorrow.
Shortly after, we said goodbye and walked out. We were totally exhausted and drained, but also relieved
and happy because we could move into a decent, clean hotel the next day.
Five minutes later, standing outside on the sidewalk, the air felt very fresh—more cold than fresh, really.
When we got back up to our room, it still stank of smoke, but not as badly as before. Now, at least, we
could say the cold air made it easier and more pleasant to breathe. Because the sink drains were exposed
and this hotel too seemed in need of renovation, I didn’t dare turn the lights off, fearing cockroaches
would visit us in the dark.
I lifted the sheets and inspected the mattresses. On a cleanliness scale, they were a seven out of ten. The
white sheets appeared to be clean. Since I had traveled from Hawaii in my sports gear and was still
wearing it, I just lay down exactly as I was dressed. We had already been spoiled by the beautiful warm
weather in Hawaii, and now here in southern Canada, it was so cold that night that we had to cover
ourselves with their thick blankets, hoping they weren’t full of lice.
Not far from Vancouver is Whistler, a mountain range where the Olympic Games were scheduled to take
place in a few years. That’s why it’s so cold, the thought crossed my mind. I lay awake for a long time, my
thoughts nearly three thousand miles away in Hawaii, while Mischko fell asleep instantly.
Despite the light I had left on, our exhaustion somehow carried us through the night.
CHAPTER IV: Real Estate
reams and New Friends
The next morning, we checked out immediately, thrilled, and dragged our suitcases about forty meters
slightly downhill to the Best Western, where we had a reservation for the next seven nights. When we
walked into the small reception area, there was a different person at the desk. At the counter stood a very
handsome, slender young man with a white shirt, black pants, and straight black hair. His name was
Sunny, half white, half Indian. With a smile on his face, he handed us the key. We took the elevator up,
and when it stopped, we pulled our suitcases into our room. Now we were overjoyed. Everything was new
and clean, and the view was certainly nicer than at the hotel forty meters away where we had first arrived.
First, Mischko called Adela and told her where we were so we could meet up in the afternoon after her
work. When we went down to the street, we looked for something to eat.
Because it was too early, the restaurants were closed. Two streets over, just off Main Street where the
streetcars still ran on tracks, we found a small pizzeria with only three tables inside. We were the first
guests, so we quickly got the food we wanted. Really, they only had pizza and spaghetti.
Afterward, we strolled along the harbor until Adela arrived at our Best Western in her car.
Naturally, we treated her to dinner. After all, she had taken care of us and booked the accommodation for
us, even if we hadn’t liked it. Since she knew her way around, she drove us to a very popular restaurant
frequented mostly by young people. We sat on high, slightly curved, revolving bar stools right by the
window, looking directly out onto Main Street. We talked as if we had known each other for years. She
was open and honest. We discussed our goal. We had genuinely come to Vancouver to buy something.
Real estate. She told us about her situation and showed us her room, which was in a very bad
neighborhood and cost almost nine hundred dollars—she had to renovate everything herself.
Over the next few days, we met up with her almost every day whenever she had time for us.
Unfortunately, we had no luck with real estate. Our agent from Hawaii, Neil Morrison, had recommended
an agent to us. Neil himself is a Canadian from Edmonton. What his recommended broker showed us was
nothing interesting. There was an apartment for 160K on Oak Street, located on a side street in a very nice
neighborhood, but unfortunately, the square footage was simply too small. While I was ready to pay for it,
Mischko was completely against it, so we couldn’t agree.
In Vancouver, we also met friends from Hawaii. The two guys are homosexual, which doesn’t bother us at
all. They had bought property here, so we visited them. A small apartment in Yaletown, Vancouver for
270K. We admired the two of them; even though the apartment was small, the neighborhood is
phenomenal.
Two years ago, we had been interested in buying property here in Vancouver, but unfortunately, we never
made it out here. Two years ago, that same apartment could have been bought for under a hundred
thousand. That’s exactly why we had come to Canada now. With the help of our gay friends, we also
opened a bank account in Vancouver. Homosexuality is much more accepted in Canada than in the US,
which is why these two had decided to buy here.
They also told us what they did to quickly obtain Canadian citizenship. They took out a 500K loan and
gave it to the Canadian government for a full five years. Then they get the money back, but the interest
has to be paid over those five years. For both Mischko and me, that was too much money, interest, and
debt. Therefore, we declined the idea. While we were still in Vancouver, we went to the library every day,
researching jobs and looking for the best and fastest way to immigrate to Canada.
CHAPTER V: The Okanagan Valley and the Bingo Near-Miss
When we drive to Calgary to see Adela’s family, we planned to visit our mutual friend, Gottfried. We had
even prepared all the paperwork from Germany for him, because he works as a consultant for German
immigrants, earning his living that way.
