Blog

Volume 2, Days 84-85

It isn’t very often (outside of China) where you have a pair of distinct cities which constitute the new and old versions of the same city, but Ulm and its neighbor on the other side of the Danube, Neu-Ulm, make up a strange pair. Though one could walk from one Hauptbahnhof to the other in about twenty minutes, they are indeed different cities and even belong to different Federal States.

---

I spent the last morning in Augsburg drinking coffee and studying. I had absolutely zero time pressure with a 12 o’clock checkout and 12:50 Flixbus scheduled, so at some point in the morning I went out to return a couple of plastic bottles, take a look at the city’s metro map (so I could figure out how to go to the Flixbus stop), and pop into one shop I had seen which was selling specialty coffees. I was able to buy a small bag of some Viennese style coffee that turned out to be quite tasty.

I was feeling restless, so I checked out of the room before 11 am, but sat downstairs and had one more coffee (apparently there was a coupon for a 1 euro coffee in the keycard holder for the room). It’s funny how every few days, my German studying seems to take on new urgency. I had started reading through an online textbook just for the extra exposure to vocabulary and a few brief texts, but decided that morning to plow through a chunk of exercises–manually typing up German sentences and then checking them for accuracy.

Eventually it was time to go, and I hobbled with my ever heavier suitcase up the street to catch an S-Bahn out in the Northern P&R station where the Flixbus would swing by. It’s really hit and miss with the Flixbus whether you get dropped off centrally or out in the hinterlands, but I appreciated the clear cut nature of having to take public transportation out there when I would have hemmed and hawed about trying to walk to the train station.

I had a long sit in the sun waiting for the bus and started to worry about the remaining less than two weeks of this European trip. I did some research, not caring about my ample data reserves with only a day or two left in the billing period and came up with a basic outline for how to get me to the airport at the crack of dawn on my departure day. I continued the research and made some decisions from the comfort of the Flixbus

Ulm was only one stop and a bit more than an hour away, but once again we were dropped off in basically the middle of nowhere. I checked Google Maps and at least found some functioning navigation. The S-bahn station was undergoing repairs with a substitute bus running its route. I bought my ticket from the machine at the S-Bahn, but hopped on the bus across the busy street. Downtown, around one of the stops where I would be best served to change buses, I noticed a woman get on the bus from the front and shake hands with the driver. After chatting with him a moment, she called out for everyone’s tickets. So that’s how it goes. I thought it was odd how so many people had gotten off at that stop. It looks like she caught two people, but more importantly, I hadn’t purchased the wrong ticket or anything embarrassing like that.

At the next stop, I got off to transfer because I needed to cross the river into Neu-Ulm where my independent hostel was located. I let myself into the converted apartment building via a door code and followed the instructions left for me on a slip of paper. I made myself a coffee, then decided to go explore a bit of the town.

Ulm is famous for a number of things. The first is that it is the birthplace of one Albert Einstein, so I made sure to track down the commemorative fountain with his likeness. Unfortunately, his birth house–at least according to Google Maps–is in the middle of a construction site. The second is the Muenster, a church which purports to have the tallest steeple in the world. That seems to contradict what I read about Cologne Cathedral, though there may be a technicality in that the Ulm Muenster wasn’t completed until the middle of the 19th century. In any case, I shelled out the 5 euros to make the dizzying climb to the top. Thirdly, Ulm is famous for its unique buildings (most-crooked, narrowest, etc) in the Fischerviertal (Fisherman’s Quarter). I never actually found anything that fit those descriptions, but it is a charming couple of blocks to walk around.

After seeing most of what there was to see in Ulm, I returned to the hostel and paid my room fees. I had a rather stilted conversation with the manageress in German before excusing myself to run to a grocery store so I could take advantage of the kitchen.

There was a conversation going on at the kitchen counter when I returned, but as I was chopping vegetables the clock struck midnight and they all turned into pumpkins. Everyone suddenly had to leave, and I was basically alone in the common room for the rest of the evening. While I was eating my curry and rice, there was a knock at the back door and a neighbor girl politely asked for something. I couldn’t find anyone in charge of the hostel to help, so I apologized profusely.

I read a bit before heading up into the room where my large, surly looking roommate was on his laptop (to the best of my reckoning he had been in the room using his computer for a solid six hours when there were tables and desks available downstairs). I finished the last two episodes of Babylon Berlin to find a satisfying conclusion to the story and went to bed.

