Volume 2, Days 84-85
It isn’t very often (outside of China) where you have a pair of distinct cities which constitute the new and old versions of the same city, but Ulm and its neighbor on the other side of the Danube, Neu-Ulm, make up a strange pair. Though one could walk from one Hauptbahnhof to the other in about twenty minutes, they are indeed different cities and even belong to different Federal States.
I spent the last morning in Augsburg drinking coffee and studying. I had absolutely zero time pressure with a 12 o’clock checkout and 12:50 Flixbus scheduled, so at some point in the morning I went out to return a couple of plastic bottles, take a look at the city’s metro map (so I could figure out how to go to the Flixbus stop), and pop into one shop I had seen which was selling specialty coffees. I was able to buy a small bag of some Viennese style coffee that turned out to be quite tasty.
I was feeling restless, so I checked out of the room before 11 am, but sat downstairs and had one more coffee (apparently there was a coupon for a 1 euro coffee in the keycard holder for the room). It’s funny how every few days, my German studying seems to take on new urgency. I had started reading through an online textbook just for the extra exposure to vocabulary and a few brief texts, but decided that morning to plow through a chunk of exercises–manually typing up German sentences and then checking them for accuracy.
Eventually it was time to go, and I hobbled with my ever heavier suitcase up the street to catch an S-Bahn out in the Northern P&R station where the Flixbus would swing by. It’s really hit and miss with the Flixbus whether you get dropped off centrally or out in the hinterlands, but I appreciated the clear cut nature of having to take public transportation out there when I would have hemmed and hawed about trying to walk to the train station.
I had a long sit in the sun waiting for the bus and started to worry about the remaining less than two weeks of this European trip. I did some research, not caring about my ample data reserves with only a day or two left in the billing period and came up with a basic outline for how to get me to the airport at the crack of dawn on my departure day. I continued the research and made some decisions from the comfort of the Flixbus
Ulm was only one stop and a bit more than an hour away, but once again we were dropped off in basically the middle of nowhere. I checked Google Maps and at least found some functioning navigation. The S-bahn station was undergoing repairs with a substitute bus running its route. I bought my ticket from the machine at the S-Bahn, but hopped on the bus across the busy street. Downtown, around one of the stops where I would be best served to change buses, I noticed a woman get on the bus from the front and shake hands with the driver. After chatting with him a moment, she called out for everyone’s tickets. So that’s how it goes. I thought it was odd how so many people had gotten off at that stop. It looks like she caught two people, but more importantly, I hadn’t purchased the wrong ticket or anything embarrassing like that.
At the next stop, I got off to transfer because I needed to cross the river into Neu-Ulm where my independent hostel was located. I let myself into the converted apartment building via a door code and followed the instructions left for me on a slip of paper. I made myself a coffee, then decided to go explore a bit of the town.
Ulm is famous for a number of things. The first is that it is the birthplace of one Albert Einstein, so I made sure to track down the commemorative fountain with his likeness. Unfortunately, his birth house–at least according to Google Maps–is in the middle of a construction site. The second is the Muenster, a church which purports to have the tallest steeple in the world. That seems to contradict what I read about Cologne Cathedral, though there may be a technicality in that the Ulm Muenster wasn’t completed until the middle of the 19th century. In any case, I shelled out the 5 euros to make the dizzying climb to the top. Thirdly, Ulm is famous for its unique buildings (most-crooked, narrowest, etc) in the Fischerviertal (Fisherman’s Quarter). I never actually found anything that fit those descriptions, but it is a charming couple of blocks to walk around.
After seeing most of what there was to see in Ulm, I returned to the hostel and paid my room fees. I had a rather stilted conversation with the manageress in German before excusing myself to run to a grocery store so I could take advantage of the kitchen.
There was a conversation going on at the kitchen counter when I returned, but as I was chopping vegetables the clock struck midnight and they all turned into pumpkins. Everyone suddenly had to leave, and I was basically alone in the common room for the rest of the evening. While I was eating my curry and rice, there was a knock at the back door and a neighbor girl politely asked for something. I couldn’t find anyone in charge of the hostel to help, so I apologized profusely.
I read a bit before heading up into the room where my large, surly looking roommate was on his laptop (to the best of my reckoning he had been in the room using his computer for a solid six hours when there were tables and desks available downstairs). I finished the last two episodes of Babylon Berlin to find a satisfying conclusion to the story and went to bed.
| Coffee beans (250g) | 5.29 |
| “Discount” Coffee | 1 |
| Streetcar | 3 |
| Flixbus | 5.05 |
| Bus (w/ transfer) | 2.3 |
| Muenster Turm | 5 |
| Hostel (2 nights) | 41 |
| Curry ingredients | 8.62 |
| Total: | 71.26 EUR (555.8 RMB) (USD 77.82) |
Running Total: 30931.2 RMB (USD 4330.99)
Daily Average: 368.2 RMB (USD 51.56)