Volume 2, Day 14
Now that I am finally beginning my European adventures and leaving the greater zone around Berlin, it is time to figure out how to get from city to city. The answer, if not immediately apparent from the title of this post, is Flixbus–a budget intercity bus (and now train) operator covering so, so many cities across Europe. I had booked my ticket to Leipzig a couple days in advance through their mobile app. I wasn’t particularly excited about using my credit card to buy tickets as I would rather pay cash whenever possible. The good news, however, is having just checked Wells Fargo, the bank did not sneak in any fees for foreign currency exchanges or what not.
My Flixbus was scheduled to leave from Berlin Wansee at 11:20 am. Though Flixbus covers many cities, not all the routes are daily. Potsdam, for example, has a direct bus to Leipzig only twice a week. Wansee is basically the first train stop towards Berlin from Potsdam, and the Flixbus stop was just across the street from the train station. So, again, it wasn’t a huge inconvenience. Since I would have to pay to get to Potsdam station from my residence in Sansouci, it was the same price to go the extra stop. Or, so I assumed. I ended up buying my train ticket in a rush as the once an hour train was rapidly approaching, so I still feel like I haven’t grasped the German train ticketing system.
My Couchsurfing host warned me that when Flixbus says to be at the stop 15 minutes before the departure time, they really mean it. As in, the bus will leave without you and is within its rights to do so. The idea that a bus would leave 10 minutes prior to the departure time is basically inconceivable to me, though I can understand the logic of wanting the passengers to be early so that they have time to board without delaying the bus. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to take any chances, so instead of catching the train which would have gotten me to the Flixbus stop exactly 15 minutes early (barring any delays on the tracks), I took the earlier one and spent a full hour hanging out on the little hilltop park between the highway and the titular lake.
Of course, the bus didn’t arrive until 11:20am. Actually, two buses arrived at the exact same time, and I nearly went to the wrong one. After the driver scanned my digital ticket and cleared space underneath for me to put my luggage, I clambered aboard and searched for an open seat. The bus was basically full and it was incredibly hot, parked in the sun with the A/C off. What I didn’t hear from the outside was the announcement that it would be sitting there for a while, and as I was looking for a seat, passenger after passenger pushed their way past me to exit the bus for a smoke. We sat there a full thirty minutes before we took off. WTF. I would have been fine.
The bus had some nice perks like wifi and power outlets, so I’ll definitely be riding it again. I napped a bit on the bus and noticed that the driver was a little insane, but no more so than the average Chinese bus driver. It didn’t help that the highways we traveled had tons of slow moving trucks.
Shortly after 2pm, we pulled into a major bus depot adjacent to Leipzig Hauptbanhof. I walked around the front of the train station to reach the hostel on the other side. Though it was a short walk, I am getting a little worried about my luggage situation. Having ruined the two wheels of my pink, hard sided suitcase (which I bought in 2013) in Japan, I threw it out in Beijing and switched to the other, slightly larger suitcase I have. I got that suitcase from Alex after spending 3 months in Taiwan where my previous big suitcase had not only bit the dust, but the cheapo replacement suitcase I bought in Taiwan also pretty much disintegrated. A generous application of duct tape kept it together until I reached Shanghai, and at Alex’s urging I accepted this large hand-me-down suitcase. He gave it to me because it was already somewhat broken. There is some issue with the wheels, where they sometimes try to stop spinning. It served fine to get me back to Beijing and move house across Beijing a couple of times, but I forgot about the wheel issue when I packed up to come to Europe. One of the wheels is visibly disintegrating, so I may soon be forced to exercise the creativity that got me through Japan.
I was able to check right in to the hostel, which added a city tax of one Euro a night to my bill, but graciously spared me the linen fee. I’m still scratching my head over how this is a thing, but at this point I know it is a fairly common thing. There is a decent sized dining room, a couple couches, and a fully stocked kitchen. The 8-person dorm room is also spacious and again improbably equipped with a table and set of chairs. I’m quite happy with the hostel, especially as I sat down to do some work on my laptop, I noticed that there was free coffee sitting out, leftover from breakfast. The adjacent train station also hosts a mall with an Aldi, so I’m pretty much all set for a few days to be as cheap or as healthy as I am inclined.
It was a good thing I decided to be “lazy” and just do some studying/writing in the afternoon because I looked up once to find a sudden downpour catching literally everyone off guard. No one in the street had had the foresight to carry an umbrella. Yet, an hour later, the sun was back out and all but a few puddles had evaporated under its bright UV stare. I decided that I should see some of the city, one way or another, and changed into running shoes to jog a loop around the old town. It was hot.
Before showering, I decided to make a run to the supermarket to get some stuff to cook dinner: spaghetti, a jar of sauce, and a package of shredded grana padano. I showered quickly and made my dinner. While waiting for my water to boil, an old man slipped into the kitchen to make his dinner as well. After a delicate dance of pantomime to share the small kitchen, we ended up eating at the same table and I learned he was from France and didn’t speak a word of English or German. I also found the limitations of my French, which is also basically nothing.
I spent a while chatting with a kid (19 yo) from Texas who was staying in the bunk above mine. He wasn’t happy with either the US or his college, but I advised him to save up as much money as he could, earn the degree, then take a gap year and travel. He wasn’t exactly backpacking Europe, instead spending a month with a German friend in a nearby town. He just popped over to Leipzig for a day to get a break from the small town.
And speaking of kids, there was of course a largish school group with their chaperones staying there. They came in with a huge stack of pizza boxes, dropping them in the kitchen then disappearing for a long while. While I was chatting with the Texas kid, I saw the kids slowly set the table, but they hadn’t even begun to eat when I went upstairs to go to bed. What’s impressive, however, is that when I poked my head into the kitchen to see what was taking so long, I saw that the middle aged women chaperones were making full use of the kitchen–baking bread and frying up sausages and schnitzel. I need to figure out how to get a home cooked German meal.
| Train ticket | 3.1 |
| Flixbus | 8.12 EUR (9.13 USD) |
| Hostel (3 nights) | 318 RMB |
| City tax (3 nights) | 3 |
| Salad, yogurt, cookies | 2.93 |
| Dinner and AldiTalk topup | 12.09 |
| Total: | 546 RMB (USD 79.50) |
Running Total: 6507 RMB (USD 947.18)
Daily Average: 464.8 RMB (USD 67.65)
This is the first time the daily average has ticked up. I still hope I can get it close to 50 USD a day.