---

Coffee beans (250g)	5.29
“Discount” Coffee	1
Streetcar	3
Flixbus	5.05
Bus (w/ transfer)	2.3
Muenster Turm	5
Hostel (2 nights)	41
Curry ingredients	8.62
Total:	71.26 EUR (555.8 RMB) (USD 77.82)

Running Total: 30931.2 RMB (USD 4330.99)
Daily Average: 368.2 RMB (USD 51.56)

Volume 2, Days 82-83

To move on the next city Augsburg, which isn’t very far from Munich, presented something of a challenge. I suppose it is too close to Munich for there to be any Flixbuses offering a route (even as a leg of a longer stretch) and a cursory check of train prices some days back left one panting for breath.

As I enjoyed a fairly leisurely morning with an entire dorm room to myself, it was time to get serious about Blablacar, a carpooling platform. I registered for an account and found someone driving that way from around 1 pm. That left me with too little time for a stroll in the English Gardens, but plenty of time to catch up on work.

The hostel had a fairly early checkout time of 10am, which put a cramp in my style when I suddenly remembered I had a collection of empty bottles I needed to run to the recycling point. That left me just enough time to drink a cup of coffee and head downstairs, where I put my suitcase in storage and plopped down on a couch to keep working.

Unfortunately, my request for a ride automatically timed out after about an hour, so the Blablacar fell through. I knew I couldn’t check in at the next hostel until 3 pm, so I wasn’t in any particular rush to get out of the hostel, other than one trip to a supermarket to grab a salad and a new flavor of Rittersport bar (brownie…not very good).

Well, I was stuck with the train after all, and I suddenly realized how dire my suitcase situation is. A lot of plastic from the undercarriage was been worn away over the past couple weeks when I decided to stop worrying about “fixing” the wheels and just letting it go on the raw plastic wheel cores. Well, I’m down to about two weeks and this suitcase isn’t going to do much rolling about. Because of that, I shelled out the money (probably unnecessarily) to catch a bus to the train station, where I paid an exorbitant rate for the local commuter train. Seriously, this kind of train would cost no more than 600 yen in Japan, but 15 effing Euros in Germany. It seems each train I take gets more expensive than the last, even though the distances I cover are shorter and shorter. The worst part was no one checked my ticket. That’s 30 euros so far that I could have saved by not buying a ticket, compared with a what 50 euro fine… The expected value of train hopping might be positive.

Grumbling over the insane amount of transportation costs incurred so far, I hauled my luggage the 1.something kilometers from the train station to the hostel. It was not a fun walk and it was unpleasantly warm in the afternoon sun. I checked into a modern looking cafe that serves as the office of this building which is a combination hostel, hotel, and apartment. Weird.

The rooms were spacious with full sized lockers and those weird double size bunkbeds (double on bottom, single on top). Good for me that I was assigned a bottom bunk, but sucks to be stuck with a top bunk. There was one guy in the room taking a nap and this being Augsburg, I wasn’t expecting much of a crowd.

I walked a block over to the main square to find a supermarket and get a bottle of water. Unfortunately, the Rewe didn’t stock their “Ja!” brand cheap mineral water, so it was still cheaper to buy (sugar free) lemonade than another brand of mineral water. I grabbed a pastry from a bakery and headed back to the hostel where I ordered an espresso and sat around for about an hour.

I puttered around most of the day until this scary looking Eastern European guy came into the room. He was angry with me for taking “his” bed (even though it was assigned to me) and muttered in Russian or Albanian or something. I figured it was time to head out and find a “real” supermarket, and walked some distance to comparison shop a Norma, Edeka, and Aldi. I am quite the connoisseur of German supermarkets.

Regarding the hostel, the one thing I had been looking forward to was an impressive kitchen. However, it seems they decided to get rid of the kitchen in order to have more bedrooms. In place of a full kitchen, there was a “kitchenette” with two mini-fridges, a tea kettle, and a microwave. That was certainly a real disappointment. Taking this in mind, I bought a microwave meal and returned to eat it in the room, where a table and chairs were helpfully provided.

I chatted with the Indian guy who had been napping when I first arrived. He was in town for a job interview, and spent a good chunk of the evening studying (as best I could tell) copying sentences from Google translate by hand.

I enjoyed a quiet evening, watching two episodes of Babylon Berlin and reading a few pages of “Rabbit, Run,” which I picked up from the library in Frankfurt but have barely looked at.

---

Pfand return – apple pastry	-1.14
pre-mixed salad and choc.	4.08
Bus	1.5
Train	15.3
Hostel (2 nights)	38
Lemonade	0.64
Mohnschenke	1.6
Espresso	1.6
Aldi	3.96
Total:	65.54 EUR (511.2 RMB) (USD 71.37)

Running Total: 30201 RMB (USD 4216.66)
Daily Average: 368.3 RMB (USD 51.42)

Volume 2, Days 80-81

The Russians did not create the chaos I had anticipated. In fact, they did their best to whisper and fumble around in the dark when they returned around midnight. In the morning, I went to the small, smelly kitchen on the second floor to make coffee. I was going to sit there to read the news, but the internet did not seem to work. In fact, though I had no problem on my laptop the day before, I had yet to be able to get my phone to connect to the wifi.

