Author: drdan

Volume 2, Day 15

It was surprisingly chilly when I woke up in the morning. When I had gone to bed, it was a bit too warm and I had lain in bed quite some while fanning myself. Yet, by the morning, the open windows had done their trick. I spent the morning in the usual fashion, opting to make my own coffee rather than help myself to that with the breakfast spread. Shortly after ten, I decided to head out.

So, Leipzig is probably most famous for its connections to pretty much every major musician. Wagner was born there, Mendelssohn and Bach both lived there until their deaths. I even passed a building with a plaque announcing a connection to Grieg. I crossed the ring road and headed into the old town to find St. Thomaskirche, where Johann Sebastian is laid to rest. The church was not open, the Bach Museum and Archive across the street was. I shelled out the big bucks for a ticket and wasn’t expecting much.

The museum is housed in the former residence of a rich family of Leipzig and friend of Bach. Though not particularly large, there is a wealth of information and a back garden. Headphones with touch screen panels appear to contain the entire body of music, organized and searchable. I would have liked to spend a couple hours listening, but I was anxious to keep moving. The most notable aspect of the museum is that the sign in front, which points the way to the ticket counter, was written in German, English, and Japanese. True enough, there was a whole Japanese tour group working their way through the museum.

After leaving the museum, I was thinking of running to the Aldi and having lunch back at the hostel, but as I was meandering across the green plaza next to the church, I was quite taken in by the available foods. As if by magnetic pull, my eyes immediately spotted the gelato counter, but what I went for first was a burger stand. It was a nice bratwurst, but it made me hungrier to eat it than not. Deciding to hang out for a bit in the mini-park, I pulled out my phone to review a bit of German, but discovered that my subscription to Lingodeer Plus had expired. I was maybe five days away from completing all the currently available quizzes, but it was finally time to give the app the kiss off. I would recommend it as a free app, but it is far too undercooked to be worth paying top dollar for.

I walked around a bit at random and found another half dozen ice cream sellers. If I hadn’t packed on so much weight in Beijing, I would be going nuts on pizzas, bratwurst, pommes frites, and eis, and that’s even before one browses the aisles of an Aldi and literally wants to buy everything available. Do I have a mission to try every available flavor of Rittersport? What about other chocolate brands? Between cheap grocery stores, affordable junk food stands, and reasonable street cafes, I might not need ever step foot into a restaurant. I wonder if I am ever going to get tired of supermarket bread so I have to start spending more on bakery bread. Anyways, after looking at lots of ice cream counters, cafes, and parlors, I picked one that appeared to have the best price-quality ratio and got two scoops in a waffle cone. Ambrosia.

The sky was dark with clouds and the weather report had predicted a better than 50% chance of rain at 1 pm, so I finished my ice cream and headed to the Museum of Fine Arts. It was worth the admission ticket, though I have the weird feeling I could have just waltzed in without paying. The museum is currently hosting an exhibition on Yoko Ono, which I wasn’t particularly excited about, but she won quickly won me over. It was really cool that some of the exhibits were interactive. For example, there was a room with a boat in it. Everything is covered in graffiti. At first glance, that is how it is supposed to be. But there is a table with paint cans and brushes. Each visitor gets to add their mark and contribute to the whole. Or, take the wooden block with a bucket of nails next to it. Or, the broken pieces of pottery and a worktable with glue and tape we are invited to use to piece them back together. Though Yoko Ono’s works were all over the museum, the usually galleries were still there covering everything from medieval religious art to mid-20th century works that somehow survived the Nazis (despite being labeled “degenerate”). I think I spent close to 4 hours, and I could have spent longer if not for the fact that I was craving a pick-me-up.

I swung by the train station “Promenade” and picked up a giant cookie-thing called a “Pig’s Ear” in a bakery and headed back to the hostel to have a couple cups of free coffee. I played on the internet for two hours before getting into the kitchen early to make a second spaghetti dinner. For future reference, if I am going to buy a 500g package of spaghetti (for 40 cents), I should probably try to split it into three meals. In any case, I had no problem eating the giant plate of spaghetti and finishing the bottle of chianti and half a salad from the previous night. Though I was somewhat inclined to drink a bit more, it was quiet in the hostel, and I realized I had time to watch a movie before going to sleep.

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Bach Museum	8
Bratwurst	2.7
Eis	2.6
Museum of Fine Arts	10
Pig’s Ear	1.8
Total:	25.1 EUR (195.8 RMB) (USD 28.50)

Running Total: 6702.8 RMB (USD 975.66)
Daily Average: 446.85 RMB (USD 65.04)

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.

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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.

Volume 2, Day 13

As far as I am concerned, Potsdam is just the name of some conference involving FDR, Churchill, and Stalin. However, my visit to Schloss Charlottenburg included so many references to the palaces in Potsdam (including bringing in furniture and works of art to replace those damaged or lost during the war), that I now understand Potsdam to be sort of the Versailles to Berlin’s Paris. So, obviously, the palaces needed to be on the top of my to-do list. Me being me, I didn’t actually do too much research, other than skimming down the list of sites in the Lonely Planet and making a point to avoid Monday when the palaces would be closed.

I took my time getting out the door in the morning, enjoying an abundance of coffee and checking off the standard items from the daily to-do list. Around 10 am, I headed out the door for the day having no key to return and walked the 10 minutes or so towards the New Palace on the west end of the Sansouci Park area. As I walked up to the tourist information building to buy a combo ticket and figure out exactly which buildings were included in it, I was somewhat surprised to find it closed. For some reason, which I think was mainly to foil my plans, the New Palace is closed on Tuesdays while the other buildings are closed on Mondays.

