Author: drdan

Volume 2, Day 5

I had originally only booked four nights to begin with, and having gotten my fill of party central Friederichshain, I was interested in relocating to a different part of Berlin. For my last day in the IndustriePalast, I decided to spring for the breakfast buffet. It was worth it. I certainly ate a ton: muesli, yogurt, fruit, bread, butter, cold cuts, tea, coffee, juice, I ate it all. I packed up my stuff and checked out right at the 10 am cut off. The strangest thing, however, is that I only paid for my breakfast at checkout. In other words, I realized there wasn’t a system to keep people from just going into the breakfast hall and helping themselves without paying.

I needed to take the S-bahn to my new location and dragged my luggage over to the train station. I discovered a bit of a problem when I attempted to buy a ticket from one of the only two machines on the platform. The station is under a bit of renovations and there is no manned counter anywhere. The vending machines only accepted bank cards. Several people were trying to shove cash into the machines which had cash slots, but were either broken or programmed not to accept cash (theft risk?). After watching several trains come and leave as I was queuing for and unsuccessfully buy my 2.8 euro ticket, I decided to just hop on a train and see what happens. Nothing happened. At Hackersher Markt, I simply walked straight out of the station. Are Germans just extremely honest or is it really that much trouble to install some turnstiles?

I walked about ten minutes up the road, passing an old synagogue (appropriately called Neues) to my new hostel. Though I was a couple hours before check-in, the guy at the front desk said the room would be ready in about 30 minutes if I wanted to wait. I waited. This new hostel is part of a chain, and let’s say I now know to avoid it. There is no shared kitchen and we are not allowed to eat or drink on the premises because that would cut into the bottom line of their restaurant, cafe, or bar, which are more expensive than literally anything just outside the hostel. The 6-bed dorm room is a pretty tight fit and stuffy because the windows are locked.

I understand air conditioning isn’t very common in Europe, but I thought buildings would at least be designed so that you could open some windows and let the air through. It has been a perpetual struggle not to die of heat exhaustion even though it gets down to 60 at night. I swear Thailand or the Philippines are more comfortable because even the cheap room gets an electric fan.

Despite being a “travel” day, I still had the full afternoon to explore some more of Berlin, and I took a walk through Monbijou Park, enjoying views of Museum Island and the Berliner Dom. I was interested in visiting the DDR Museum that is also right in the area, but given the line of people out the door, I decided I might as well keep walking for a bit. So, I kept heading south to the Nikolaikirche. Obviously, I didn’t pay to go in, but the small cluster of alleys around Berlin’s oldest surviving building is pretty interesting. Afterwards, I swung back north, passing the Rathaus from a different angle. I went to see what exactly the Berlin Dungeon was and quickly decided it wasn’t worth paying for. I also passed the aquarium somewhere along the ramble.

I headed back to the DDR Museum, which no longer had a line to buy tickets, but was still crowded AF. Its a good museum, and I spent close to two hours looking at the exhibits. A lot of stuff was hands on, and they recreated an entire “modern” apartment.

After the museum, I headed back to the hostel to chill out for a bit, and met two of my roommates briefly. I had an appointment to meet that contact from a mutual friend at 5. We ended up grabbing a beer from a Spati and sitting on the waterside across from museums. We talked a while, C is an interesting fellow, but he had to run for a dinner appointment at 7.

I went back to the hostel to change into workout gear and returned to the park where there was a collection of pull-up bars and monkey bars and a lot of shirtless men exercising. I got in a good workout, and in an ideal world would have had a bit of a picnic afterwards. I still had a half packet of oil and vinegar salad dressing and a half box of cherry tomatoes, so I just needed a bag of salad and a bottle of water. Unfortunately, Monday was still part of the holiday, which meant that all the supermarkets were still closed. I’m completely flabbergasted by this. It’s one thing to close on Sundays, but to close for two consecutive days is insane. All the fresh food will be rotten by Tuesday morning. I tried quite a few supermarkets before giving up on the quest to eat healthy, and resigned myself to drinking tap water, which for some reason only came out hot.

My dorm had three more people in it when I returned. One guy was on his way out the door, but was chatting to the newly checked in college girls. I chatted with one or the other of them while waiting to use the shower. I was in a debate as to whether I was hungry enough to want to go out and buy food from a restaurant or whether I’d just skip dinner. About the time the two girls went out to meet their friends to get dinner, I decided that I should find something to eat.

