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Volume 2, Day 96

Does my last day in Europe even count as a day if I am getting on an airplane at 9am? Summer is over and the European phase of my global rambles come to an end. I awoke to the buzzing of my mobile phone under my pillow at 5 am to catch the 5:32 suburban commuter train to Mannheim, where I then transferred to an ICE towards Frankfurt Airport. In typical German fashion, the high speed train climbed upwards of 100km an hour before stopping and waiting on the tracks for ten minutes for what I can only assume a freight train to pass by. The German businessman sitting across from me glibly commented that you can never rely on the train schedules to catch connections. At least, I assume that’s what he said; I only caught the word “umsteigen” which means to change trains.

It was fine, though. The train drops you off right in front of the airport and a shuttle bus carried me to Terminal 2 where I checked in via the self service terminal and gaped at the long line for the baggage drop. Realizing a little too late that I was actually flying priority, I waltzed straight up to a counter to get rid of my single checked suitcase. It was a little surprising to get the third-degree from the airline employee about my trip and where I went (clearly legally mandated rather than just small talk).

The shops were between the border check (which went smoothly) and the security check, which did not. I waited 10 minutes to get my bags as the elderly couple in front of me had to endure the humiliation of security personnel pulling every single item out of their bag and questioning “what’s this?” After a consultation with guards carrying assault rifles, they had to surrender some sort of cheese that was packed in a tiny amount of brine.

It was my turn to get yelled at afterwards for not pulling separating my phone charger and (honestly) forgetting that I had sunblock in my backpack. The agent pulled out a plastic ziplock bag, put the sunblock in and warned me to follow the rules next time.

The flight was not bad. I was able to watch four movies despite their decision to reboot the entertainment system (which takes 30 minutes). It was funny how American the flight attendants were. The little card on my seat said there was a choice of chicken with orzo or a vegetarian Indian curry for the meal service, but when they worked their way down the aisle, the choice was “chicken or pasta.” I asked for chicken, but as they were down to their last chicken, a different attendant asked “would you mind taking the curry instead.” Of course not, but that wasn’t the choice the near retirement age flight attendant presented. How white can that woman be that she sees some “ethnic” food she doesn’t recognize and just calls it pasta.

The downside of the flight was that I was in the window seat and the guy sitting next to me slept most of the flight, trapping me. I could see the cart in the galley with snacks and wine bottles and I couldn’t get reach it like some sort of punishment in Greek mythology.

Running Total: 35311.7 RMB (USD 4966.41)
Daily Average: 367.8 RMB (USD 51.73)

The flight is a sort of special circumstance, so it won’t be included in the grand total of things. Still, its a little disappointing that I couldn’t break under 50 USD a day on spending. I’ll have to go back to Japan where it is so much cheaper.

Anyways, that will be it for the travel blogging for a while. Stay tuned for a possible Volume 3!

Volume 2, Days 93-95

My last stop before I leave Germany and I have run out of energy to do any of my regular traveling activities, like visiting museums or studying German. Like a Sunday afternoon marred by the thought of school in the morning, I couldn’t really bring myself to enjoy–well–myself. It didn’t help that my first day was somewhat fubar.

My last morning in Freiburg was fine as it goes. I cooked up a hot breakfast to finish off the eggs, cheese, pepper, and one onion. Though I made a valiant effort to generously pour sriracha hot sauce into the eggs, it occurred to me that buying the hot sauce was probably a pour investment. I did enjoy adding it generously to the veggies, curries, and what not I cooked, but I didn’t cook enough to get even close to using it up. The balsamic vinegar on the other hand, though it would be hard to finish off at least served me well through dozens of salads.

I packed up, checked out, and paid for the street car over to the train station, where I found my bus waiting a full 20 minutes before its departure time. I settled in with the ambitions to work on my computer. Shortly before departing, some guy decided to sit next to me (though I swear there were empty rows). He proceeded to manspread and gradually encroach on my personal space by that classic move of “taking a nap.” I couldn’t really maneuver with my computer and spent the 3 hour journey increasingly feeling claustrophobic as the guy behind me felt that sprawling out across two seats wasn’t enough and decided to make a punching bag of the back of my seat.