That fact put a real wrench in the works. I considered my options as I walked about, taking copious photos of the building and gardens. The other tourist information center was on the other side of the grounds, some 2km away. Rather than head straight there, I decided to take a zigzagging, scenic route. The first paid building I came to–the Chinese pavilion–was a real monstrosity and clearly not worth the 3 euro independent ticket price. The fact of the matter is, the only way to justify an 18 euro combo ticket is to include two major palaces (each priced at 12 euros), and treat the minor buildings as bonuses.

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By the time I reached the ticket counter at Sansouci Palace, I was 95% convinced that touring the insides of the palaces wouldn’t be worth it. The fact that even on a Tuesday, one needs a reservation to enter said palace and the soonest reservation was 2 hours away completely convinced me to skip the palaces on this trip. I can convince myself I’ll come back some day on a Wednesday to see the palaces. To be completely honest, I got a little “palaced” out in Charlottenburg and wasn’t really ready to be overwhelmed by Rococo (or have my world Roc-ed, if you will).

I headed north to get a closer look at some ruins in the park, only to find the path closed due to “risk of falling tree branches.” Thwarted once again, I retraced my steps and visited a few of the other minor sites in the grounds. All in all, the park is nice to walk around, and there is no shortage of statues and fountains to entertain one’s yearnings for art.

Since the palaces were off the itinerary, I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I wandered over to a church and got some good news through a sign advertising a organ performance at 3 pm. That gave me something to aim for, and in the meantime, I wandered into the old town.

The old town, which is not really such an old town having been mostly destroyed in the war and not really rebuilt until after the GDR was out, is a very pleasant stretch of cobblestone streets lined with shops and cafes. At the near (western end) lies the Brandenburg Gate, which looks nothing like the famous namesake in Berlin. A cathedral marks the other end of the main stretch, while the “Dutch quarter” occupies the space north of the cathedral.

Walking up to the plaza with the Brandenburg Gate and another fountain, I stopped to read an information sign. A middle aged German man came up to ask me directions. I didn’t fully understand him, but was able to figure out that he was asking if the street I had just come from led to the Sansouci Park. I answered as best as I could in German, while his wife called to him after finding the street sign pointing in that direction. Afterwards, I walked around the fountain to take some photos of the gate and noticed that nearly everyone sitting around the fountain or walking on the plaza had an ice cream in their hands. I was intrigued and looked around to see where they were all coming from. There was a large eiscafe on the corner and it had been a couple days since my last ice cream so I two scoops.

Wandering down the main street after my ice cream lunch, I passed plenty of little restaurants and cafes that would have made a nice, cheap lunch as well. But, I wanted to hold off for dinner. I wandered all over. The ambience of the old town is exactly what one imagines Europe to be. It was sunny, warm and so, so quaint. Of course, like everywhere else, the public restrooms require money. I’ve become something of a camel in my days so far because I refuse to pay for a toilet. Honestly, the city should pay me not to urinate on the street. I didn’t really need to go, but even since the park, I had been keeping my eyes open. I was honestly surprised that the bathroom for the palace (obviously not in the palace, but next to it) had a fee. Neither the Starbucks nor McDonald’s, I passed appeared to have restrooms.

After crisscrossing around old town for a long while, I cut south to find the massive St Nikolaikirche. I considered going up to the top of the dome for a view of the city, but I have strong reservations about giving any money to the church. There is also my contrarian logic about paying for the privilege of climbing stairs not making any sense. On the southern end of that plaza, was an art museum that I would consider paying for. However, they just were closed for two days to change exhibitions. I really can’t get a break. I headed a little further south to the river that bisects Potsdam. It is a little unclear as to whether it is a river or a series of interconnected lakes, but in any case, there is a small island in the river (Friendship Island). I crossed a bridge over to the island and found a restroom on the backside of a cafe.

I wandered about the gardens for a bit looking for a shady spot to sit and rest awhile, but couldn’t find a place that suited me. So I kept walking, and crossed another bridge and headed to another green spot on the Google Maps. Other than the cluster of crowded cafes across from where tourists can board pleasure boats, the park wasn’t particularly great. I did find a bench in partial shade and lay down for a bit.

After my power nap, I headed back into the old town to find a supermarket to get a drink, which I finished on my way back to the church, arriving their exactly at three for the 30 minute organ performance. The organist stopped between pieces to introduce the works. I was not following his German, but his voice sounded just like an NPR announcer. After the concert wrapped up, I walked back through the park, passing through an entirely different section (technically a different park) and enjoying the Roman and Tuscan inspired villas. I killed some more time on bench studying German and wandered back to the apartment at around 5pm, when I knew A would be back from her classes. She was busy on homework, but I drank lots of water and did a bit of studying myself.

I was thinking about dinner, and after an hour, I left to go on a supermarket run. There was leftover rice, cheese, and salsa from the previous night so I was thinking nachos and fried rice. Though avocados seem to be regularly available, none of them were ripe enough to make a fresh guacamole, but I grabbed stuff to make a salad. I got back to the apartment and set to work prepping for dinner. M wouldn’t be back until 8pm, so I wanted to be ready to eat as soon as she arrived, but that didn’t stop me from cracking open a bag of tortilla chips first. Another roommate returned while I was busy in the kitchen. She came in with a ton of groceries and was also intent on cooking. She made a fresh pot of rice and sauteed some vegetables, but it took her a while. Her boyfriend arrived shortly after M returned and the five of us ate together.

The evening came to a close pretty much as soon as dinner was over.

