Lights, Camera...

I almost forgot to write up one funny thing from the night I got here. I was getting ready for bed when I realized I couldn't turn off the overhead lights. I was walking through the room, flipping every switch anywhere near the door and nothing would turn the overheads off.

Now, I was tired, but not tired enough to sleep with all the lights on.

I hadn't really paid enough attention when the bell captain (or equivalent) brought me to my room. In trying to turn the lights off, I discovered that he put my room key into a slot next to the door--you can see it in this picture:
I tried the switch several times, nothing happened. At one point, I pulled the card out of the slot to put it next to my bed. I started walking back to the bed when all the lights went out. Everything. Pitch black.

Hmm, I guess the card controls the lights? I found my way back and reinserted the key. Lights back on. Reviewing the light icons under the picture above, I see that the icon on the left shows that key out=lights off. Key in=lights on.

Ok, only, I know this can't be the solution, because with the card out of the slot, I can't even flip a switch and turn any lights back on in the room. If the key is out, the power is off. And unlike the US, there appear to be no other instructions in the room. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but apparently I needed 2000 to figure this out.

Turns out it's a dual switch. Key in turns the lights on when you get back at night. You turn the lights off at a switch on the side of the bed furthest from the door. How stupid of me. I should have known you control the overheads with the light switch in the least likely placed in the room.

Ok, really, now that I get how it works, it makes some sense, and it's kind of nice that you can leave the overheads until you go to bed, but my mental model of where light switches are tells me that I should be able to turn them off next to the front door.