I was in a pretty bad mood when I reached Heidelberg, but at least the bus stop was literally 50 steps from the hostel. The hostel, on the third and fourth floor of an old warehouse (now office building), gave me some shit about not having “Bestatigung” (confirmation) of my booking. I had contacted the hostel through the same platform I booked many independent hostels in Germany. A staff replied confirming the price. I replied saying “Fine, go ahead with the booking.” They said okay. What more confirmation did I need? Well, apparently someone was supposed to add me to the system. I suppose I was lucky that school had already started because if the hostel had no vacancies I would have been up the creek. They also demanded a credit card for

Up in the room, I had another snafu to deal with. The room was fine, but I needed some internet (my Flixbus was without). So, with the Monday morning flight from Frankfurt on my mind and staying in Heidelberg until Monday morning, I needed to double check how to get to the airport in time for my flight. I had booked a Flixbus for the early morning which would deliver me to the airport 2.5 hours early, but when I was double checking when I’d have to wake up, I realized that I only had an hour. In my inbox was a string of emails explaining that the cancelled my bus and rebooked me on a later bus and if that booking didn’t work for me I could manually manage my booking through their website. The catch, of course, is that by forcing me to cancel the booking, they get to apply their cancellation fee and keep all my money, giving me only 1-point-something euro worth of credit for another trip. What a scam. Since there were no viable other Flixbus options, I had to go through Deutsche Bahn and prebook the train. I suppose the upside is that I will get to experience the ICE (high speed train).

I set out to explore a bit of Heidelberg, discovering that although my hostel is very accessible to the main train station (3 minutes by foot) it is a good 15 minute walk to the edge of the old town. As Heidelberg is also famous for having one of the longest pedestrian streets (over a mile) in Germany, it is another 15 minutes to the heart of old town. It was nice, but definitely affected how much and when I would bother going all the way “downtown.”

I grabbed an ice cream to cheer me up. It didn’t really, should have gone for chocolate over the fruit flavors. The weather was fine and I should have stayed out longer to enjoy it (being the last time I would see the sun before leaving Germany), but I was hungry and eager to use the sizable guest kitchen in the hostel.

I passed up a Penny, a Rewe and an Aldi on the way back because I spotted a Kaufland on the map (and it happened to be the closest to the hostel). Feeling a desperate need to eat as much German food as possible, I decided to make my own Kasespaetzle and kicked myself upon realizing that I should have kept an onion or two (I “donated” my extra onions to the free food shelf in Freiburg thinking I wouldn’t be able to use up the last couple). I made do with a package of Schwabian-style spaetzle, shredded cheese (Kasespaetzle blend) and seasoned butter. I also grabbed a package of Weisswurst and a couple pretzels after staring at the sausage aisle a long time. Needless to say, several beers were purchased as well, including an impulse buy of a 1L bottle of super-local brewed stuff (in a 2 euro deposit bottle!).

I had a little party unto myself and ate enough food for 3 or 4 people. I seriously overate. It was bad. Meanwhile, a package tour group mostly composed of gray haired Germans checked into the hostel, many of them poked their head into the kitchen and asked if it was the breakfast room. Nope, that is upstairs.

As I was watching shows on my computer in a dazed state in the lounge (a separate room next to the kitchen), two other travelers came in. They were from Belgium and actually staying in my 10-bed dorm room. As we were lightly chatting, another fellow came in while making a phone call with his airbuds (is that the Apple term?). The girls were just typical college students on a weekend trip, but he was interesting–born in Lagos, traveled a lot as a kid with a tennis pro mom, spent last dozen years in Germany. We played a game of chess. I lost, but in my defense, I was impaired. I never got a chance for a rematch.

We all headed up to the room at the same time, each individually arriving at the decision that it was bedtime.

Running Total: 33918.2 RMB (USD 4762.45)
Daily Average: 364.7 RMB (USD 51.21)

Volume 2, Days 91-92

I couldn’t go to the Black Forest without actually seeing the Black Forest, so with a bit of research, I found that there were plenty of hiking trails in the area, some connecting to other cities (even as far as Switzerland), but with the most accessible and spectacular views on the Schauinsland Mountain.

So, after a very truncated coffee and study session, I set out for a day of hiking with a bottle of water, an apple, and a half pack of bulgur salad. It was exciting to wear my trekking pants for actual trekking. Fortunately for me, I was able to loiter at the public wifi hotspot for about ten minutes on the way to the tram station so I could fill my phone with podcasts. God help me if I had to walk through nature with nothing to listen to.

I rode the S-bahn to the end of its line, which also happens to be the bus stop for the one rural bus heading out in the direction of the mountain. Based on my research, it is all within Zone A, so it only cost the base fare, though that wasn’t put to the test. I alighted with all the other hikers at the base station of the cable car (bergbahn). Of course, I didn’t want to pay close to 10 euros to ride a cable car to the top of the mountain, but I didn’t know where else to start hiking. After a bit of looking around, I found a hidden path leading from the parking lot across a field and up the hills.

