The coffee machine was working on Saturday morning, but that didn’t stop me from going back to the bakery. It can be hard to concentrate in large spaces and fortunately my research work does not require an internet connection, unlike reading the news, doing Duolingo, or maintaining this website. It doesn’t help that there is a woman in the lobby every morning Facetiming for hours at a time without headphones. She isn’t the only one. One of my roommates is also constantly on Facetime (without headphones) in the afternoons and evenings. I don’t understand the push/pull factors of migration when a person goes to a new land, ostensibly to study or work or something, but they literally spend every waking hour of the day speaking to family members back in the homeland or scrolling through Facebook. If you are that susceptible to homesickness, just don’t leave in the first place. It can’t be psychologically healthy.
Around lunchtime, I headed back towards the center of town, stopping at a doner stand I had looked at the day before. Google maps confirmed that it was one of the best rated in town and it was a good cheap chicken doner on flatbread. I ate on a bench in the small green space in the center of town before heading around the shopping mall to a reasonably priced barber I had spotted the day before.
It has been two months since my last haircut and my hair was getting way too long. I must have picked a good barbershop, or maybe it is just Saturday, but there was a line of people waiting to get their heads shaved.
After crossing one more item off of the to-do list, I headed over to the Aachen Cathedral information center to see about tours. The previous night, a French guy in my dorm had strongly recommended taking the tour, even though in his words it was conducted in German and he didn’t understand a word. The next tour was in Dutch, but at 5 pm there would be a tour in German. I signed up for the German tour and also bought a ticket to the Schatzkammer (treasury). Checking the time, I decided I could go back to the hostel first to get some work done before getting around to the tourism.
I came back nearly an hour before the scheduled tour start so that I would have enough time to see the treasury. It wasn’t very big, but I suppose it was worth the price. There were lots of elaborate reliquaries and even the gauntlet of Charlemagne (containing his arm bones). The Aachen Cathedral has three primo relics that are only displayed once every seven years, but even the “regular” ones were at least housed in interesting gilded containers.
I had a hell of a time understanding the tour, which was conducted at a whisper level in the not so quiet cathedral. The cathedral is unlike any I have seen. From the outside, it looks pretty normal, but the inside looks like something from the Byzantine Empire. A central octagonal dome supported by pillars with blue dominant mosaics everywhere. That would have been impressive on its own, but the tour did give us access to behind the alter for a closer look at some box (which I think contained some of Charlemagne’s remains, though if I understood correctly they chopped his corpse up and sent pieces all over Europe) and upstairs to the throne from which he would attend mass.
After the 45 minute tour, I swung by the Rewe again to grab a salad for dinner. Despite making a heartier salad than usual, I was struck by cravings and went browsing a supermarket later on. Being Saturday night, I did make sure to buy an extra bottle of water since the shops would be closed on Sunday. I did have enough self control to go for the fruit bars over cake.
| Breakfast | 3.6 |
| Doner | 3.5 |
| Haircut | 10 |
| Dom tour and treasury | 10 |
| Dinner | 5.43 |
| Gum | 2.6 |
| Total: | 35.13 EUR (274 RMB) (USD 38.95) |
Running Total: 22178 RMB (USD 3152.38)
Daily Average: 375.9 RMB (USD 53.43)