After being propositioned, I found a currywurst stand and had an order of currywurst with fries. The fries were so crunchy and good. It was weird that they charge 20 cents per condiment, but it was cheap overall. I felt a lot better with food in my stomach (I must have been hungry after all), and decided to grab a bottle and enjoy the cool night air in the park for a bit. I sat over by the water where people were dancing to swing music. I didn’t dance, didn’t want to. I just enjoyed the atmosphere while reviewing a bit of German on my phone app.

Eventually, I headed back to the dorm for a sweaty sleep.

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Breakfast Buffet	6 EUR
Dorm (4 nights)	578 RMB
DDR Museum	9.8 EUR
Beers	2.3 EUR
Currywurst	4.4 EUR
Total:	753.5 RMB (USD 108.9)

Running Total: 4233.5 RMB (USD 611.85)
Daily Average: 846.7 RMB (USD 122.37)

Volume 2, Day 4

Though the Karneval der Kulture was taking place over a four day weekend, Sunday was to be the highlight with a big parade. As that was scheduled to begin at 12:30 and I was up bright and early at 5am, I had plenty of time to kill in the morning. I drank coffee and focused on German language study, but still ended up feeling a bit peckish and restless. I went out to stretch my legs and find a bakery or something. German supermarkets close on Sundays for some anti-capitalist reason, but there was a bakery in operation. Despite the weather report indicating cooler temperatures, the way the was beating down on me convinced me that I needed to switch to shorts.

Around 11am, I gave up on hanging around the hostel with any vague idea of forming an impromptu group and headed over to the Karneval grounds. It was a good 3 kilometers away by the direct route, but I took a scenic route, cutting through a number of parks and the heart of Kreuzberg. I must remark that every single bench of the first park had a drug dealer. I’ve seen tons all over the Friedrichshain area, which I guess makes sense with the clubbing culture. But, it is annoying, to constantly have to fend off the low key sales pitches (“How are you doing?”).

While wandering through Kreuzberg, I noticed a bustling Mexican restaurant (called Que Pasa). Their Sunday brunch looked like a decent price, and if there was actually Mexican food involved, it may be worth bookmarking. I’ve also noticed at least five “Que Pasas” around Berlin.

I was following a green strip along a river/canal the final stretch to hit the corner of the Karneval. The first collection of booths was all Latin American food and I was stricken with an urge to start pricing plane tickets from the US to Chile. My stomach was growling and I had to start thinking about strategizing my consumption. Especially, considering how insanely priced the alcoholic offerings were. That certainly didn’t seem to slow down the Germans, many of whom appeared at least two sheets to the wind. I crossed the river on a bridge to the main section of Karneval, where there was a greater variety of food stalls interspersed with the odd stage and amateur performance. Spotting a bratwurst shop, I had to grab one. Perfekt.

Checking my watch, I saw there wasn’t much time until the parade was to begin so I skipped the rest of the karneval to head two blocks south to actual parade route. People mountain, people sea. Spotting a Spati, I popped in to grab a refreshment and milled about along the parade route looking for a decent place to watch. The parade was really something. I had an inclination that a German Carnival of Cultures would be racially tonedeaf, and I was not disappointed in that regard. Most of the floats (or more like processions as it was less about a big vehicles than thematic groups of people) was aiming to capture the spirit of some global culture. The first one was about Amazonian aboriginals, so I got to see lots of white people pretending to be First Nations.

I was smart to pick the side of the parade route with my back to the sun (so it wasn’t shining in my eyes), but it still sizzled my back. Having long since finished my first beer, I was getting thirsty and eventually decided to risk losing my otherwise good spot on a beer run. I had to walk a couple blocks south from the parade route to find a Spati (bodega) and picked up two. I watched another hour or so of the parade and it seemed to be almost over, so I decided to hit the pizza place on the corner selling “mini-pizzas” for 2.50 each. A so-called mini pizza is essentially just a quarter of the full-sized oblong pizza, so upon further reflection I realized that these Italians have a pretty good scam going. (Based on countless research, a full pizza costs 6-8 euros). Obviously, the pizza was amazing.

I headed back towards the bodega to grab another beer and I was shocked to notice that they had increased all the prices. In fact, I could clearly see one guy still quickly working to cover all the original price tags with handwritten new prices. Surge pricing for beer, that’s a new one. Whereas the shop had been empty on my last visit, it was now completely full of people. There was an international group loitering around outside the front, and when their leader called out in English “ok let’s go, keep moving,” I impulsively followed along.

