Volume 2, Day 9
Though I am somewhat eager to get out of Berlin and into the “real” Germany (Berlin is quite the international Disneyland), I figured it would be good to spend one more weekend before moving on. Disappointed with the hostel scene, I had reached out to a couple of couchsurfing hosts to see if I could find a better place to stay over the weekend. However, one had straight up rejected me and the other had not responded as of Friday morning when I needed the check out of the Generator Mitte Hostel. So, I quickly scrolled through Ctrip to see what was available. Since Berlin is a weekend destination, the prices shoot up a lot on the weekends and these massive hostels also sell out, but I managed to find one that wasn’t too insanely priced. Unfortunately, it was also a Generator, so I am going to be stuck a couple more days without a shared kitchen.
I finally figured out the pfand system in the morning after grabbing a quick coffee and pastry at my usual bakery. I brought my collection of empties to a supermarket that had a recycling machine, popped them into the mechanized scanning receiver and got the print out for a deposit return. It was really cool because I was able to get some more bread for basically nothing.
I wasn’t in a particular hurry to get out the door, so other than checking out 5 minutes before the 10am cutoff, I parked myself at a table in the corner of the courtyard to work and study for a couple hours. My Greek roommate and PhD candidate was also checking out that day and came and chatted with me for a bit. Its crazy that he is planning to live in Berlin and basically only had a regular backpack and a totebag worth of stuff with him. That is traveling really light. While we were talking the courtyard periodically swelled with people as what tour group spontaneously congregated for a few minutes in a deafening cacophony of voices. But, like a whale surfacing for air, after taking a deep breath, it exhaled the mass of people and dove back to the quiet ocean bottom.
During one of the quiet breaks, I managed dragged my stuff over to the tram stop right outside the hostel to move out to the suburbs. I had my five euro note ready to feed into the onboard ticketing machine, but for some gd reason the machines on the tram only accepted coins and there was no change machine. What sort of third world public transportation system is this? Am I so spoiled by Japan? I’m definitely thinking if I had to make a spur of the moment decision to either live in Germany or live in Japan, there would be no question. So, once again I saved 2.8 euros by not buying a ticket.
It was a very convenient commute with no transfers and a 2 minute walk from the tram stop to the new hostel, which was dubbed Prenzlauer Berg. Technically, I think the neighborhood is actually closer to Friederichshain than Prenzlauer Berg, but whatever. It is the suburbs, way out of town, with not too much around apart from housing. The hostel benefits from the space and is a lot more comfortable than the cramped Mitte location. There are dozens of tables in the “cafe” where several people are permanently camped typing away at their laptops, while a constant rotation of people eat their takeout food. Though there is still a “no outside food or drink rule,” the guests here are blatant rule breakers and it all seems to be fine.
I was able to check in right away despite being there before the official check in time, and I was fairly impressed with the room. It was far larger than Mitte and the windows could open up. There was a lot of garbage strewn about the floor and I’m not sure it ever gets swept or sanitized. Ah, hostel living.
I spent a good chunk of the afternoon researching travel plans. Though I have a basic itinerary of Germany for a month, Spain for a month, and visiting friends in between, there isn’t a real obvious solution to the traveling salesman problem. Also, Spain is so far, or in other words, France is big.
I was in need of a caffeine fix, so I decided to explore some of the neighborhood outside the hostel in search of a cafe/bakery. I didn’t find one, but I did stumble across a giant warehouse of a supermarket called Kaufland. As grocery shopping is among my favorite activities when traveling, I had to take a stroll through the store and I ended up buying a salad and a soft drink. I wandered over to a park to eat, but it was straight out of Grimm Brothers fairy tale–complete desolate and overrun, fallen trees blocking the paths. I found a bench on the other side of the park and sat down to enjoy my late lunch–the one to-go salad in Germany that came with a “balsamic vinaigrette.”
I headed back to the hostel and bought a coffee from a vending machine. I’ve noticed that apart from the fresh barista espressos, coffee in Germany has a distinct but bad taste. What I am trying to say is that the coffee that came out of the machine tasted just like the coffee that was served with breakfast and is only marginally better than instant. The important point, however, is that the self-service coin-operated coffee machine also had hot water on tap, which appeared to be free so I guess I could make my own coffee.
When I headed up to the room, I met one of my roommates and chatted with him for a bit. He was from Lithuania/Uzbekistan, and was trying to get into a university in Berlin, though it appears he had missed the cutoff to apply for the fall semester. As I was just settling in to review German vocabulary on my phone, two Americans came into the room bringing food. The girl, J, ate her Burger King. The guy, A, had a can of Mountain Dew and several roasted chickens from the supermarket deli. A had somehow bought three chickens when he only wanted one and was trying to give them away. The Lithuanian guy, N, gladly accepted one after finishing the pizza he pulled out of his backpack, and I accepted one eventually after talking to them for a while. It was good and solved my dinner issue, but I was still unsure about what to do in the evening. I had been looking at a couchsurfing meet up, but it was a bit far to go to.
The Americans went out to smoke, and at some point I wandered outside to think about my evening plans. I bumped into the Americans again and kept talking to them and their third friend, who had also showed up. There were an interesting bunch. They were from rural, upstate New York, and this was their first time abroad. They were on a five week madcap tour of Europe, smoking like chimneys, drinking like fish, completely clueless and utterly homesick. If I invented them, it would be too unrealistic, but they embodied the worst stereotypes of Americans, but I’ll just say I enjoyed seeing things through their eyes for a fresh perspective.
A and I went to find an Aldi that was on Google Maps, but was just a pit in a ground so we went to the Rewe City just around the corner from the hostel. I grabbed something called a “Tequila Beer” and a bag of paprika chips. A needed to go up to the room for some reason, so I took a walk around the backyard to find somewhere to sit. I had just settled down, sampling the sweet French concoction and launch the language learning app when someone came up to apologize to me for some offense I hadn’t even noticed. In any case, I went to join this group of girls from South Africa who were each drinking a bottle of red wine. While we were chatting, A and J eventually came looking for me and joined us. I guess South Africa is a pretty cheap place, at least compared to the US or Europe. The girls had to leave to go to a bar crawl they had signed up for and paid for online (?!), which was a shame as two of them were quite cute.
I had finished my beer, and decided to pop over to the supermarket for another, but I was 5 minutes too late. They had just closed. It was probably just as well because I didn’t need the calories. I headed up to the room, where the third American was laying in bed in the dark, scrolling through her phone and swigging wine. I turned on one light, so that I didn’t have to grope about in the dark and got ready for bed. Before I could turn the lights back off, the other two Americans came in and the three of them talked loudly until midnight, keeping me awake as I could hear them over the podcast I was listening to with a sleep timer.
| Coffee and bread | 3.67 |
| Hostel (3 nights) | 318 RMB |
| Salad and drink | 2.77 |
| Gummi (after -.15 pfand return) | 0.8 |
| Coffee | 1 |
| Beer and chips | 4.47 |
| Total: | 417.1 RMB (USD 60.23) |
Running Total: 5199.4 RMB (USD 750.55)
Daily Average: 577.7 RMB (USD 83.42)