No internet at the Dolder Grand

Today was our wedding anniversary. We usually celebrate this with a meal in a nice restaurant. Last year we went to the Swiss Chalet in Merlischachen. It was very nice and delicious. The reason we went there was that they accept payments in Bitcoin. So I decided to make this a tradition. Thing is, The Swiss Chalet was already so nice, it would be hard to top. I know most restaurants in our vincinity that accept BTC. But only last week, I was reminded that this is the case for the Dolder in Zürich. It is one of the fanciest places in Switzerland, and I was a bit worried that it would be super expensive. But if I can pay with BTC, I’m usually willing to spend a bit more. Their booking website had temporary technical difficulties, but we went anyway.
The place really looks super nice. The meal was delicious and the service was very good, even the prices were reasonable. On top of that, I could also charge the car. When I told the waiter that I’d like to pay with bitcoin, he had to get the device from another of the restaurants. In the meantime, I tried to get Internet on my notebook. Since there is still no usable Bitcoin wallet for Mobian nor for UBPorts, I mostly use my mobile computer for paying. The waiter advised me to use the open WiFi, and opt for “Tagesgast” (visitor) in the captive portal. Unfortunately, this portal had a bad day. I was unable to create an account. Neither with eMail nor with OAuth. All I got were error messages like “Beim Erstellen des Gastbenutzerkontos ist ein Problem aufgetreten. Wenden Sie sich an Ihren Netzwerkadministrator (Database query error (1b77a6f1))“. The waiter tried to help, and even wanted to use his account. But all he could tell was, that usually it would work. And no I couldn’t create a hotspot on my phone, as I have no mobile data plan. Well, I’m not your average consumer 😉
It happened to me before, that I went to a restaurant, because they advertised to accept BTC, and it didn’t work. Usually, the software was not properly set up. But that I was not even able to get internet was the first time. And this time was especially disappointing, because of the bigger than usuall bill, and the longer trip to get there.