It was a school group from some university in some small town in Germany, just in town for the Karneval. I chatted with several of them while walking along the streets. They turned left at some point back up towards the parade. Because of the parade, the police had closed all the adjoining roads to traffic, so the massive crowds of pedestrians had taken over a lot of the streets in a sort of impromptu block party. While heading up this one street, there was a group of German youths who had chalked out a disco floor and dancing to a pair a speakers propped up on a third floor window. Carried away with the spirit of the day, I stopped and danced for a while.

Alone again, I continued to find that the parade was actually still in full swing. An African DJ was playing beats out of the back of a pickup truck and about a hundred partiers were following along. I slipped into that crowd and continued dancing. I dropped out of the parade at the next Spati to get something to quench my thirst. As this shop was right on the parade route, there was a queue to even get into the shop. I must say, though the shop owners upped the prices in response to the celebration, they weren’t exactly gouging us. The beer was still a fraction of what it would cost at a bar or restaurant.

I sipped my beer and watched the parade for a bit, occasionally moving backwards against traffic to see what was coming next. As an Indian float came by playing a textbook Bollywood type track, I noticed two familiar faces in the following crowd of dancers. It was two of the university students I walked with for a bit. I merged into the parade again and danced along the route all while marveling at the chance of meeting that group again. It wasn’t much longer before they exited the parade and I tagged along. The next goal was to find somewhere to sit and rest and have a drink. According to Google Maps, there was a park nearby, so we headed that way.

While loitering on the street at one point, either waiting for stragglers or debating specific plans, a German drug dealer came by to peddle marijuana. How refreshing to have a local drug dealer. I think he was selling at 10 euros an ounce and the students just started forking money over to him. “Give me one, no, make it two, actually five.” I tried to intervene to haggle a little bit, but astute businessman that he was, he clearly saw no reason to leave any profit on the table when the customers were so eager to part with their money.

We found the park and decided to split up to source food and beverages. I went with one guy to grab some beers and water. We returned to the rendezvous point, but still had to wait a while for the food group to return. The food group did not actually bring any food back with them. Afterwards we headed into the park to find a place to sit down. On one field, there were two impromptu discos set up with actual speakers and djs. We hung out for a while, but around 7, they had to take off to meet up with the rest of their group. I figured that was a good time for me to begin the journey home.

When I was only a couple blocks away from the hostel, I spotted a Turkish bakery and bought some calzone type bread filled with spinach and feta. Three doors down, I spotted a line for gelato, and ate my bread while queued for dessert. It came in a waffle cone. It was amazing. In fact, the whole day had been full of just the best food.

I returned to the hostel, drank a lot of water, and finished watching “The Sixth Sense” before going to sleep.

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Shokolade brotchen	1.5
Bratwurst mit brotchen	3.5
Beers	6.8
Pizza	5
More beers and water	3.5
Backery	1.6
Eis (Shokolade mit minz)	2.2
Total:	24.1 EUR (188 RMB) (USD 27)

Running Total: 3480 RMB (USD 503)
Daily Average: 870 RMB (USD 125.75)

Volume 2, Day 3

I must have spent at least four hours in the morning writing and studying German, and I also spent 20 minutes working out in the courtyard. I declined to go for a jog because I was thinking I’d do a lot of walking.

As I was about to head out the door to a fleamarket, my plans were slightly derailed by the arrival of an email. A mutual friend had put me in touch with a Berlin-based contact. Earlier in the morning, I had dashed off a “hi” message, not really expecting a prompt response. At this point, there isn’t much of a story to tell, other than that I had a window of a couple hours where I looking for Wi-Fi hotspots and refreshing my inbox to see if we were going to arrange a meetup that day for a lunch or coffee.

Having sent out a reply and not wanting to sit around the hotel lobby waiting, I headed up the street to find the fleamarket. It wasn’t there, though, I felt validated that the sign was clearly there advertising “Jedes Samstag.” I headed a little further north to the Boxhagener Platz, where there was in fact a Wochendmarkt. Because there were no available Wi-fi hotspots and I was waiting for a email response, I didn’t walk around the farmer’s market. Instead, I headed back towards the hostel and popped into the shopping mall. I browsed the Rewe Supermarket after dashing off another email to kill time for a bit.

I headed back to the hostel for a few minutes before literally turning around and going back to the supermarket to buy some stuff for lunch. I was hungry and went a bit overboard buying a salad, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and serrano ham to make a hearty salad.