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Ice cream	3
Club Mate (beverage)	1.04
Groceries	7.43
Total:	11.47 EUR (89.5 RMB) (USD 13)

Running Total: 5961 RMB (USD 867.62)
Daily Average: 458.5 RMB (USD 66.74)

Volume 2, Day 12

I had been in Berlin for perhaps a little too long, at least from the viewpoint of seeing more of Europe than just Germany. The next stop on the itinerary would be Potsdam, which technically is doable as a day trip from Berlin, but that isn’t how I like to roll. Though I had been unable to get a couchsurfing spot in Berlin, I had one lined up in Potsdam. My host said she would be available from 3pm, so I had most of the day free to kill, which essentially means I hung around the hostel for a couple hours after checking out.

Eventually, I refreshed the directions on Google Maps and headed out the door. Fortunately, there was a S-bahn station just around the corner. Unfortunately, the first ticketing machine I found was also a cashless one. I moved down the platform to find another one, and in the meantime missed my train. I was able to plug a few coins into a machine for a stupid ticket and then started looking up again how to get to my destination. Because these interconnected systems have different frequencies of trains, it is surprisingly more complicated than just waiting for the next train and following the prescribed course. I ended up taking the ring line in the opposite direction around the northern stretch of Berlin and transfering at the West station for the S-bahn spur that terminated in Postdam Hauptbahnhof.

The ride went much faster than I expected, but as I was navigating the walkway above the platforms looking for how to transfer, I once again barely missed the train I needed. So, I ended up spending half an hour in the train station waiting for a train that would take me two stops. Though I could have made a lunch from any of the numerous shops in the station, I grabbed some candied peanuts from a vending machine and kept studying German. The train came on schedule and rather than a suburban commuter line, it was a real Deutsche Bahn train. I wasn’t completely certain as to whether my ABC area ticket covered the two stops (though my destination station was listed on the map). Have I mentioned this? Berlin (or greater Berlin) has this stupid zone system with complicated pricing for tickets and tons of rules that a ticket vending machine cannot adequately explain. I think generally a single ticket is valid within 2 hours in a single direction covering all forms of transport (S-bahn, U-bahn, tram, bus, regional trains) as long as they are within the zones. I guess it works well if you have a long commute in the morning, but for zipping around town as a tourist, the day pass would quickly pay for itself.

Anyways, as the DB train was pulling up to the Sansouci Park station, I saw a conductor working her way down the aisle from the corner of my eye. I didn’t exactly want to find out if my ticket was valid or not and the timing worked out just perfectly. Actually, despite all the delays, it was basically exactly 3pm as I dragged my luggage down what looked like a country lane. These were the western outskirts of Potsdam, with single story homes each surrounded by elaborate gardens. Above this semi-rural paradise, a single apartment building stood up like a monolith. This was the student housing where my host and her three roommates lived. I rang the door bell. No answer. A delivery guy came and went. I rang again. I swear I could some ringing. Still no answer. Uh-oh. I texted my host through the Couchsurfing house and prepared to retreat to a bench in the shade. She popped outside within a minute.

Luckily for me, the apartment was only up one flight of stairs. It was quite a spacious apartment. One not so big kitchen/living room, four decent sized bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Something of that size would have to cost 10 million RMB in Beijing. R was done with her studies for the day–she is working on her Master’s thesis–and suggested we go over to a lake where we could swim. I loved the idea, changed to swim trunks, and packed up a go-bag. We had a bit of time before we needed to leave the house, so I made a quick cup of coffee. Afterwards, we walked back towards the train station to catch a bus to one or two stops before the main train station where we transferred to a tram. R helped me buy a day pass on the bus, which apparently costs the same as two one-ways, and I can only assume the bus pass covered the tram as well.

One of the other roommates met as when we got off the tram and we walked over to the lake together, passing through the neighborhood of rich people houses. The lake was quite crowded with swimmers and it was pointed out that on the other side of a clump of trees was the naked swimming area. A didn’t want to swim, so she was able to watch our stuff while we went in the water. The water may have been a bit cool, but it felt good on a hot day and the top layer was warm. Most impressive was the sandy bottom at the entrance way–no slimy rocks to squeamishly step on!

After swimming, we lay out in the sun talking about travel, studies, and generational differences. R considers herself the grandma of the apartment, which I guess would make me something of the great-grandpa. But, we were all united in our disdain for the group of possible 16 year old kids blasting “terrible” German rap music while engaging in all kinds of delinquent behavior.

We hung out at the lake until about 7pm, and swung by an Aldi on the way to the tram to grab some things to make dinner. Of course, I was offering to cook and was able to source pretty much everything I needed for fajitas and salsa. There was even cilantro although it came in a planter (which I wonder why no one in China does that). Unfortunately, that store didn’t have regular tortilla chips. It was 8pm by the time we were back and I got to cooking right away. I started some loosely Spanish rice, refried (kidney) beans, and chopped away vigorously at the veggies. You could definitely tell they were still university students because none of the knives were sharp. Dinner was ready just after nine and not a moment too soon. My stomach had been growling the whole time.

We ate and talked and listened to classic rock (lots of Bowie). It was a wonderful experience and I hope to do it a lot more. We weren’t up too late. I still needed to shower the lake off of me, and the couch in the kitchen/dining room/living room was actually just a bed with a ton of pillows to turn it into a couch. I slept really well.

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Breakfast, candy, water (after deposit return)	1.08
Metro ticket	3.4
Peanuts	0.8
Bus Pass	4.2
Aldi groceries	8.48
Total:	17.96 EUR (140 RMB) (USD 20.44)

Running Total:5871.5 RMB (USD 857)
Daily Average: 489.3 RMB (USD 71.42)

Volume 2, Day 11

I could feel the aftereffects of the alcohol in the morning, but didn’t harbor any regrets for my lack of sleep or hydration. After laying in bed for a while working up the courage to take a shower, I headed downstairs to be delightfully surprised by a functioning coffee machine with hot water. It has been nearly a week since I have drank my own coffee and I forgot how good it is.