I went to the lobby and found a similar situation. I was able to use my laptop, but my phone was consistently rejected by the router. Strange and unfortunate. I worked productively until about 10am and paid witness to the stream of checkouts. Its funny how often I am hanging out by the front desk during the peak checkin/checkout times, as if I am seeking out my own personal Fawlty Towers sketch.

I didn’t have a lot of plans for Munich as I had been there before, and more importantly, do remember visiting. Though, to be honest, I only remember one big museum and Dachau on the outskirts. Being of age now, my priorities were oriented around my stomach and my liver and a bit of research told me that the best, i.e. only, time to get those famous boiled white sausages was before noon. The LP had recommended one place, so I walked the 15 minutes towards the city center.

Along the way, I popped into the insanely elaborate Asamkirche and followed the pedestrian stretch up to the Marienplatz, where sits the Rathaus and a handful of churches. I spotted one place advertising 1 euro per sausage (before noon) and it did seem that every other establishment was a brauhaus of one kind or the other. Taking a closer look at the Rathaus, I spotted a sign with the timings of the glockenspiel show and killed the spare 20 minutes before 11am by taking a loop around to the cathedral. It was just another cathedral. The same could be said for the mechanical whirring of the central clock. It really strains the eyes to be looking into the sky with the sun right there.

After the show I went to track down the recommended brauhaus, but decided it was too expensive for my tastes. There were a couple of more casual eateries in the area around the Viktualienmarkt advertising 2 wurst and a pretzel for 6 euro something, but that was still a little too steep for me. So, I backtracked to find the one place that seemed too good to be true. It wasn’t. I asked for three wurst, but only got two and the small hefeweizen was just the right size for a Bavarian breakfast.

It was a snack and I followed it up by going immediately for another snack at an old bakery making things I had never heard of before. It was a little pricey, but I sat in the garden for close to an hour sipping on my coffee and eating the fried dough that is a schmalznudel.

For my non-gastronomic tourist activity of the day, I figured I should check out the Residenz, since that appeared to be the top number 1 thing to do. Of course, I passed by the Hofbrauhaus on the way and checked out the menu. Since I had all afternoon to kill and a belly full of food, caffeine, and alcohol, I decided to go all in on the Residenz and by the combination ticket including the palace, the treasury, and the Cuvilliestheater. The treasury and the palace included audioguides without headphones, meaning one’s arm got quite a workout holding it up to one’s ear. That also means that the pensioners just crank the volume all the way up and dangle it around their neck.

The treasury was nice and small, just ten rooms, though there was more than 5 hours of audio available describing the provenance of almost every single piece.

The palace was enormous, despite everything saying only portions of it are available to tour on a given morning or afternoon. There were so many chapels and halls and series of rooms and secondary exhibits of bronze sculptures, porcelains, silver, miniatures, etc. that is was quite overwhelming. Of course, a lot of it was destroyed by fires over the years, rebuilt, bombed, rebuilt, so there was an interesting mix of styles and authenticities, but that is to be expected from any of the palaces I’ve seen in Germany (this trip). My number one takeaway from the palace were the beautiful wood inlay floors in one series of rooms.

I had made record time through the palace with a scant 2 hour visit, and poked my head into the theater. The idea that one even has to buy a ticket to look in a insanely baroque theater is insulting. Who cares if it is only 3 euros, it takes 30 seconds to have a look and by that point one really can’t see straight anymore.

I took a small loop around the north side of the palace to pass through its gardens (which lead on to the 50 million mile long English gardens) to kill time and think about dinner. I was debating going to the Hofbrauhaus. Despite the expense, it would seem worth it for the experience. On the way back, I went in, found plenty of available tables, but it didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to be there alone on Saturday night, so I took a chance to head back to the hostel to see what was up.

Nothing was up. Thirsty, I popped over to the supermarket to grab a couple beers, cheese, salamis for a little snack, and spent a while in the common room to get a feel for the vibe, but the hostel was pretty dead. Making lemons out of lemonade, I hung out in my empty dorm room snacking on the vittles obtained from a second (let’s throw the diet out the window) visit to the supermarket.

An interesting anecdote about my two supermarket runs. The first time, I only had 4 cents and the cashier, who was anxious to go on break, just took the four cents and waved me away rather than pull out 94 cents of change. The second time, I went to the same lane he was (still) working and handed him 3.60. He didn’t even think twice but kept the extra cent. So, one could argue, I went out of my way to (partially) pay him back.

The Russian, who had been out, came back around 9pm and promptly went to sleep. I found that odd, and went to bed early myself.

