Well, after a brief and boozy couple of days in Beijing (which I consider either a vacation or a pit stop), I am back on the road starting phase 2 of the global travels–summering in Europe. It sounds so fancy, though the reality is I am expecting it to be pretty grungy as I rub shoulders with gap year students in cockroach filled hostels and have to constantly guard against pickpockets. East Asia is so safe and monocultural, it is going to be quite an adjustment hanging out in Europe, where the people let it all hang out.
Anyways, the journey begins with a red eye flight to Moscow departing Beijing at 2:45 am. Though I have no interest at the moment in visiting Russia or learning Russian, I didn’t mind getting a little taste of the experience. Its surprising how easily I could pass for Russian. People always just start speaking to me in Russian. My Aeroflot did not crash despite getting lots of concerned looks when I told people I was flying through Moscow, and the airline had some interesting peculiarities. Firstly, the airline company promo/safety video, which had supermodel level flight attendants in stilettos with a prominent text underneath disclaiming “Actual flight crew,” was a bit startling. Sure, the Asian airliners have meticulous age, weight, and appearance standards in their hiring practices, but it is just part of the unspoken baseline societal misogyny. Secondly, I found the English phrasings interesting. Every time, the flight attendant came by with the cart, she said “I can offer you …” with an almost poetic cadence to list the options. There was also something about how the air turbulence announcement was phrased, but I’ve already forgotten the exact wording.
It was daylight when we landed in Moscow and because I was mentally adjusting the time incorrectly, I was thinking I had only 15 minutes to make it over to the other terminal. It was a good airport with tons of restaurants, shops, and at least four different mini-hotels of sleeping pods. It is not entirely true, but I got the strong impression that all the signage was only in Cyrillic and Chinese, which would have been very disorienting to anyone operating on 2 hours of sleep and trying to figure out the gate of their next flight.
It was another two hours from Moscow to Berlin, where passport control was performed by armed police officers. I wasn’t asked a single question, got right through and didn’t even have to wait for my luggage. I hung out in the arrival hall for a bit to access Wi-Fi and figure out where my hostel was ( I booked it without doing too much research). The airport didn’t sell SIM cards and I had already gotten a hook up with Euros in Beijing, so there was nothing else to do but catch the S-bahn into town.
I had a weird feeling as all the first impressions of Europe came crashing down on me while puttering along in the train. Europeans are fucking weird. They come in such an assortment of shapes and sizes, often tattooed and pierced, and definitely wearing unfashionable clothing, I’m reminded of how aesthetically hard it is to return to America, but its a through the looking glass version of that.
It was really easy to get to the hostel, which was only a few minutes walk from the train station, at the edge of a river crossed by a medieval looking bridge. I was about 4 hours too early to check in, and plopped down on a couch for about twenty minutes to use the internet while a huge school group occupied the other half of the lobby. After the 30 or so high school students filed out behind their teachers, I asked about stowing my luggage before checkin and decided to go out for a bit to look around.
It turns out I am living in former East Berlin, a stones throw from the section of The Wall that has been preserved as an art mural. I took a stroll along the East Side Art Gallery which was crowded with multilingual tourists and again so, so many high school groups. I guess June is the month for school trips.
I was pretty thirsty, and kept my eyes open for a convenience store or supermarket. There was literally nothing along the way, but I saw people heading from the Ostbanhof to the riverside park with pretzels and drinks, so I figured the train station would be a good place to try. There was a McDonalds, a Subway, a Starbucks, and a Dunkin Donuts, but the smell of the bakeries… oh my god, talk about remembrance of things past. There was a particular smell, some sort of cheese, but I couldn’t quite figure out which bakery it belonged to. The breads and pastries and pizzas look so gorgeous and seem so reasonably priced. But I needed to hydrate and needed an actual supermarket. There were actually two in the basement. As it was nearly noon, I decided to make a picnic of it and grabbed a salad and a loaf of bread with the 1.5L mineral water.
I headed over to the lawn between the wall and the river and found a shady spot to eat my makeshift lunch. The bread with chunks of garlic in it was amazing. The salad… eh. Most of the salads came with either “senf” or yogurt dressing. Even the greek salad I bought, which should just be red wine vinegar, was a yogurt dressing. As I was eating my salad and reading the ingredient list, I realized that yogurt dressing is just Ranch dressing, but with yogurt in place of the buttermilk. The mayonnaise didn’t kill me, but come on.
I took a nap, then walked along the river for a while. It was really hot. Like really hot, so I headed back to the hostel to get out of the sun until it was time to check in. I had to pay extra for sheets. I didn’t even know that was a thing, but the front desk said that was what I had booked. WTF, Europe. At least the dorm room is enormous and the facilities as a whole are clean and spacious.
I didn’t go anywhere in the afternoon, which is just as well because a thunderstorm rolled in. It cooled things off outside, but the non-airconditioned hostel didn’t benefit much because there wasn’t good airflow. After the storm, I wandered over to a neighboring shopping mall to look for a Vodafone store and look around. My China Telecom phone defaults to Vodafone for its roaming service, so I figured that may be my best carrier. I didn’t buy the SIM card because there is a 25 euro activation fee then it costs 10 euros a month. It’s not a temporary tourist, that’s an actual phone plan.
Around the mall, I checked out the food court, a drug store, an Aldi. I’m blown away by how cheap stuff is. After years of going to the import supermarkets in Beijing, and grabbing 5 RMB German beers, 13 RMB Ritter-sports (sale price), and whatnot, the actual prices are quite reasonable. I think I am going to eat so much bread, pastries, cheese, wine, beer, chocolate, and gummy while I am here, I won’t even have time to eat schnitzel or wurst (which I can grab at the Turkish restaurant next door for 2-4 euros). Meals in the food court were 6-7 euros including a soft drink. I really wanted to kick myself when I looked at body wash. I literally bought one on my last day in Beijing and I wish I hadn’t. The “cheap” Chinese brand cost me more than a fancy brand here.
I bought some gummies and a rittersport bar, and rapidly devoured them back in the hostel while just playing on the internet. It ruined my appetite and I skipped dinner. I basically just did my best to stay awake until 8 pm so I could get a good night’s sleep and adjust to the time difference.
| Flight | 2157 RMB |
| Sbahn from Airport | 3.4 EUR |
| Salad, bread, water | 4.42 EUR |
| Hostel (4 nights) | 618 RMB |
| Sheets | 2.2 EUR |
| Candy | 2.08 EUR |
| Total: | 2869.38 RMB (USD 415.25) |
The first day is the worst since it has that plane ticket on there. After a month or two, the daily average will look a bit better.