I ate my lunch at the hostel courtyard while a group of women and one guy were practicing a dance routine for a performance at the Carnival of Cultures. There was a lot of twerking involved, so they attracted the attention of a group of guys roaming around with beers in hand. Finishing my lunch, I went into the lobby where the sofas are more comfortable than the picnic table to study a bit more German.

I started getting sleepy so I ran upstairs to take a nap. It was nearly 3pm before I got back up and I realized I was wasting the day. I still wanted to checkout the weekend market, so I wandered over that way. As I was leaving the hostel, I heard a huge racket. There was a truck rolling down the street with a punk band playing on it. A police van with a dozen officers in riot gear followed dutifully a short distance behind. I need to get over to this Culture Carnival. It has got to be insane.

The Farmer’s Market was wonderful–exactly what one would expect of a farmers market: produce, herbs, cheese, sausages, handicrafts, and a couple of stalls serving Turkish food. I was stuffed, but I grabbed a doppio espresso and leisurely wandered around, “channel switching” between snatches of overheard conversations, 95% of which were in German. Maybe it was the caffeine boost or the more static nature of the market, but I found it much easier to eavesdrop of conversations than in the streets and parks. Actually, roaming the streets, I feel I am as likely to eat not-German as I am to hear German.

During my second loop of the market (which wasn’t that big to begin with), I noticed that most of the stalls were breaking down and packing up. The market must end by 4pm. I headed back to the mall for the nth time, finally determined to get a SIM card. I lurked around the Saturn electronics retailer where I observed one foreign tourist get set up with O2 service before deciding that I should just roll the dice on the cheapest option–the Aldi downstairs. I bought the 12.99 Euro starter pack and headed back to the hostel to see if I could manage the registration on my own.

I don’t know how long ago it was, but Germany has some strict identity verification laws for telecommunications. I had to plug in a bunch of information to the AldiTalk website (only available in German) then go through a webcam live interview to get registered. The UI is a bit patchy and created a bit of a headache by sending me to a German speaking interviewer even though there were options for different languages (e.g. English and Turkish) and I definitely selected English. I muddled my way through until there was a problem with my data. Relaunching the registration process, I noticed that my passport validity date was entered incorrectly. I blame the UI because I specifically entered the right year through the popup calendar. Anyways, the second time through was in English and went very smoothly. So, I should be paying 3.99 for 500 MB of data on a 4 week cycle deducted from the 10 Euro starting credit. I’ll need to pick up another 5 Euro recharge from an Aldi before I leave Germany, but I should be all set as EU rules forbid roaming charges.

I hung around the hostel not really sure what else to do. Most of the travelers are in large groups and there isn’t really the chill backpacking atmosphere where everyone is friendly and striking up conversations. It would help if I smoked and was drinking like a fish, but nonetheless, Berlin is a bit isolating. Having nothing better to do, I fulfilled my filial duty with a Skype call.

Afterwards, I decided that there was no point in hanging around the hostel, so I grabbed the left over paprika chips and my picnic blanket and decided to grab some beers and lay out on the lawn. On the way, I decided I might as well go a little further and go have a beer at the Holzmarkt. I still grabbed some mineralwasser and a couple beers (a Becks and a Grapefruit thing that I guess wasn’t actually a beer and only 2.5%) at a supermarket on the way.

The Holzmarkt was crazy packed. I sat alone and drank my beer. I was originally thinking of getting a pizza there, but the prospect of queuing twenty minutes for a second beer plus thirty minutes for a pizza did not seem too appetizing. I decided, I might as well save money and grab something cheaper outside. In the end, I walked all the way back to the hostel without getting anything else. The truth is, I wasn’t actually that hungry and it was already past 9pm.

I headed up to the room to try to chill out and watch a movie before going to sleep. I got through about 20 minutes of The Sixth Sense before my eyes started drooping uncontrollably. I don’t even think it was dark outside before I went to sleep. These long summer days are insane. I thought Beijing had long summers, and I was just in Sapporo, northern Japan. It’s mindboggling, but I guess it explains a lot of the European character.

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Groceries	9.22
Double Espresso	1.5
AldiTalk SIM card	12.99
Beer & Water	2.72
Draft beer	4
Total:	30.43 EUR (237.3 RMB) (USD 34.35)

Running Total: 3291.9 RMB (USD476.4)
Daily Average: 1097.3 RMB (USD 158.8)

Volume 2, Day 2

I got a pretty good night sleep, despite several roommates stumbling in at some point after a night of clubbing. I spent a couple hours downstairs drinking coffee and working on the computer until about 8am when my stomach started growling and I was getting a bit of wanderlust.

