I was pretty cranky about the coffee situation in the hostel: having to pay for a weak espresso and being too shy to ask for hot water (with no visible kettle) to make my own. After rolling out of bed, I decided to take my computer over to the McDonald’s on the corner for breakfast. I’ve never seen such an empty McDonald’s, and there is good reason for it. The breakfast in Germany sucks. They don’t even have an Egg McMuffin or sausage patties. I ordered a bacon, egg, and beef McMuffin and paid the extra 50 cents for a “large” size coffee.
I’ve passed by several McDonald’s over the summer and often glanced at the menu. I was under the impression that the coffee would be cheap, but upon further review, it is more expensive than Starbucks. The breakfast meal is not noticeably cheaper than ordering a la carte (compared to China where the sandwich + coffee == the cost of a cup of coffee). But, the worst thing is that after a moment’s excitement of “ooh, beef, so fancy,” I realized that it was just a tiny, dry hamburger patty. At least the egg was fresh, as attested to by the bit of shell I crunched into. Never Again!
For most of the day, I was working on a German vocabulary list on my computer, pushing through the labor to compare collate two lists of more than 2,000 words each. After working on that for a while in the McDonald’s, I swung by the hostel for about half an hour to use the restroom and top of the charge of my computer.
I headed back out, strolled around the empty Sunday streets, and found an open bakery. With a piece of cherry strudel and another cup of coffee, I put in another two hours of work before deciding to finally swing by the Beethoven house…which was closed.
Since next year will be the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, they are doing a major remodeling job of the house/museum. It was supposed to be finished by now and there are already posters advertising Beethoven fest in September, but the museum was still closed.
By way of consolation prize, there was an auxiliary exhibit in the adjacent chamber music hall with a couple of items from the museum: photocopies of letters, handwritten sheet music, etc. It was free to enter and the extended the run of the exhibit to accommodate the hordes of disappointed music fans.
I decided to head back to the hostel to take a nap, and passed an open Rewe To Go, making a mental note for a possible affordable dinner (if I didn’t want Subway or schwarma). After the power nap, there was another sight I wanted to check out in the suburbs on the other side of the river. I left the computer behind and crossed Kennedy Bridge and had a pleasant 15 minute stroll along a bike/pedestrian path to the Dopplekirche, which is apparently famous for some reason (involving separate seating for the rich and powerful). My info was bad because the church was not open on Sundays. I had a nice look from the outside, and just chalked it up on the exercise column.
I grabbed my computer and headed to another cafe to work for a bit. I had a lovely cake with sliced apples on top. I had meant to order the thing next to it, but it was a delightful mistake. From the cafe, I wandered directly to an ice cream parlor/frozen yogurt shop across the street from my hostel. Their window advertisement (Berliner ice cream sandwich) had caught my eye. No one inside the crowded shop was eating it, but the fresh waffles were a very popular item. I was a bit paralyzed by the array of choices–a full gelato counter, frozen yogurt, toppings, sauces, even the waffles came in 5 different types of batter. I eventually settled on a parfait with a pitch black frozen yogurt, whose flavor I could not figure out as it was overwhelmed by the dark chocolate and raspberry syrups, and white chocolate chips, fresh strawberries and Oreo cookie toppings. I guess today turned into a cheat day, but if I can quarantine these treats to Sundays, that is a compromise I can afford.
I hung out in the quiet dorm room and watched half a movie before deciding to run to the Rewe To Go (the handful of Turkish restaurants all looked a little pricey and I didn’t want to deal with the interactive nature of ordering Subway). I made a salad from their salad bar and was pleasantly surprised by how much you can get at the 1.25 per 100 gram price. I had a bit of an issue with the clerk when I handed him 32 cents on a 27 cent bill. He threw it in the cash register without even looking at it because he assumed I was handing him exact change. I annoyed him to the point that he was ready to just start throwing money at me to go away. The Euro design is partly to blame (seriously, 8 different coins), but the better lesson is that I need to hand coins over one at a time… so the cashiers have time to do the math.
| McDonald’s breakfast | 4.19 |
| Bakery 1 | 3.1 |
| Bakery 2 | 3.9 |
| frozen yogurt parfait | 4.6 |
| Salad (Rewe to Go) | 4.27 |
| Total: | 20.06 EUR (156.5 RMB) (USD 22.14) |
Running Total: 24809.8 RMB (USD 3509.1)
Daily Average: 370.3 RMB (USD 52.37)