It took about 1:45 to reach the top by foot compared to the roughly 20 minute cable car journey. It was a nice walk, but not particularly scenic and often difficult to figure out exactly which way I was supposed to go. Though the mountain is covered with trails and paths the signs aren’t completely helpful. For a large section of the way up, I was seeing signs saying that this was the scooter track that people could race down. While the signs helpfully said there were better footpaths, they didn’t indicate where to find said alternate routes. Nonetheless, I reached the top without ever encountering the a scooter racing downhill, though the few times I had to cross the mountain highway, there was always traffic.

I had a short picnic when I reached the top and followed the path to the tip-top, where there is a tower one can climb for the ultimate views. Off in the distance to the south, I could see the snow capped Alps, but the haze was too much for my camera phone to shoot them clearly. One could also almost make out Basel in the distance and the invisible border between Germany and France lay somewhere between where I stood and another range of hills to the west.

In my ambitions, I figured I would hike all the way back to Freiburg, a distance of 10-12 km, since most of the path was still in the mountains and gently sloping back towards the river valley. The first 20 minutes of the walk where the best with alpine scenery of rolling grass meadows with small groups of lazy cows rocking their cowbells in between the copses of fir (?) trees which make the Black Forest “black.”

Unfortunately, I was so taken by my alternate urges to yodel or burst out with “The hills are alive…” that I missed the telltale white road signs for the foot paths and found myself outside a guesthouse looking at a sign telling me the way to Freiburg was in the direction I had just come. I retraced my steps to find where I missed my “turn” and kept along the path.

I seemed to have lost the way again and found myself on a dirt road used by logging trucks. It had been used after a rain, so the tire tracks cut deep into the now dried mud. The road lead downhill quickly, but I didn’t realize quickly enough that I had made another mistake. Fortunately, I was able to trace the thin outline of possible paths in Google Maps and found myself in touch with the yellow mountain biking road signs before long. Eventually, the white signs for the foot path showed up again out of the blue and I stared back up the path, wondering what faeries had hidden it from me when I needed it. For the most part, the proper footpaths were small and most scenic.

I eventually emerged into a town who road led to the valley, the rail line and the highway connecting back to civilization. As I reached a bus stop, the once an hour bus also arrived before I even had time to read the route information. A briefly contemplated just jumping on the bus as the driver looked at me questioningly, but I let him go on. I would have had to ride it to the end of its line and transfer to get back to Freiburg. It was only another 6km and the weather was fine.

Along the valley, I was able to mostly follow the bike path, apart from the railroad and traffic, so other than staying out of the way of the two-wheeled commuters it was a nice walk into the blinding, setting sun.

I came across an Aldi in the town right before Freiburg and popped into to buy some stuff for the wine party the Australians and I had brainstormed the previous night. I was feeling fancy (and hungry) and decided to go for some Sekt, aka German champagne.

Ten minutes later, I was walking along the river where many people were stretched out on the grassy banks or splashing in the shallow water. It looked refreshing, but I carried on back to the hostel, stopped in the kitchen to eat a bowl of cereal, then went up to shower and put on clean clothes. I bumped into L in the room, but she disappeared before I was out of the shower. I was ravenous and no one was around, once again, so I reheated a second portion of the shakshuka with three eggs and a hefty chunk of “fladenbrot” (not very flat flatbread). After finishing, A showed up in the kitchen asking for dinner recommendations. I suggested he go to the Aldi.

He was back in about 20 minutes with sandwich materials and a bottle of Riesling and after he finished his meal, I cracked open the sekt to begin the wine party. He went to shower immediately L returned and after a surprising amount of stage direction, people started to congregate around the table. I had called a German guy with a radler over to join and a few other Germans — some guests, some volunteers — and a girl from Spain also joined. It was a good little impromptu party, but when the subject of ages came up, it was a bit shocking to find out that with the exception of the one hostel staff member, everyone else was 19 or 21 years old. All the wine went as did the packages of mini chorizos and cheese cubes. Despite walking 40,000 steps with very little food during the day, I made up for the calories and then some at night. I also tried a package of something called Jaffa cakes (also sometimes “soft cakes”) where a bit of spongecake with fruit jelly is coated in chocolate. They reminded me a lot of “dominos,” a Christmas time treat.

