Sometimes a year I wonder where the hell I am.

A really good psychoanalysis might explain a lot but I am not talking about existentialism or other mind related issues here. What I really mean is that I cannot tag my position on the globe! It’s called, I believe, “geolocation”.

This usually happens at night when I wake up and need to go to the bathroom. I sit on my bed and stare at my hotel room wondering where on earth this standard double bed arrangement might be. Five seconds later my brain accesses its last 24 hours database and delivers a quick and reliable answer. “No worries Alex you are safe in XXX” says my gray matter and I stumble reassured to the bathroom with that horrible feeling of being lost forgotten.

Once in a while though things do not go as planned and my brain accesses the wrong data; as a result things can go terribly wrong.

I remember vividly (now) how one night I found myself standing naked in a brightly lit corridor of the Barcelona Hilton! Luckily no guests at the moment and I awoke just in time from my stupor to stop the door closing behind me. Peter Sellers doing this scene in a movie would be hilarious but me in real life…no thank you.

How on earth could this happen? Well, the night before I slept at another Hilton-Heathrow I believe-and the room was slightly different with the entry and bathroom door swapped.

Now on long haul flights these kind of embarrassing incidents are quite rare because I have just an average of four flights a month i.e. four hotels.

Short haul was a total different thing. Sometimes I could sleep in more than fifteen (yes 15!) different hotels in 28 days. No wonder I got lost in my own room…if I remembered where the room was in the first place!

Here another pearl from my en-route hotel adventures. “I lost my key and need a new one for room 2502, thank you.”. Polite answer from the concierge: “Sir, this hotel has only twelve floors”. Hmmm then this is not Madrid. Quick look on the calendar to realize that it is Tuesday and therefore I must be in Milan. Phew!

It’s a good thing we have GPS on board today.