---

Weisswurst (inkl. tip)	8.7
Schmalnudel & Coffee (w/ tip)	6
Residenz combi ticket	13
Snacks	7.06
More snacks	3.59
Total:	38.35 EUR (299.1 RMB) (USD 41.78)

Running Total: 29292.8 RMB (USD 4091.52)
Daily Average: 366.2 RMB (USD 51.14)

Volume 2, Days 78-79

While eating my breakfast in the morning, I bumped into T, the Seattle-based fellow who was also on the walking tour the day before. Since we were both planning on visiting the Nazi-era parade grounds, I suggested we walk out there together. It was a fair distance outside the city but not an unreasonably long walk.

There is supposed to be a circuit around the lake that allows you to look at the congress center, the zeppelin field, etc., except for some reason a lot of the nice wooded paths were closed because landscapers were cutting down/removing trees. We wasted close to half an hour trying out different paths, all of which had dead ends. Despite all this, the sheer scope of the grounds was overwhelming. For example, the annual Nuremberg Volksfestival, which was setting up for a 2 week run starting the day I leave, only occupied a small chunk of the central avenue.

We went to the documentation center, which for some reason is what the Germans call every museum related to the Nazis and found that there was a really good offer on the municipal museums. Single entry was 6 euros, but for an additional 3 euros one could get a day pass covering eight different museums, one of which I had been planning on visiting anyways. Sold!

Of course, after the long walk to the rally grounds, walking around them, and the long winded explanations of the included audioguide, I was feeling progressively antsy and increasingly inclined to fast forward or skip sections as we moved through the museum. Other than the room introductions, the audioguide merely provided a translation of the exhibit by exhibit texts, so it was both a good exercise to practice reading German (while being fed the answers) and a way to know when to cut off the audioguide and move on to the exhibit.

It was after noon by the time we were finished with the documentation center and since we were now on the clock to get our money’s worth, we went to the S-bahn stop in front of the museum. However, Nuremberg charges exorbitant rates on the public transportation–over 3 euros for a single ticket or 8 euros for a day ticket! There were two other museums (the site of the Nuremberg trials and a museum of industry culture) on the outskirts which would have made sense to spring for the transport pass, but after a moments deliberation, we decided to skip them and do a handful in the center of town (after a lunch).

We walked a brisk pace and were back within the city walls in record time. I made a beeline for a snack shack that I had seen advertising 6 euro schnitzel with french fries which I had been dreaming about. It was a good deal with a huge mountain of fries.

After that little pit stop, we visited the City Museum in Fembo House. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but provided an overview of the history of the city in pure German, though there were two exhibits with headphones playing lengthy audio plays in English–one concerning the resolving of minor details for the end of the 30 years war (though the treaty was signed in Westphalia the details were hammered out in Nuremberg) and subsequent party, the other concerning a Neptune fountain that the city sold to St. Petersberg.

The next museum–Spielzeug Museum–was far more exciting with extensive exhibits on both the traditional tin toys manufactured in Nuremburg as well as a decade by decade history of trends in toys in the 20th century. It was quite the nostalgia trip. There was also a collection of video games on the ground floor available to play, including the original Super Mario Bros. Two German kids were trying and failing to even get past the first goomba on the first level. I crushed them.

We hung out there until the museum closed at five, then headed over to the Albrecht Durer house (open until 8pm!), which I had originally figured I would check out. At 6 pm there would be a tour by an actress pretending to be Durer’s wife, but since that incurred an additional fee, we decided to just got through it on our own–with the included audioguide. It was surprisingly detailed and informative with some cool multimedia terminals and an entire room of copies of Durer paintings.

After finishing the fourth museum, we celebrated a cost effective and educational day with a beer at the pub in the city gate next to the Durer house. It is a popular spot for locals where people grab a drink and sit on the square. The beer was okay but nothing special.

We decided to get a second drink and went over to another pub I had done some research on. It was a little better and significantly quieter so we could get a table on the street. T had majored in German and with the influence of alcohol we were playing around with a mix of languages. The table next to ours was hard not to eavesdrop on with an obviously bad date between a boorish American man and a local.

After the huge lunch, I wasn’t up for a big dinner, so we swung by the supermarket where I put together a salad and we found some chilled beers in the fridge case. T wanted something more substantial than a salad and we ended up splitting a freezer pack of chicken cordon bleu. It does seem a waste not to use the nice kitchen to actually cook something.

The Australian guy I met in Frankfurt was cooking in the kitchen and we all hung out a bit, but the evening wrapped up fairly quickly. I still had an entire dorm room to myself.