My first stop was at the Aldi to buy a big bottle of mineralwasser, along with an apple strudel and a pretzel for a breakfast. The offered me a receipt–this is notable because I had been hesitating at the cash registers by instinct waiting for a receipt and embarrassing myself when the cashiers were like “Can I help you?”–and I was surprised to find some surcharge of 25 cents on there. Checking a dictionary, I found it was for a “deposit.” I was confused about this for most of the day, but it eventually made sense (next time i went to store and looked closely at the price tags). I suppose 0.19 Euros for a bottle of mineralwasser is too cheap, so a bottle deposit on top of it is perfectly reasonable. Of course, now I need to figure out if I can actually get the money back. It must be the case because, in the evening, I saw a guy collecting plastic bottles.

Anyways, I crossed the train tracks to check out RAW-Gelande (more on this later) and the streets around Boxhagener Platz. It looks like a cool area, with lots cafes and stuff, but it was pretty early in the morning, and nothing was going on. I parked myself at Boxhagener Platz for about an hour to study German on my Handy. At 10, the fountain kicked on, and between that (which is perfect for kids to run around), the neighboring playground, and the kindergarten groups on their outdoor excursions, I really became primed for viewing the city through the filter of kids. It must be the resonance with my subconscious past, but its a weird. Normally, as I travel I think about things through a lens of “would my parents like it,” but now I’m thinking about things through a “would my China-based friends with kids like it.”

Moving on, I headed over to a green spot on the Google Maps, but it turned out to be a cemetery. I headed up to the big road for a stroll along Karl Marx Allee. If this is what Soviet German architecture is like, sign me up man. The buildings are big, the avenue wide, but it isn’t imposing at all. At least compared to the brutalism of Tiananmen Square.

I reached the Computer Game Museum and decided to shell out the 9 euro entrance ticket. When I overhear conversations in German, I understand maybe half. But when people speak to me directly, I understand zero. The ticket salesperson probably asked me three times in German (before switching to English) if I qualified for a discount ticket. (Also, just now as I am typing this at 7:45 am someone asked if I wanted to drink a beer. Repeated in German a couple of times and my brain did not process any of it). The Computerspielemuseum was pretty cool with an impressive collection of old hardware, tons of videos, and lots of playable games. I spent over two hours, and could have easily killed a day playing the arcade games. I would say some of the choices of playable games were a bit off, e.g. no one visiting a museum is going to plop down and play a few minutes of a role playing game like Final Fantasy VII that requires a major time commitment.

It was well past noon at this point, and I headed two blocks north to the Volkspark Friedrichshain, passing by a Lidl to get some food for a picnic. I wasted a lot of time in the grocery store going back and forth over my menu, but man, I’m really enjoying myself looking at the food. I wanted to get a salad, but they only sold one kind of salad dressing. I settled for a couple pieces of bread, a bag of Babybells, a fruit juice, and a bag of cookies.

I wandered about in the park, Berlin’s oldest, before finding a fairly shady spot by a pond. The hill was a bit steep, and I couldn’t quite get comfortable to take a nap after eating my meal. I also kept reaching into the bag for more cookies. It was the 500g bag of assorted cookies. For 1 euro (compared to 4 in China)! I must have known subconsciously that I would eat them all and I did.

I’m getting used to being in Germany and they way people go about their daily lives. Any stretch of grass is going to have a handful of white-ass men stripped down to sunbathe. Everyone, everywhere is smoking. It takes the most extreme punk aesthetic of tattoos everywhere (face, neck, hands) and piercings all over the face to shock my conservative East Asian values. Speaking of which, there was a Japanese bell on the other side of the pond. It was dedicated to denuclearization, but I couldn’t figure out when/where/who made it from the signage. I strolled a bit more around the park, enjoying the sunshine and the relaxed atmosphere before heading west to Alexanderplatz. I passed it on the north side to do a loop around Berlin Mitte.

I popped into St Marienkirche, half of which is scaffolded for renovations, and it felt weird to enter a gothic cathedral for the first time in a dozen years and with hundreds of Buddhist temples in between. I sat and listened to the organ for a while (the organist rehearses on Friday and Saturday afternoons). The church had free wifi, appropriately dubbed a “godspot.” The funniest part, however, is that the terms of service say you agree to follow “the laws of man, especially copyright law.”