Running Total: 33095.6 RMB (USD 4651.09)
Daily Average: 363.7 RMB (USD 51.11)

Freiburg (in Breisgau) is a small town in the southwest corner of Germany, and like pretty much every small town in Germany, is home to a university. More importantly, it sits amid the foothills of the Black Forest and has a well preserved, picturesque old town with a number of canals (basically gutters) with streams of cool water flowing amidst the sidewalks and streets. Those streams are a good way to cool your feet in the summer, but a life threatening danger if one is walking while texting. Freiburg might be my favorite spot in Germany so far…, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Volume 2, Days 89-90

My Flixbus from Stuttgart to Freiburg was not set to leave until 2pm, and though it was far out of the center of town, it was easily reachable through the S-bahn. More importantly, I had no rush to leave the hostel, where I tried to get as much work as possible done before noon, when I had to check out and throw my luggage in the basement for two hours while I made lunch and continued working. I was able to turn the remaining taco meat, single tortilla, lettuce, bell pepper, and tomato into a hearty taco salad, but since there was large surplus of left over baked goods from the breakfast, still slipped a brotchen into my bag for on the road.

Other than sitting around on my computer all morning/early afternoon, I made one trip to the supermarket to return my collection of bottles.

The bus ride was uneventful and I tried to continue cramming German, though I’m wondering what the point is with an imminent expiration date my by presence in the Deutsch-speaking land. It didn’t help that the bus ride was rather nauseating. Strange how every bus in Europe is such a white knuckle experience when I find no complaints with the buses in China.

After a stop in Karlsruhe (which I was skipping, but is apparently the model for Washington DC with a circular layout), we cut south into the Black Forest. We pulled into Freiburg a little after 5 pm, dropping off right in front of the so small train station there isn’t even a visible station. Though the hostel would have been a 15-20 minute walk under normal circumstance, I took the S-Bahn to save effort. The ticket machine on my side of the tracks was cash-disabled, but with a ticking clock of the soon to arrive tram, I was able to cross the tracks and buy my ticket from the other side. Of course, the trams were equipped with on-board ticketing machines so it was kind of pointless.

The hostel was on the other side of the town, just outside of old town, as hostels are wont to be. The hostel has a feel of an old farm house with high ceilings and a view of the vineyards on the steep hill behind it. I checked into the the big dorm, scoped out the kitchen facilities then went to find an Aldi. Since it was located in the old town, I was able to get a brief look around including the painted Schwabentor.

Having had a large lunch, I kept it simple with dinner, eating a light salad and taking a day off from the alcohol. I finished up my computer work and tried to study a bit before giving up and reading in the hammock. One unfortunate (or is it?) thing about the hostel is that they intentionally do not have Wi-Fi.

There were a lot of people around the hostel, mostly individuals who quietly kept to themselves and one large group of teenagers. I wasn’t completely antisocial my first day and struck up a conversation with a Taiwanese girl hunched over a German textbook. It would be nice to do a program where one is just a student for a couple weeks or couple months focused on language classes.

Running Total: 32800.3 RMB (USD 4607.29)
Daily Average: 368.5 RMB (USD 51.77)

Volume 2, Days 86-88

My second attempt to traverse a distant from city to city via Blablacar was also a failure. I’m really not sure if it is something you are supposed to book in advance or go after last minute, but multiple reachouts to the driver(s) who posted their plans far in advance were completely stonewalled, and resulted in automatic defaults.

I spent the morning kicking around the hostel, splitting my time between studying German and optimizing/testing/debugging my vocabulary training system, which seems to be coming together quite nicely. Of course, with regards to German this means the biggest shortfall is the lack of clarity and consensus among the vocabulary lists, so I have some tedious days ahead of me coming through word lists to try to clean up the data.

Shortly after noon, I gave up on getting a cheap ride and took the bus over to the train station. I was a little surprised to find that Ulm did not offer a cheaper “short distance” fare, but paid the stupid bus fare for the 3-4 stops. In the station, I bought my ticket and noticing that the once an hour regional train was delayed a bit, looked rather longingly at the two bakeries and Burger King in the train station, but decided against grabbing any sort of lunch. To be fair, I had had a spot of breakfast, toasting up the remainder of the rye loaf from yesterday and smearing a bit of sour cherry jam rescued from the “food share” bin.

The train was both late and more crowded than I have ever seen a train. It didn’t help that there were so many bicycles and baby carriages occupying the lower level section to which I, with my large suitcase, was also relegated. After nearly a ten minute delay, we set out from the station and the conductor made a beeline for the two African men, whom I was secretly judging for being assholes and taking up seats that should have been given to mothers with young children.