We had met Gottfried at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas back in the year 2000. He was on his way to his
room when he heard us speaking and asked, “Are you German?” That’s how we started talking. After
meeting us, he stayed downstairs and told us he was in Las Vegas for a convention where people sell
specific products. He had something to do with TV mechanics for hotels. You can’t see them, but if you
want to watch TV, he had invented the mechanics for it and wanted to sell it big to the hotel chains. That
was his idea.
While we were talking, we went to play Bingo together. He sat across from me. We talked; he didn’t play
because he has a family with two children. He couldn’t afford the luxury of throwing money around like
we do, having no kids.
As he sat there, he watched my betting slips. Mischko was very busy with hers, as we each had two
tickets. It’s not easy to play two betting slips at the same time if you’re not practiced. I remember, if you
mark all the numbers and the final number is 17, you win the 100K jackpot.
Gottfried watched my slip, and every time I marked a number, he nodded his head. Suddenly, I had one
entire box finished, except for one missing number. It was the exact number they required: 17. I signaled
to him not to say anything when I was just three numbers away, so Mischko wouldn’t lose her rhythm.
Otherwise, she would start cheering loudly and praying, “Come on seventeen, come on.” That’s why I
gestured with my finger for him to stay quiet.
When I was down to the very last number, almost twenty more numbers were drawn, but I had no luck. I
had never been so close to 100K. It wasn’t until the game was over that I revealed it to Mischko and said,
“Gottfried is my witness. I just told him to stay quiet so he wouldn’t distract you.”
Before we left Vancouver, Adela gave us a gift for her mother. We drove east, a drive taking at least eight
hours to Calgary, where her brothers, sisters, and parents lived.
On the way to Calgary, we drove past Kelowna, which I mentioned earlier. In the year 2000, I had met a
German from Leipzig, East Germany. He had immigrated to Canada through the church and was training
to become a consultant for German immigrants. That was Gottfried, the man who was almost the witness
to my 100K win. Now, after several hours of driving, we neared Kelowna and had to head to Peachland,
where Gottfried lived. Because we were hungry after more than four hours of driving and didn’t want to
wait for Gottfried to serve us food, we pulled into a small parking lot off the main road in Peachland,
grabbed some fast food, and ate in the car. When we were done, we looked for his street and drove up the
mountain from the main road through several curves. There were absolutely no houses to the left or right,
and when we finally stopped in front of his house, we felt as if we were deep in the forest.
When Gottfried saw us—we were, of course, expected—we were just happy to finally see him and meet
his family.
Oh, and Gottfried’s wife is also named Birgit, just like my wife (Mischko). So we had two Birgits in the
room that evening. Gottfried is a lovely, kind German man. I like the tone of his voice and his constant
smile; he is very educated. His wife cleans at a nursing home. We were given a room on the lower level of
the house, where we spent two nights. Over those two days, Gottfried showed us the area. It was nice to
see something different.
(Note: The Pinewood Guesthouse) In 1996, the Glass family emigrated from Germany to Canada “with
the whole kit and caboodle,” settling in the Okanagan Valley (British Columbia). After numerous inquiries
from their “old homeland,” the idea arose to offer “accommodation in Western Canada with German host
parents.” Guests are cared for in a family environment, receiving advice and assistance in their native
German language. The Glass family’s Pinewood Guesthouse is located in beautiful, tranquil Peachland, in
a prime location with a stunning view over the lake.
It is a true Canadian dream! The Okanagan Valley itself is known nationally and internationally as a
vacation destination due to its mild and sunny climate. Long and sometimes very warm summers, along
with short winters featuring mostly moderate temperatures, characterize the Okanagan climate. When you
think of CANADA, who imagines a Mediterranean climate where peaches, wine, apples, and apricots are
grown? Yet, these are typical fruits of the Okanagan climate. The Peachland lakefront with its restaurants
is about a 5-minute drive away, and the city of Kelowna is 30 minutes away (…a “stone’s throw” by
Canadian standards). Professional advice on immigrating to Canada is also provided. Gottfried is a trained
consultant. We had actually been in Vancouver when he passed his exams; we went out to eat, and then he
and Birgit returned to Peachland.
There’s also the legend of the large lake monster in the 120-km-long Lake Okanagan. Whether myth or
truth remains unclear to this day. Even professional dive teams of scientists equipped with heavy
submarine technology (the latest team was from Japan in 2000) have not yet found definitive proof.
CHAPTER VI: The Calgary Casino and the Borrowed Money
After lunch in Kelowna with our lovely friends and hosts and their children, we said our goodbyes and
drove east toward Calgary. We had at least a seven-hour drive ahead of us, not including the breaks we
had to factor in. This route is simply fascinating because the Rocky Mountains remain partially snow-
capped even in summer. During our breaks along the way, we took some photos to remember the trip. We
arrived in Calgary around nine in the evening. By nine-thirty, we were at our distant relatives’ house.