The whole area was so typical European and scenic. I could see the spires of another Cathedral (Berlin Dom?) a block away, the city hall is on the other side of the plaza which has a giant fountain of Neptune in the middle. The Ferhsehturm, which has been my primary point of orientation is right there. Walking back past the TV tower and the train station, there wasn’t really much at Alexendarplatz proper. It’s mostly just shopping malls and department stores and trams and pedestrians mixing it up. My only regret for pigging out on the cookies was that I couldn’t dare get any gelato, which was being sold everywhere and looked amaaazing.

I followed Alexanderstrasse to Holzmarktstrasse to head back towards my hostel. I was looking for something on Holzmarktstrasse that was mentioned in the Lonely Planet, but I didn’t quite remember what. The street is cut off from the river, but at one parking lot I spotted people milling about with beers on the riverside. So, I headed in and discovered the ramshackle artist collective that is Holzmarkt. I swear I was transported to Southeast Asia. Between the chill vibe of people hanging out and drinking, the shoddily built shacks housing the bars and restaurant counters, and the young Europeans who embody the gap year backpacking look, you could have teleported the whole setup to Vang Vieng and no one would have noticed.

The beers seemed a little pricey and I still wanted to let my liver recover for Beijing, so I found the proper exit and continued along the street back home. As I was walking along the East Side Gallery for the nth time, I noticed literally everyone was holding a beer. This city is insane. I thought it was strange that they all had the same beer until I came across the pickup truck with twenty crates of Sol beer. They were giving it away for free. I couldn’t exactly pass up free beer, so I headed to the grassy area between the wall and the river to sit for a while. Finishing the beer, I left it next to a trash can where there were already a dozen others. Is it littering if there is already litter?

Back in the hostel, I sat in the back courtyard to study for a bit. However, someone asked me if I had a light. I didn’t, but I could see a smoker through the window in the smoking room. I borrowed his lighter then sat over by the Indian guy who needed it to finish his joint. He had just arrived from Amsterdam and was planning to party a couple days in Berlin before going to eastern Europe. The sun kept moving around the building and after shifting out of the sunlight a couple of times, I suggested we go inside.

A couple of Dutch guys were playing pool and we sat by the pool table. They finished, and we played two games. I went up to shower because I was feeling gross from being outside all day. The Indian guy was also staying in my room so he was hanging around. I charged my phone a bit while getting in a bit of internet time before I agreed to go out. We headed up the street to a streetside stand selling currywurst and draft beer. We walked around the RAW-Gelande area, which looks like rundown warehouses (being adjacent to train tracks) but is now a collection of bars and music venues. It was already past 8pm but the sun was still high in the sky. Since he was planning on going clubbing at midnight, he had tons of time to kill and was asking me about cool places to hangout and get a drink (or have a smoke). I mentioned Holzmarkt and suggested we grab a roadie. Walking back past the S-bahn station, several street musicians were set up. The first (a single guitarist) was playing Metallica to small but enthusiastic audience. The second (a pianist) was playing Pachabel to indifferent passerbys. The third had a huge audience. A petit girl playing folk music that sounded like it could be original.

Continuing the journey, there was a very drunk and shirtless man, rolling around on the sidewalk. I gave him a wide berth, but when he got up and started walking away, leaving his cellphone (and lighter and rolling papers) on the sidewalk, I got worried. A group of Spanish tourists called to him, but he was too drunk to hear them. So, I grabbed the cellphone and ran him down.

We barely made it down to the corner before my companion needed to stop for a cigarette break. Noting the time (past 9 pm and still light), I started thinking about needing to go to sleep at some point. We didn’t go much further, stopping in the park by the Wall, which was really crowded with various groups having their drinks. I had long since finished my drink and either wanted another or to go to bed. I hung for a while as my companion prepped his hash-infused cigarette, but eventually bid him goodnight as I was bored and crashing.

It was a long day. I hope they aren’t all like this.

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Breakfast	1.52
Computer Game Museum	9
Lunch	4.42
Pool (1.5 per 30 min)	0.8
Currywurst & Beer	6.5
Dunkel Beer	1.5
Total:	23.74 EUR (185 RMB) (USD 26.77)

Running Total: 3054.55 RMB (USD 442)
Daily Average: 1527.3 RMB (USD 221)

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.

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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.