---

Tageskarte	9
Water	0.44
Schnitzel mit Pommes	6
Dunkel Bier	3.4
Gold Bier	3.2
Groceries	5.27
Total:	27.31 EUR (213 RMB) (USD 29.81)

Running Total: 28289.3 RMB (USD 3958.80)
Daily Average: 362.7 RMB (USD 50.75)

Days 76-77

Honestly speaking, day 76 (i.e. Tuesday) was something of a complete wash. I hung out in the hostel until after noon, working on my stuff on my computer and taking the opportunity to cook another bag of rice with the shredded carrots I had bought to fancy up my salads.

When I was buying over priced my train ticket to Nuremburg, an Indian fellow tried to sell me his leftover monthly rail pass for a few euro less than the cost of a ticket. There was something fishy about the way he constantly moved the ticket around and the mere fact that he was trying to get a few euro back from a ticket that he had ostensibly invested 100 euros in. I ignored him and followed the rules. The train conductor checked my ticket almost immediately, but I noticed that as we stopped several times on the way to Nuremburg, she never made any subsequent rounds to check anyone else who boarded.

It was raining in Nuremburg when I arrived, but I plowed through the drizzle to reach the hostel, which was just inside the city walls on the south side (the train station is just outside the old city wall on the southeast corner of town). I spent a few more hours working on my computer in the lobby of the relatively upscale (looking) hotel which also serves as a hostel. The facilities were certainly nicer than the typical backpackers, but there was still a decent shared kitchen and dining area.

The rain never let up so I didn’t even bother taking a walk around town, but I did pop over to an Aldi to get some yogurt and fruit in an attempt to take a few days of diet correction.

In the evening, I lounged in bed and watched a movie on my computer, before drifting asleep.

---

Train	12.3
Hostel (3 nights)	71.09
Fruit	5.65
Total:	89.04 EUR (694.5 RMB) (USD 98.03)

Running Total: 28053.1 RMB (USD 3959.70)
Daily Average: 369.1 RMB (USD 52.10)

Volume 2, Days 74-75

I ended up hanging out in the Airbnb until midday, mostly because I was waiting for the one kid to wake up because I had hung up some laundry in on the rack in his bedroom. It was pretty nice to have the entire morning to myself with a desk and a newfound motivation to study German. I got quite a bit done, but by midday as the sun shined brightly, I was eager to find my way on to the next destination.

I dutifully purchased my overpriced train ticket and kicked myself when we arrived in Bamberg and no one had bothered to check it. I could have bought a really nice meal for that kind of money. I’m not sure if it was the shortness of the route or the fact that it was Sunday, but there it was.

As things should be, the hostel I booked was a fairly short walk from the train station in the direction of the old town, the entirety of which is apparently a UNESCO World Heritage site. I had to call a phone number to get in touch with the hostel management in order to check in, but was rewarded by getting an entire dorm room to myself. It is so strange that despite the hostel being fully booked on Saturday night, come Sunday afternoon it was almost entirely empty. In fact, there were basically just three residents (apart from myself) for the two days I spent there: the aforementioned manager (who was orginaly from Greece), a Turkish-German college student cramming for a test, and a British girl on a world ramble.

There was a fully stocked kitchen with attached living room and an upstairs deck where I could have hung some laundry if I hadn’t just washed everything. I really liked the hostel because it had free coffee, tea, and cereal. It was too bad I arrived on a Sunday so I didn’t really have the option to cook for myself.

I kept studying for a stretch of the afternoon before going out into the town to have a bit of a look around. Bamberg is quite special with several rivers and canals creating islands within islands, while each hill is topped with a cathedral or monastery. In my hoppy bias, the town might be most famous for its “smoked” beer made with a deeply roasted malt. The city hall is on an artificially created island (reportedly because the prince bishop refused to cede any land for a public building).

Though I was tempted by many cafes and gelaterias, I decided to stop for a smoked beer at Schenkerla, a brewery that has been in business since 1405. Though I could have popped in for a full dinner, it seemed the thing to do is order a beer through a small window and stand in the street drinking it. I was worried that the beer would be too smoky (I’ve certainly been burned by American style craft beer makers who pour liquid smoke into beers and cocktails), but it was a full bodied, rich black beer. Quite nice.

After the beer, I headed back in the direction of the hostel to find something cheap to eat, eventually backtracking all the way to a cheap looking Chinese restaurant. There was a bit of a line and it was indeed quite cheap, especially when I decided against ordering a 5 euro meat dish. Despite ordering in Chinese, they gave me a fork and I burned the roof of my mouth, which is something that would never happen with chopsticks.

I returned to the hostel and hung out in the kitchen space, chatting a bit with the characters introduced above and getting some insight into their interpersonal dynamics. Considering most people zip by Bamberg on a day trip, they would all count as long term residents. I played a few rounds of Rummikub with the British girl before going to bed.