Exactly how we are related, I don’t quite know, but my father and Ibrahim know best. We brought our
suitcases up and ate in their living room at the table around ten o’clock. Suddenly, right in the middle of
eating the meatballs (Buletten), Heidi said, “Shall we go gamble?”
I thought she was asking if we wanted to go the next day. I agreed, because she knows I am a gambler,
and Mischko enjoys playing too. Her meatballs tasted so delicious; she must have made at least twenty of
them. Right in the middle of the meal, her husband, Ibrahim, disappeared. I assumed he had gone to the
restroom or who knows where.
I asked Heidi where Ibrahim was. She said he was waiting in the hallway, fully dressed. I wondered what
he was waiting for. She said, “So we can go to the casino. He’s just waiting for us to finish eating.”
Suddenly, something moved in the hallway. I looked over. He was wearing his old jacket, the same one I
had seen him wearing ten years ago when we visited. He still wore the exact same old clothes; he looked
more like a poor beggar. He stood in the hallway for at least another ten minutes. I felt pressured. Heidi’s
meatballs were legendary. I had rarely eaten such firm, well-seasoned meatballs made almost entirely of
meat.
Because he was rushing us, we got up from the dining table sooner than we wanted. After all, we had been
on the road for nine hours and were exhausted from the drive. The four of us went down from the first
floor, and Heidi drove us in her own SUV. He has an old black Cadillac. The neighborhood where their
house is located sits on an avenue—a small but singular street on this mountain. My relative has a
beautiful view of downtown Calgary. There are no houses in front of him; below lies what looks like a
small valley.
We went into a newly built casino. Everyone headed to their favorite machine. Heidi had hers, Mischko
had hers. Our relative wandered away from us. I looked for my favorite machine, the Gold Digger.
I started to play. I’ve been very comfortable with my betting strategy for years. Unfortunately, I also
experience bad moments when I’m tired. Since I was currently exhausted from the drive, I tried to play
even more carefully. If I don’t want to lose, here is an example: A machine has five lines. You can play
with one coin, or two, or three. If I play three coins per line across five lines, I have to pay fifteen coins. If
it were dollars, I’d have to pay fifteen dollars for just one spin. If I bet only one dollar per line across five
lines, I pay five dollars for a spin. Using this method, I once played for thirty hours straight at a machine
in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas without losing.
Now, in Calgary, I started with just one coin per line. Times five lines is five coins. That’s the minimum
bet. I play like this to see if I’m missing out on anything. If I do not win on the minimum bet after four
spins, I increase the bet to two coins across five lines. If I don’t win, I stop and go back to the minimum
bet. If I still haven’t missed any big hits, I’ll suddenly bet three coins across five lines. If I’m lucky, I win
back all the money I’ve lost up to that point and start fresh, as if I had just sat down. But if I lose again, I
still drop back to the minimum. Eventually, after ten minutes, I’ll hit a small win on a three-coin bet at
least twice, and then I’m almost back to breaking even. Even if I’m still slightly in the minus, it’s not so
bad. Within half an hour, if I hit once with four coins per line across five lines, I’ll have all my lost money
back. I know I’m no genius, but from my experience, I’ve found that when you get greedy and play with
high stakes… that’s when the losing begins. I simply can’t spin that often with high bets.
One evening, I was playing a machine at Caesars Palace. An American sat at the machine next to me, saw
how I was playing, and said, “Hey, what are you doing?” I asked, “Why?” He said, “You can’t win the
jackpot like that.” I told him, “I don’t want to win the jackpot. I just want to play.” He was playing on two
machines at once. Within fifteen minutes, he had lost six hundred dollars, while I was still playing with
my original hundred. I then asked him how much the jackpot was. Ten thousand. It wasn’t worth throwing
away a lot of money for that. If it had said a million, I would have understood.
Anyway, that evening in Calgary with Heidi and Ibrahim I built up a balance of three hundred and fifty
dollars, precisely because I was paying extra attention. I know myself; when I’m tired, I lose. It happens to
me every time we fly in from Germany. On the first night, arriving at midnight exhausted from the trip but
desperate to play, I usually lose at least a thousand dollars right off the bat. We bring five thousand
specifically to gamble with.
Because I was being particularly careful that evening, I was already up three hundred and fifty dollars.
Whenever the machine was forty or fifty dollars in the plus, I always cashed out.
Suddenly, I felt eyes on my back. Professionals like me can sense things like that. I absolutely hate having
an audience. I turned around. My relative was watching me play. I told him the truth and asked how he
was doing. He told me he had lost everything. Then he started begging me for money. I gave him a
hundred dollars just so he wouldn’t bother me while I was playing. I need to concentrate.