Apart from the open air opera at one, the only other item on the docket was to visit the flea market at Mauer Park. I checked on Google to find that it didn’t start until 10, so I was definitely in no rush to leave. Hanging around in the room to charge my computer, it was insane to see how utterly wrecked the dorm room was after the weekend. The Americans had fled over night, the Lithuanian guy checked out early in the morning, and there was only one German guy left. He checked out too after housekeeping came by promptly at 10:05. Housekeeping was confused that I was hanging around, but I explained that I wasn’t checking out until tomorrow. They left, leaving the room in its chaotic state: a pair of sneakers, a locker full of food, bags of half rotten fruit, half drank sodas in cans and bottles, and several phone chargers were all either abandoned or forgotten in the rush to leave. I took the initiative to straighten up a bit and decided to add all the cans and bottles to my collection for recycling.

I packed up a bag with the groceries I had bought yesterday, a solar charger, and sunblock to go out for the day. I rented a Mobike and started biking towards Mauer Park, following the ring road around the north end of Berlin. I was probably about 80% there when I had the sudden stab of anxiety that I hadn’t locked my locker. Though I was the only occupant left in the room, who knows who else would show up. Unable to shake the obsessive worry, I turned around and headed back to the hostel. Somehow, I swear it was uphill both ways on the road. I dashed into the room to find that I had, in fact, locked up my stuff. Furthermore, housekeeping had made a pass through the room and it looked halfway decent. As if by ESP, the head housekeeper popped into the room shortly after me, pointed at the bin with pasta, pasta sauce, and a jug of laundry detergent. Is this yours? No. He pointed at the sneakers. No. He pointed at the wall chargers. Nope. Okay. I was half tempted to help myself to one of the plugs, since it would be helpful after losing the round pin adapter in Korea. But he was quick to gather up the items.

I checked my watch, and it was no late enough that there was no point in going to the flea market before the 1pm start of the concert. Feeling the pinch of spending 2 Euros on a fruitless bike trip, I had just enough time to walk to Babelplatz, so I headed back out the door and took a brisk hour long walk. The upside is that on the final stretch, I got to pass through some new neighborhoods. I was thinking that I’ve covered a lot of ground in Berlin and it was definitely time to move on.

When I reached the plaza, I was astounding to see how absolutely crowded it was. It took me a while to find a spot to sit down. There was almost an order to how people arranged themselves organically on their camping chairs or picnic blankets, but, in the Western mold, there was a bit too much space between and within groups. Of course, it didn’t help that every so often, a 7 ft German guy was completely sprawled out on the ground, occupying a space that would fit 20 or 30 Chinese people.

When I glanced at the concert program, I was immediately disappointed to realize it wasn’t going to be an opera. I had been hoping for a repeat performance of the Wagner title that I had only caught a glimpse of the day before. But Daniel Barenboim took the stage and introduced us in German and English to the two Romantic masters: Mendelsohn and Brahms to which we would be treated. He also made some comment welcoming the Japanese visitors. That was really odd because the featured soloist on the violin concerto was from South Korea. It was wonderful, in any case. I sipped on some wine, munched on bread and gummies, and took in the classical music surrounded by classical architecture on plaza. Though we were outside the concert hall, the crowd performed their part of listening attentively and maintaining silence. I was also hoping that the festival style setting would loosen up the audience for a return to the original styles. I don’t know where I heard it, but I recall that apart from chamber music, audiences to symphonies, operas and what not acted in much the same way that modern rock concert audiences do–clapping, cheering, hooting, hollering, and singing along. The overdue reverence and church-like hush of the modern symphony crowd is a huge part of what makes classical music so stuffy today.

They finished the violin concerto (in 3 movements) and a full symphony in just over an hour, and I was certainly disappointed for it to end so fast. After what must have been five, maybe ten minutes of standing ovation, Barenboim offered us an encore–a quick piece by Tchaikovsky–and the concert was over for good. During the performance, clouds had gathered in the sky to cast a gray pallor and a few drops of rain ominous hung over us like a sword of Damocles. For the second time, I noticed that my mobile data was essentially worthless when I tried to upload a post to Instragram. So, protip, don’t expect mobile data to work in huge crowds. The cell towers cannot handle the volume.

Since the concert was over by 2:30 (when I was expecting a 4 hour opera), I realized I still had ample time to walk up to Mauer Park and peruse the flea market. I passed some pretty hip neighborhoods on the way to the park, and would have possibly stopped for a snack if I hadn’t filled up so much on bread.

The park itself looked like a mini-Woodstock, full of hippies and artists doing their thing. Musicians provided a soundtrack to the bohemian paradise on the grass while people picnicked, played sports, or sold their handicrafts outside the scope of the flea market. The flea market proper was huge, and had a good ratio of commercial side hustles and sales of old/used goods. There were permanent structure eateries on one end and more temporary food stalls flanking the other end. I would say one could find pretty much anything there, though I’m not entirely convinced it would be the cheapest.

I took my time browsing, though I had absolutely no desire to buy anything. I wasn’t even tempted by the Legos. Compared with the weekend (farmer’s market), the sellers and shoppers were remarkably more international, and I barely heard any German being spoken. I tried to imagine what sort of side hustle I could do to bring in a little money. Would I cook? Would I fly back and forth to Asia, hauling suitcases full of cheap stuff. C and his wife have a jewelry business going. I wonder if they got started at the flea market.