It was about an hour to Stuttgart, and I emerged into the haunted house of a train station. Apparently, Stuttgart has a “big dig” of its own with some endless construction project to revitalize the area around the train station. As a result, except for the trains themselves, the inside of the train station has been mostly gutted. I went directly into the underground station and paid what also looked like an usurious price to take the public transport some four stops to my hostel, which a short but uphill climb from the above ground U-bahn station. (Hills! Stuttgart has hills. It is literally the first city I’ve visited in Germany on this trip to have hills.)

I checked in, which entailed climbing the stairs to the third floor (where ground floor was even up a half flight of stairs) to drop my stuff off in the small and body odor infused dorm room. I glanced around suspiciously to figure out who has not been keeping up with their laundry on these hot, sweaty days.

I sat in the bar lounge for a bit before heading out to find an Aldi. Though there were many closer supermarkets, I needed to track down an Aldi in order to top up my phone credit. It sucks so bad. I had almost 3 euros of credit left on the last day of the billing term, but the next four weeks need 3.99. It’s not possible to buy just 1 euro of credit, so in order to keep my phone internet connected for an extra 9-10 days, I am shelling out 5 euros. This was no light decision, I have spent the last 2 weeks thinking about it. I suppose on the bright side, I own this number, so the extra credit will theoretically still be there when (if) I return to Europe.

While in the Aldi, I decided to buy a bunch of groceries to cook up a storm in the kitchen. I was feeling Tex-Mex and bought ground beef, kidney beans, “wraps,” etc. It was a good, if longish, walk to and from the Aldi, taking me through the central pedestrian zones of Stuttgart, including the site of the ongoing annual wine festival. (Stuttgart also has vineyards in the area, so maybe on another trip it would be fun to go visiting those on a Weinwanderweg). Now, while it would have been good to try some wine at the festival, I saw the prices and nearly soiled myself. I could buy two bottles of wine in the supermarket for the price of a sample (0.1L short pour). The residents of Stuttgart don’t share my price sensitivity and every table was full of people swigging wine and chowing down on the Swabian fare.

I cooked, ate two burrito-sized soft tacos, and shoved the rest of the food into the fridge (I really lucked out that there were tupperware containers available). I stopped myself after finishing almost half the German wine bottle I had picked up and wandered the hostel somewhat bored. I had eaten out on the terrace/biergarten, but nothing was happening there. I settled in the bar lounge with my computer and a desire to do more German studying. Though there were only a handful of people in the lounge and all were immersed in their own electronics, the staff brought out bowls of peanuts. I resisted as long as I could, but the temptation was too great, and then the desired effect took hold and I ordered a beer from the bar. Fortunately for me, they have a special discount on your first “welcome” drink.

A skinny fellow sat at my table with a store bought salad and fruit cup, and after a while I got to talking to him. He happened to be from Hong Kong and I tried to pick his brain about the protests. We commiserated. He had to leave and an Italian fellow I had seen prowling about with a bottle of beer essentially took his place. The Italian kid was interesting… he had spent his month long holiday on a motorcycle tour, cutting up through Eastern Europe in the Scandinavian countries (even reaching Finland’s northernmost point), but as he had to be back in work on Monday had traversed 600-800 km a day the past 2/3 days. Despite the utter exhaustion of the return fugue, he was keen to go out and party.

A Swiss couple invited us out to a “pub” and we assented. In my reading up on Stuttgart, I had spotted a few interesting places to possibly get a glass of beer. There was a bit of an adventure that night. One museum was turned into a pool party of some sorts. We looked but didn’t stop there. Instead we traversed the main stretch of town to go to the Palace of the Republic, a former public toilet turned into a bar. It was popular, with hundreds of patrons spilled out into the plaza all around it. The beer wasn’t anything special and after sitting a bit too long on the ground we made maneuvers. I was thinking about finding a late night kiosk for a cheap beer, but the Swiss couple were keen on checking out the wine festival.

Of course, seeing the prices with their own two (four?) eyes sent shivers down the spines of those even used to the insane prices in Switzerland. The aim shifted to getting some food for the Italian, who ordered a Flammkuchen which took ten minutes to come out. After some discussion, it seemed the best plan would be to return to the hostel, where the Swiss couple redeemed their welcome drink coupons for cocktails and I drank from my bottle of white in the fridge. The Italian, rested up now, carried forth on his resolve to go clubbing at some techno party and disappeared into the night. He in turn was replaced by a British cyclist, who also happened to be a militant vegan. After the conversation going on a bit too long for my taste, I went upstairs and crashed.

Running Total: 31784.9 RMB (USD 4431.80)
Daily Average: 369.6 RMB (51.53)