Fifteen minutes later, he was standing again behind me again. Now he wanted more. He told me his tenant
was going to pay him rent money in three days, and he would pay me back then. Fine, I gave him another
hundred and fifty dollars. He vanished again. Because he had thrown me off my game, and I was thinking
more about him than my strategy, I slowly began to lose my winnings. Suddenly, not only had I lost my
winnings, but I had also lost the two hundred dollars of my own money I had brought to gamble. I went
looking for Mischko in the casino and told her I wanted another five hundred. She wasn’t thrilled, but she
didn’t have a problem with it because I had often lost our money before. Never excessively… except in
Berlin once. I lost two thousand five hundred Marks in one evening there. That hurt, and for several days
afterward, I felt like the poorest bastard in the world.
After I lost that five hundred as well, we couldn’t withdraw any more money. Now I had lost Mischko’s
money too. Now she was unhappy. We tried to withdraw more money, but it didn’t work; a certain amount
of time had to pass before we could withdraw again. So, that morning, we went home nine hundred
dollars in the hole.
Three days later, early in the morning, around half past seven, I heard voices. The voice of my relative
who owed me three hundred and fifty dollars. After five minutes, it went quiet, and I went back to sleep.
We were sleeping on the floor in their living room. Sometime around eight-thirty, Heidi walked slowly
into the kitchen. I was awake; she was just a few meters away from me. She asked if her husband had
given me the money back. I said, “No, not yet.” She asked if I knew where Ibrahim, her husband, was. I
told her no, but I had heard him talking to someone. She said it must have been the tenant.
She said that after breakfast, we would sit down and go to the casino; he had definitely gone back to
gamble. Even though he knew we were flying to Vancouver that day, he hadn’t bothered to say goodbye to
us. After we had breakfast with this very pleasant German woman, we went down the stairs, got into her
blue SUV, and after driving about three kilometers, Heidi stopped at a flat building that looked absolutely
nothing like a casino.
CHAPTER VII: The Showdown and the Final Spin
She spotted his Cadilac classic old black car and said, “He’s inside.” When we walked in, it only took a
few minutes for Heidi to find him. The three of us walked up to him, and Heidi said, “You know Adam is
driving to Vancouver right after breakfast.”
The moment he saw her, he gave her such an evil glare. From that alone, I could tell he was in the minus.
Heidi told him, “You borrowed two hundred and fiftee dollars from Adam; you need to pay him back.
He’s leaving for Vancouver right now.” You could see the anger on his face. I took the money and didn’t
even say goodbye to him, as he remained seated at the slot machine.
So the three of us walked out. We thanked Heidi for her wonderful hospitality during our stay. Then we
headed straight for Vancouver. We took our time and arrived quite late at our hotel, which wasn’t far from
the airport. After we ate, knowing there was a casino near our hotel, we decided to go one last time since
we don’t have casinos in Hawaii. We have a friend in the military there who takes us to Pearl Harbor so
we can play Bingo. Even though gambling, including Bingo, is illegal by law in Hawaii, the military gets
around it. Instead of paying for gambling, we pay for “food” and receive Bingo cards in return. The only
food provided is snacks and small chocolates… nothing else. It’s just a way for the military to enjoy a bit
of gambling while bypassing Hawaiian law. Gambling is strictly forbidden.
We played until four in the morning. Mischko hates losing, so she just likes to watch me play. Having her
as a spectator doesn’t bother me. Only strangers do. Despite my careful strategy, I lost another four
hundred dollars. I was disappointed, but at least we had spent our last night in Canada in a casino. All
told, I had lost thirteen hundred dollars. We were getting ready to head back to our hotel. Near the exit, I
saw a giant machine. Nine lines, minimum bet of nine dollars. I said to Mischko, “Give me another twenty
dollars.” Without any “ifs, ands, or buts,” she handed it over, often feeling the same intuition I do that
something might hit.
I slid the twenty-dollar bill in. I played nine lines at one dollar per line. Total sum: nine dollars a spin. It
paid out a little bit, bringing my balance to twenty-seven dollars. I then upped my bet to two dollars per
line. That meant eighteen dollars a spin. Suddenly, the machine triggered free spins. Then a prompt
appeared asking to press the button again. Since we didn’t know the machine, we were unsure. We were
afraid to press the button, so Mischko fetched an employee. She explained that we were afraid we would
lose the free spins we had just won. He said no problem, we could press the button, and the free spins we
won would remain. We were relieved.
I pressed the flashing button and won an extra fifty free spins. That brought the total to almost seventy
free spins. Since I had played my last bet at two dollars a line, any payout it awarded would be doubled.
The machine steadily worked its way up to almost fifteen hundred dollars.
When we cashed out the money and walked back to our hotel, I was so relieved. I had recovered the
money I lost in Calgary the night before right at the exit. The machine stood directly by the doors. And
that was how we said goodbye to this trip to Vancouver.