After making several loops through the stalls, I decided to grab a little snack–a bratwurst, of course–and retired to the lawn in the park to eat it and finish the wine I was still carrying around. After eating my afternoon snack, I laid down for a short nap. Refreshed, I decided to pack up and begin the journey home. The first couple of blocks along the way were full of cheap restaurants, but it was too early for dinner and I was definitely not hungry, so I carried on.

Back at the hostel, I still had the entire room to myself, which was nice, especially when needing to make a Skype call. But, on the other hand, I was feeling a bit bored. I walked down to the back garden to look around and though there were still people around, the hostel was considerably emptier than the previous two nights. I decided to pop over to the little restaurant at the entrance of the S-bahn station and have a pizza with a glass of draft beer. It was nice. The weather was pleasant and the sky presented a dramatic tableau of clouds in the late afternoon sunlight (despite being 8pm). I drilled vocabulary to keep myself occupied. After being presented with the check (despite not asking for it), I paid, finished my beer, and wandered back to the hostel (some 10 meters away).

I sat on a bench by myself for a hot minute before deciding to sidle up to a group of revelers who were clearly speaking English among themselves. Here were the backpackers, mostly individual travelers who have coalesced into a group through shared English-speaking and love of alcohol, tobacco, and partying. Apparently, some of them had been drinking continually since the previous day. There was an American, several Australians, an Irish girl, and a German guy. Almost immediately after I walked over and greeted them, the South Africans showed up. I caught up with them briefly, then decided to get more to drink. I went with the German guy (he was from the Black Forest region) over to a Spati to buy some beers. I grabbed the coldest and cheapest beers I could find, but it took a while because he had to get cash from a machine. Back with the group, I must have hung out for 2 hours, participating in conversations with various configurations of people. When I finished my last beer, I decided to call it the night. I think they would have happily gone all night, and were even actively discussing going out to a club. It was 11 and I was done.

I went up to the room and watched a couple videos on Youtube before passing out and sleeping quite comfortably. The night air was cool, and the windows were open just right for the breeze to circulate.

---

Mobike	2
Bratwurst	2.5
Hawaiian Pizza and beer	12.2
Spati beers	2.9
Total:	19.6 EUR (152.9 RMB) (USD 22)

Running Total: 5731.4 RMB (USD 827)
Daily Average: 521 RMB (USD 75.18)

Volume 2, Day 10

Despite taking it easy on Friday, or perhaps because so, I slept in a bit in the morning. Of course, my definition of sleeping in is still on the early side. In any case, I spent a leisurely morning in the hostel, popping over to the supermarket for some pastries and helping myself to a little coffee from the breakfast. I would have paid for a coffee from the coffee machine (and taken free water to make my own), but the machine was off. What choice did I have, asks the person seeking rationalization.

It was nearly noon before I even realized it, and I was feeling good from focusing so intently on my writing and studying. I went over to the Kaufland to buy a salad, and remembering that the supermarkets would be closed on Sunday, went ahead and bought bread, wine, and gummy just in case. I ate my salad in the hostel as the staff were cleaning up from breakfast and then rushed off downtown on a rented Mobike. I ditched the bike when I got stuck in traffic and street repairs near Alexanderplatz and walked the last two blocks to the German History Museum. A good part of the reason I wanted to stay the extra weekend in Berlin was to have a day to roam the museum.

I bought my ticket and headed upstairs to begin browsing the exhibits. Fans of art or medieval weapons would definitely be rewarded by the museum, which houses several complete (and shiny) suits of armor, some even posed in jousting position on an armored horse. Meanwhile, hundreds of portraits of various people I’ve never heard of provide pepper the halls. I feel I got a bit of a refresher on European history from the fall of the Roman empire to modern times, but a lot of the exhibits were out of order and the introductory texts generally assumed a lot of familiarity with the topic on the part of the reader. Note, I am saying European history because it is impossible to untangle German history from the rest of the continent with shifting borders, power dynamics, and religious wars.

I finished WWI and headed downstairs with an hour left before the museum closed, but of course the sections covering the Weimar Republic, the rise of Nazism, WWII and post-war Germany were far more extensive than the upstairs exhibits. It’s not an exact analogy, but I was surprised by how many details in the Nazi playbook remind me of the trajectory China is on, particularly in the way the CCP frames its historical narrative and is gradually increasing its control over all culture, media, and thought.

I had to pick up my pace when the fifteen minute announcement came over the loudspeaker, meaning I only had 10 minutes to get through the second world war and five minutes to cover the cold war. When I stumbled out of the museum at 6, I realized I had spent more than four hours in there and could have easily spent another 2.

I was going to load up a podcast to accompany on a walk to Kreuzberg, but the strains of an opera wafted through the air. I crossed the street to Babelplatz (in front of Humboldt University) to find the plaza was broadcasting Tristan and Isolde on a large screen. “Staatoper fur Alle” is an annual tradition to bring the state symphony out of its opera hall (adjacent) and provide free classical music to the masses. I made note of the 1pm start time for Sunday and scheduled “free opera” on my to-do list.

On the other side of Gendarmenmarkt, I spotted a small family run supermarket that was unexpectedly open on a Sunday and popped in to have a look at their fridge case. I was even more surprised to see a decent selection of cold beers at cheap, cheap supermarket prices (the kiosks and spati tend to be priced like a convenience store, of which I have yet to see. It is weird to go from the land of 7-Elevens, Family Marts, and Lawsons to Europe). So, I couldn’t resist dropping a euro for some monk-made beer.

I continued to wander south, passing a man-made urban beach (a collection of bar/restaurant stands with sand and beach chairs), and Checkpoint Charlie. Near Merhingplatz I spotted another open supermarket and took the opportunity to grab a snack (little salami sticks) and a Carlsberg (much less selection of cold beer) before finding a bench along the canal to sit down and have a rest while I waited to meet C at 7:30.