---

Train	14.3
Hostel	34
Schenkerla Rauchbier	3.1
Stir-fried veggies on rice	2.7
Total:	54.1 EUR (422 RMB) (USD 59.78)

Running Total: 27153 RMB (USD 3846.66)
Daily Average: 367 RMB (USD 51.98)

Volume 2, Days 71-73

Falling off the wagon sometimes hurts. My body, unaccustomed to processing alcohol, woke me up in the middle of the night and left me unable to fall back asleep. So I laid in bed and tried not to disturb any of the peacefully snoring folks around me. At 7 am, I figured it was a reasonable hour to go ahead and get up, but as I was heading to shower someone slipped into the shower room ahead of me and locked the door. I stood in the hallway in my towel waiting twenty minutes for that asshole to finish washing. To be fair, I hadn’t even realized that the door shut, let alone locked, and had been hopping in and out of the showers on previous afternoons on full display to anyone who would happen to walk by. But the key fact is that it was a room with two showers.

I enjoyed the breakfast buffet and tried to eat my money’s worth, going so far as to be unpleasantly stuffed. Though, it was really hard to tell if the upset stomach later was a consequence of the hangover, the overeating, or the bus journey to Würzburg. I had plenty of time in the morning to eat, turn in my recycling, pack, and checkout for the 11am bus departure.

I hadn’t really read up on Würzburg, but was excited to be staying in a hostel called Babelfish, after the universal translator in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. The hostel did not disappoint. Located across the street from the small town train station on two floors of an office building, the handpainted decor captured the classic aesthetics of an old backpackers hostel. I was luckily able to check right in, despite being a bit early and plopped down on the bed to take a nap.

After waking up, I made myself a coffee in the shared kitchen and tried to work on my computer a bit. The weather was rainy so I wasn’t in a rush to go look around town. Despite being only like 3 in the afternoon, a Korean traveler was already starting on beers from the hostel bar. Looking at the activity board advertising a beer tasting at 8:30, I figured it would be better to wait. We chatted a bit, and J was just starting a 3 week vacation and trying to learn a bit of German. I encouraged him to practice with me.

It was a pretty lazy afternoon and other than going on a supermarket run for dinner, I didn’t have much on the docket. I watched another episode of Babylon Berlin back in the room, finishing up about the time a motorcyclist checked in. He had driven 200 km in the rain to attend some punk concert in the town that night. I wasn’t even tempted to join, but expressed consolation that he would miss the free beer.

J and I went out into the town to find an open supermarket, which was not easy as there was some Christian holiday involving Mary flying up into heaven. Würzburg was basically a ghost town. Even on Sundays, though most shops are open, the plazas and squares are still full of life with people enjoying a coffee or a drink, but there were hardly any people around and even the bakeries were all closed up. A few of the foreign snack bars (Chinese noodles, Turkish doner) were still open for the day, so one wouldn’t starve to death.

The train station was another story with all of its businesses open, including a drug store, two bakeries, and a quasi-convenience store. I didn’t buy anything at the moment since it would all be ready eat and I wasn’t ready for dinner yet, but I headed back some time later after there was a critical mass people hanging out in the common areas with beers, including an old American, a young American, and an Australian. I wasn’t too keen to be buying 2.5-3.5 euro beers from the hostel, but was able to sample a local Würzburger Hofbrau with a good sized bratwurst for the same price.

I had a long, somewhat contentious talk with the Australian who insisted that I had to have a hometown.

I popped down to the train station one more time that night to grab a canned Paulaner hefeweizen and stretch the time before the beer tasting. I was surprised by how many people had disappeared by that point, but the hostel bartender literally included one of each of the beers they sold (including a radler and an alcohol free beer) in the tasting. So there were about a dozen beers sampled by only 4 or 5 people. And its a crime to waste beer in Germany so it had to all be finished.

When that task was finished, the young American guy, who originally wanted to go out to a bar to spend 60 bucks his dad had sent him to have a good time in Würzburg because his dad had lived here in the 80s, wanted food so a couple of us went over to the Turkish place to find that they were already closed for the night…leaving just McDonalds as an option. It didn’t take much effort to talk me into a McFlurry and it was interesting how long and complicated the ordering process became with a typical American blazing ahead with English.

---

Pfand return	-0.98
Flixbus	8.09
Hostel (2 nights)	42
Bratwurst & Beer	4.33
Hefeweizen	1.14
Total:	54.58 EUR (425.7 RMB) (USD 60.44)

Running Total: 26118.7 RMB (USD 3708.51)
Daily Average: 367.9 RMB (USD 52.23)

Volume 2, Days 68-70

The Flixbus stop in Bonn is a fair distance from the center, down by the museum mile. Because my bus wasn’t scheduled to depart until roughly 12:30 and the hostel checkout was 11am, I had an awkward hour to kill. I took a S-bahn over to the bus stop, and just hung out on the street corner near the isolated office parks. Though gray clouds built up overhead, I did not get pummeled by rain while stuck outside and exposed.