C and I met on the bridge and walked a bit along the canal to another plaza where a band was playing House of the Rising Sun from a trailer attached to a bike. As were walking up, the police were already closing in to shut down the unlicensed concert. It was a bit loud, considering they had powered amps. C’s friend from Hamburg, R, showed up fortuitously and we hung around chatting for a while before heading to Tang’s Chinese Kitchen after 8.

I didn’t catch how long Tang had lived in Germany, but these guys, who are a bit older than me used to regularly come to the restaurant back in the day. We were also joined at dinner by an Italian guy, his sister, her son, and another German. It was quite an international party. I got to speak to Tang in Chinese every time she came by the table, but she spoke confident German to the other guys. It was interesting experience overall. The food was pretty good, a given since the cooks are brought in from China, though it was obvious that they weren’t masters of every dish, which were drawn from different regions of China. When I talked to the cook at the end of the night and found out he was from Hunan, it made sense from the taste of the dishes. I had heard the chef was from Sichuan at the beginning of the night and made a point of ordering classic Sichuan dishes, but they weren’t quite right.

There was a lot of alcohol involved, and by the end of the night, Tang’s husband was sitting with us and pouring liberally from a bottle of Shanxi fenjiu. We didn’t disperse until after 1 am and I was really tired. The neighborhood was super quiet, but C and I biked part of the way together, passing through some areas bustling with activity and revelry. I was back in the hostel by 2am and I noticed that the Americans, who had a 6am flight, were already checked out and gone from the room.

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Pastries	1.58
Groceries + lunch	7.31
Mobike	1
Deutsches Historisches Museum	8
Monchshof beer	1.15
Carlsberg + salami	2.56
Dinner	25
Mobike	2
Total:	48.6 EUR (379 RMB) (USD 54.73)

Running Total: 5578.5 RMB (USD 805.6)
Daily Average: 557.9 RMB (USD 80.56)

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.

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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)

Volume 2, Day 8

After a rest day, it was one again time to explore some of Berlin’s glorious sites. I decided it was necessary to go out to the palace in Charlottenburg, and if I had time, to visit the Berggruen Museum, which is also out there. Charlottenburg is about 8 km to the west of Mitte, and checking the route via public transportation, Google Maps recommended way to the south and transfer to some ring line. That seemed unreasonable, and I figured biking might be a better option.

I had been doing some research into Mobike. Although one (out-of-date) blog cited the price as 0.5 Euro per half hour, the actual Mobike app burst my elated bubble by indicating that the prices of bikes is now a uniform 1 Euro per twenty minutes. I believe that is the market consensus among the half dozen or so dockless bike shares that are all over Berlin. So that is something like 10 times the price of the same service in China. However, the app aggressively advertised discount commuter cards: 20 yuan for unlimited riding in 30 days. That would pay for itself with three rides! Unfortunately, because I had purchased a 10 ride discount card in Beijing and didn’t use all the rides, Mobike won’t let me purchase a new pass in a new market.

I decided to bike anyways, because 1-2 Euros for the bike is still cheaper than the 2-3 Euros for public transport and more fun. The Mobikes are actually noticeably larger and after cycling furiously for ten minutes, I realized it had 3 gears. Okay, so the better bicycle is worth a little bit more money, but I still wouldn’t say its worth 10 times as much. Having also priced Mobike in Japan, I wonder if the company’s international pricing strategy is to be just barely competitive with public transport. However, given how underpoliced and overpriced the public transport is, in Berlin at least, they are competing against “free.”

Once I figured out I could shift gears to maximize the efficiency of my effort for speed, it was a lovely ride, once again following the river around the Reichstag and through Tiergarten. However, when I parked near the palace in Charlottenburg, the pain point was enhanced by the automatic conversion into RMB. 15 something for a single ride when I would typically load float 10 RMB and have it last months. Ouch.

For the palaces, I purchased the Charlottenburg+ “through ticket” that includes the old palace, the new wing, some mausoleum and lookout post in the gardens, and a new pavilion. As the audio guide was included in the price, I took the free smartphone with a single app and followed the self-guided tour. I don’t have any pictures to share because I refuse to pay 3 euros for a photo permit as a matter of principle.

I can still remember visiting several of King Ludwig’s palaces in Bavaria back when I was in high school, and compared to that experience, I suppose I am more appreciative of taking in the Baroque/Rococo/Classical architecture/interior design. It’s still not my cup of tea, but it I enjoyed the hour long tour of the old palace. I was most struck by how much china and orientalist themes were weaved into so many of the rooms. The plaques in Chinese museums discussing the porcelain trade with Europe give only one side of the history, but seeing how much Princess Charlotte loved porcelains, to the extent of buying them by the crate, gives me a richer sense of the fashions of the 18th century (among the wealthy at least).

After finishing the first tour, I headed around the palace to explore the wooded grounds and find a shady bench to have my prepared picnic lunch. Of course, I had swung by a supermarket in the morning to buy a bottle of mineralwasser and a couple bread rolls. I also should, compared to my childhood years, that I am totally down with the carbonated mineral waters. Yes, please! It is interesting that the garden grounds are open to the public, and as I slowly ate my lunch, alternating between doing German vocabulary drills and flicking insects off of me, I saw so many locals walking their dogs, taking jogs, and wheeling their strollers over the graveled paths. Though the garden immediately behind the palace was of the classical mold–i.e. geometrically arranged paths, trimmed hedges, and fountains–most of the garden had a more romantic (i.e. naturalistic) feel of trees and grasses grown wild and free.

After lunch, I headed into the mausoleum and was rather blown away by the fine marble renderings of each of the four individuals in repose. It is true craftsmanship to capture the texture of the textiles in stone. I headed over to the Belvedere in Schlossgarten, passing several “cosplayers” dressed in centuries old courtly attire. The Belvedere housed three floors of more porcelain, mostly table servings as opposed to vases. I swung by the New Pavilion next for a quick look at its art exhibit, highlighting the paintings of a handful of German masters who also had a hand in the palace history before touring the New Annex, which is attached to the palace but cleverly separated so that they can charge you separate admission.

The annex also included a smartphone audioguide and a roughly 50 minute tour that strangely involved a lot of backtracking. I wouldn’t say that the new annex was particularly better or worse than the old palace. In any case, it is actually hard to distinguish them. For example, I can’t remember which had an extra section concerning the history of the whatsitname royal family of Prussia. I need to go the German history museum because I gleaned some information about the rough timeline of German political history from about 1100 onwards, but need to see it presented a little more systematically and with lots of maps. You know, for like that period when Napoleon conquered most of what we think of as German and Prussia was almost entire located within present day Poland. Chinese history is so much easier because it is all presented through the Marxist lens of “unified China” that tries to erase the existence of distinct kingdoms and cultures.

I was pretty tired by the end of the tour, having spent a solid four hours looking around the palace and its grounds, so I decided to give the museum a pass. The prospect of another ten euros for an entrance ticket just to see a couple of Picasso (when literally every city in Germany has a museum with a handful of Picasso’s, or so it seems from perusing the guidebooks) felt a bit steep. I also decided to walk back so that I could get a closer look at the Charlottenburg Rathaus and enjoy Tiergarten.

I only walked a couple blocks before I spotted a cheap looking bakery and stopped for a cheap pick-me-up: a coffee and some walnut cake thing (even though I could have bought two croissants for a euro, what a steal!). I sat for about twenty minutes, alternately being blinded by the sun and enjoying the cloud cover while I drank my coffee and flicked through vocabulary. Properly refreshed, I started the proper walk, and barely noticed the 7 km distance as there was plenty to see in Tiergarten–e.g. the victory monument in the roundabout, and the monument to the 20 Russians who died when they swept through Berlin pillaging, raping, and murdering. Why the f*ck is the German government paying to preserve a monument installed by the USSR (indirectly) commemorating war crimes committed against them?

I took the opportunity afforded by a leisurely stroll to also get a closer look at the Reichstag and pass once again through the Brandenburg Gate. I wanted to pop into this one free museum where there used to be a crossing point in the Berlin wall, but they insisted I get rid of my backpack. I didn’t have any coins for the locker and I suddenly felt it wasn’t worth it.

I was back and chilling in the hostel before too long. The weather was nice, so I eventually went over to a supermarket to source some food. I grabbed a bag of salad and in place of dressing a little package of antipasta (which contained cheese, olives and roasted red peppers in a bit of oil). Feeling nutrient deprived by my bread heavy diet, I also sprung for a fruit salad. I couldn’t resist a Rittersport bar. I sat in the park for a long while, slowly eating my dinner in between reviewing chapters of a textbook and looking around at the groups of young people enjoying the sunny evening.

When I returned to the dorm room, it didn’t seem quite as miserably hot as previous nights, and I managed to finish “Avatar” despite the rather raucous crowd in the courtyard below.

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Coffee and pastry	4 EUR
Bread and water	2.3 EUR
Mobike	2 EUR (15.39 RMB)
Charlottenburg+	17 EUR
Coffee break	3 EUR
Salad	6.3 EUR
Total:	34.6 EUR (269.9 RMB) (USD 39)

Running Total: 4782.3 RMB (USD 690.5)
Daily Average: 597.8 RMB (USD 86.3)

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It’s interesting that Mobike’s internal exchange is 7.695 RMB per Euro. That’s quite cheaper than the floating rate (per Google, today) of 7.78. I would almost appreciate it if I wasn’t so flush with cash (in Euro) and starting to realize that I might have to use my credit card for any intercity buses or trains.

Volume 2, Day 7

After a long, sweaty night, the room had cooled enough by the early dawn to be almost comfortable. However, I dragged myself out of bed determined to get in a run. As I was lacing up my shoes, I fired off a text message to C to see if he was free to grab lunch.

The run was also a mini-tour of Berlin. I headed along the water around the Reichstag and through the Tiergarten as far as the Victory Pillar before doubling back to pass under the Brandenburg Gate. I paused my podcast and the run tracker so that I could spend a few minutes walking through the Holocaust memorial. Sobered up, I headed south along where the Wall used to be down to Potsdamer Platz and continued to follow the invisible wall east to Checkpoint Charlie. From Checkpoint Charlie, I cut north through the Gendarmenmarkt, marveling at the churches and opera houses before reaching Museuminsel. Not quite ready to end the run, I tacked on a loop around Alexanderplatz. Finally, I reached the workout equipment in Monbijou Park, but could only do a single set of pull ups and push ups before I completely pooped out.

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I chugged several glasses of water and took a long, cold shower to recover from the run. Though it had been cool when I set off, the day had warmed up significantly. The dorm room was back to its oven-like temperatures, and I spent ten minutes standing around half naked and fanning myself.

I had to be back out the door by noon to meet C at his apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, and it was a brisk, sweaty walk over there. I didn’t realize that the layout of Berlin has buildings hidden behind buildings, where you have to pass through the street side building and a small courtyard to reach a second, hidden apartment building. As we were heading out, we ran into his pregnant wife and mother-in-law on their way back from some errand. Then, we biked over to Wedding, which is a very “international” part of town, where a lot of Turks and Arabs have relocated as they have been priced out of other neighborhoods through rapid gentrification.