It was a nice ride to Frankfurt with the road following the Rhine river valley for some distance and then as if by magic turning east along the Main river. We pulled up along the south side of the train station and alighted amidst a lot of cops armed to the teeth with military weapons. Something must have happened to bring in the special forces, but everything seemed normal.

My hostel was in the train station area, which also happened to be the red light district. Compared to Hamburg, Amsterdam, or Antwerp, it was really just some casinos, pornography shops, and the odd club advertising American-style table dances. It wasn’t really much and didn’t bother me quite so much as the sheer concentration of junkies on the streets living in their own bubbles.

The hostel was an oasis, or fortress, amidst the outside world and I was able to check straight in as it was nearly 5 pm at this point. I was a bit shocked by how expensive the tourist tax was, but it was offset by a chip for one free breakfast. It’s weird how several cities in Germany have a 1-2 euro per night visitors tax, which is waved if you are on a legitimate business trip. Wouldn’t it make more sense to tax the business people whose companies are paying the tab anyways? I helped myself to some free coffee (and tea available all day), then changed into running clothes to take a jog along the riverside park and see a bit of town.

On the way back, I swung by the Rewe around the corner to pick up some stuff to cook (finally! it’s been a while since I had kitchen access), but I was surprised to find the smallish location didn’t stock their store brand mineral water. I guess it is too cheap for the location. While I was shopping, all hell had broken loose and cats and dogs were falling from the skies in buckets. Mixed metaphors aside, I and a dozen people huddled in the entrance way pondering how long the downpour would last and if it was worth making a break for it.

After a while, I decided to just run the 100 meters to the hostel and got completely drenched in the process. I went straight in to shower and prepared some pasta and salad afterwards for my dinner. I used up the last of the pasta I had purchased in Ghent and had been carrying around with me for nearly two weeks. The small kitchen/laundry room is in the basement of the hostel, where there is also a pool table and foosball table, so I went up to the main room to eat my meal.

I’m not sure if there was an organized event happening, but several people were playing chess in a row of three boards while another table had a poker game going. After finishing my meal and cleaning up after myself, I grabbed a chessboard and waited for an opponent. It was nice to stretch some different mental muscles.

Water	0.19
Bakery	3.6
Sbahn	3
Flixbus	10.17
Hostel	63
Pasta sauce & Salad	4.78
Total:	84.74 EUR (661 RMB) (USD 94.05)

Running Total: 25470.8 RMB (USD 3624.19)
Daily Average: 374.6 RMB (USD 53.30)

---

I decided to save my free breakfast for my last morning, but it did look like a pretty decent spread. I enjoyed a couple cups of coffee and tried to get a bit of work done in the morning.

Late morning, I finally decided to go out and see a bit of the town. I wasn’t aiming for any particular museum as none of them sounded too enticing from the descriptions, but there were plenty of landmarks and old buildings to pass by, including the Nikolaikirche, the Dom, and the Rathaus, which is called the Römer for some reason. The old town basically just consists of two squares and the alleyway connecting them, but is delightfully German looking.

I continued heading east until reaching the remains of the old Jewish cemetery, the wall of which is covered in names. I took a pass on the adjacent Jewish museum and turned back into town.

For lunch, I stopped in the kleinmarkthalle, which had a nice assortment of delicatessens and eateries. I stood in the queue of the only counter with a line, where they were selling wurst by weight with mustard and brotchen on the side. I still don’t like mustard, but the flavor is not as offensive as it used to be. Finishing that “light” meal, I promptly drooled over the brightly light glass of a bakery counter, choosing a giant piece of a coffee cake like construction with poppy seed paste in it. While I ate the fleischwurst at a half counter sticking out of the wall of the market hall, I took the hefty chunk of cake out on to the streets and all the way back to the Römerplatz to find a bench.

I headed north from the old town into downtown, which certainly has its share of office buildings, but mostly appears to be just a giant strip mall. Still, being Europe, the atmosphere was lively with buskers plying their trade and endless fountains and statues to look at. I went out of my way to find the Börse, i.e. Frankfurt’s stock exchange, which is in a classical, but otherwise nondescript building.

On one of the squares, there appeared to a somewhat temporary set up of food carts. Given the high concentration of apfelwein vendors, it could be assumed that it was part of a festival celebrating Frankfurt’s local specialty drink.

I had barely spent 2 hours and already covered the entire city on foot. I was tired and thirsty, and after swinging by the hostel I went out to track down a decent sized grocery store so I could buy cheap bottled water. There was one in a shopping mall north of the train station. The mall also had a Chipotle, but why anyone would pay 9 euros for a burrito is beyond me.