C had some errands to run, so I accompanied him to a DM (drugmarkt) before we went to this amazing little Turkish restaurant. There are Turkish restaurants everywhere in Berlin, and though I hadn’t sampled any yet, I took him on his word that this place was special. After lunch, we swung by a hardware store on the way back to buy paint. He had to get back to work on a translation project, so after a quick coffee, I bid him adieu and rambled back down to my neighborhood.

At least on a bike, one gets a bit of a breeze, but back on foot, I realized once again just how strong the summer sun could be. I was grateful when I spotted a little window selling gelato and got a cone of raspberry sorbet. It didn’t last two blocks.

I returned to the hostel and plugged my phone in to charge while swiping through social media a bit. But it wasn’t too long before I decided I wanted to go hang out in a cafe and study German. I packed a bag with my picnic blanket and the remainder of the wine (for later) and headed over to the little bakery I had discovered on museum day. I ordered a coffee and a cookie of some sort and sat at a table on the sidewalk. It was very pleasant, though the sun had disappeared behind dark clouds by that point. Around 6pm, I figured I had sat there long enough and moved to the park to switch to wine. However, the trees were dancing the chacha in the strong gusts of wind as the thunderstorm slowly built up of the city.

I plopped down on a bench and continued drilling myself on German, daring the elements to open up a torrential downpour on me. It was a good half hour before the first subtle drops began to fall, but the rain didn’t begin until I was firmly ensconced back in the dorm. The Greek PhD student was around and we chatted for a bit, commiserating over how hot the room was. It was still pretty early and with the weather, no point in being outside, so I pulled out my computer and harddrive to watch a movie. I watched more than an hour of (James Cameron’s) Avatar before I started getting sleepy.

It was good to have a rest day and a cheap day. It’s still going to take at least a week to get the flight properly prorated so the daily average looks more reasonable.

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Eis	1.6
Coffee	3
Total:	4.6 EUR (RMB 35.9) (USD 5.18)

Running Total: 4512.4 RMB (USD 651.7)
Daily Average: 644.6 RMB (USD 93.1)

Volume 2, Day 6

Although I have been a little scared off from museums due to the fairly high ticket prices, I discovered that there is a single through ticket for the 5 museums on “Museum Island” that is less than the price of two of them. Therefore, in order to get my culture fix, it would be worth shelling out the 18 Euros. Since the museums are only open 10-6, I had to make sure I paced myself so that I didn’t run out of time. I intended to get to the first museum right as it opened, but it made more sense to walk a couple blocks to hit a supermarket (finally open after a several day break!) and buy a couple croissants/rolls to fuel the museum spree.

At the Bode Museum, the woman at the ticket counter asked if I had a student ID, and I figured it was worth a try with my old BLCU campus card. It didn’t work, probably because the card was falling apart. Ethics of pretending to still be a student aside, I could really appreciate some discounts on these museums and stuff.

I don’t really want to provide a play-by-play through the museums. Overall, I was pretty blown away both by the artworks in themselves and the palatial architecture housing them. Bode was all about art, while three of the museums: Altes, Neues, and Pergamon, housed archeological antiquities. The fifth museum–Alte Nationalgalerie–was also an art museum. All are worth visiting. They weren’t nearly as crowded as I was worried they would be, but there were plenty of tour groups roaming about. Some of the buildings on the “island,” notably the James Simon gallery are under construction meaning there were plenty of cranes and scaffolding to dodge on the outsides. Similarly, only half of the Pergamon was open with the namesake Pergamon altar not currently accessible to the public. The Gates of Ishtar were still there and awe-some.

I was kind of crashing early afternoon, so after the fourth museum, I decided to go find some coffee or ice cream to give me a boost. I wondered over to the Hackesher Markt area and looked at a couple of gelato places, but balked at the prices. I was about to walk all the way back to the hostel to see if I could “steal” some hot water to make my own coffee, but I spotted a bakery on a side street. I ordered a capuccino and some sweet bread (streudelschnecken). It was cheap and perfect.

Newly energized, I headed back to the island for the fifth and final museum and allowed myself to take my time roaming its galleries.

I can’t believe how hot the insides of all the museums were. I think I only felt air conditioning two times across all the galleries. It was nearly 30 outside (86F), but inside was several degrees warmer (over 90F). By the afternoon, most people were attempting to fan themselves with the museum maps. It didn’t work very well. It’s barely June. How are these museums going to deal increasingly hotter summers? How have these paintings not already melted? I suppose the marbles and bronzes will survive just fine, but it seems reckless not to install some sort of climate control. Tourists are going to start dropping dead of heat exhaustion, especially when no water is allowed inside and there are no water fountains. I was running down to the single restroom in the basement of the museums and drinking water out of the bathroom tap like an animal to stay alive.

I finished the last museum about 4:30 and headed back to the hostel to chill out for a few minutes and get on the internet. There wasn’t anything going on at the hostel, so I decided to head over to the Lidl to finally get my salad on. I made a nice picnic with a loaf of ciabatta bread, a bottle of Riesling, a snack pack of cheese (gouda and bergkase), and a packet of gummi. I found a found a spot on the lawn of Monbijiou park and enjoyed myself.

I headed back to the hostel at about 8pm to shower and attempt to go to bed early, but it was so hot inside the room. I just laid there for hours fanning myself. I don’t think I managed to fall asleep until nearly 1 in the morning.

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Breads	1.47
Museuminsel	18
Coffee break	3.5
Picnic	8.19
Total:	31.16 EUR (243 RMB) (USD 35.11)

Running Total: 4476.5 RMB (USD 645.4)
Daily Average: 746.1 RMB (USD 107.6)