I chilled back in the hostel the rest of the afternoon, working on the computer at times and also watching another chapter of Babylon Berlin up in the room. Around the time it started picking up with the wave of check ins, I figured it would be good to clear out of the room on another jog. This time I followed the green band which marks where the old city walls used to be. An entire loop around the city was a mere 6 kilometers.

Continue reading “Mainhatten”

Volume 2, Day 65-67

After spending possibly too much time in Cologne, I was off to Bonn for the weekend, or in other words…probably too much time. I hung out at my hostel in Cologne for most of the day because there was no sense in arriving in Bonn before 4pm when the hostel reception would be staffed.

The Bonn train station looked like it had seen better days and was a little difficult to navigate the platform with construction machinery blocking most of it and rain streaming through holes in the roof. The bad weather was continuing and I hung out at the underground entrance of the train station for a few minutes debating whether I wanted to hop on the underground street car or walk the mile across town to the hostel.

The rain was barely a drizzle to begin with and after a few moments it seemed to taper off, so I set out to walk it. It turned out to be no problem at all other than having to avoid some puddles. Bonn hardly qualifies as a town, it conveys such a sense of quaintness that I can hardly imagine it ever serving as the capital of west Germany.

The hostel was nice enough, though a bit overpriced in my opinion. I was the first to check in to the 8-bed dorm room with an en suite bathroom and windows facing the main street. It was spacious and clean.

Thinking that the rain was done for the day, I changed into my running clothes and cut the two blocks over to the Rhine, where I jogged a decent stretch up to a bridge and back again. As my jogging path cut through a section of the old town, the skies opened up and started raining. I popped under an awning to check the map then decided to just power through the last stretch since I was going to shower anyways.

I cleaned up in the room and made a dinner from the leftover sandwich materials from lunch (after a week of trying to be healthy with salads and whatnot, I finally caved into cold cuts and bread).

I chatted a bit with one roommate, a German guy who was in town for some event involving computers and university students. Another traveler showed up, dripping from the rain. He turned out to be part of the same event and the two of them conversed on their own.

It turned out there was a bar across the street that is quite popular on the weekends. It noisy for most of the night.

Breakfast	2.5
Salami, Cheese, Bread	3.66
Train ticket	8.2
Hostel (3 nights)	78.75
Water and Chocolate	1.13
Total:	94.24 EUR (735.1 RMB) (USD 103.97)

Running Total: 24489.5 RMB (USD 3463.79)
Daily Average: 376.8 RMB (USD 53.29)

Volume 2, Days 61-64

Before checking out of the A&O Hostel to head to Cologne, I needed to run to the supermarket to cash in my collection of empty water bottles. Though I did my best to cash them in for a yogurt and some q-tips, I ended up getting some cash back. It still feels weird to me to go up to a register, hand the cashier a slip of paper, and receive money. It’s a complete inversion of the script, but I didn’t want to spend money just for the sake of spending money.

Though the regional train was more expensive than a Flixbus from Aachen to Cologne, it was still the better choice as both hostels were train station adjacent while the bus stops were some distance away. It was a pleasant ride and not very crowded. As soon as we were out of town, the conductor came by to check tickets. I noticed he gave all the foreign-looking students a lot of extra scrutiny.

As soon as you step out of the central Cologne station, you are confronted by the city’s enormous cathedral, which was reportedly the tallest structure in Europe prior to the erection of the Eiffel Tower. I glanced at it, but hurried over to the hostel to pay for my reservation though I was too early to check in. Its not a bad hostel. They gave me a discount off the list price and there are good perks like a secure luggage room and free padlock rentals.

After stowing my luggage, I had some time to kill and wondered a bit around the old town to learn the layout. Central Cologne is not too big and mostly very commercial and touristy. When my stomach started growling, I began looking for some cheap German street food, eventually trying a frikadella (small hamburger patty) with potatoes and a vendor outside a food court attached to a supermarket.

Needing a coffee, I wondered over to the Starbucks in the train station. Like the Starbucks in England and Belgium, they do give a small discount for using your own tumbler, which brings the coffee price more in line with the standard (though Starbucks portions are significantly larger). It wasn’t a great environment to hang out in, so I was back at the hostel promptly at 2pm to check in and even took a quick nap.

In the late afternoon, I decided to walk around town a bit and check out the cathedral. The plaza in front of the cathedral is always swarmed by tons of tourists to the point that one sometimes has to even queue to enter that church. There is neither a fee for admission nor any charges for taking photos, which is surprising as that seems to be the standard in Germany. The inside was awe inspiring, and my timing was perfect to enjoy the stained glass with the bright afternoon sun. After making a circuit around the cathedral and popping down into the crowded crypt (with nothing to see), I went around the corner from the entrance of the church to buy a ticket to go up the tower. It was a good climb, and I stopped on the way up (and down) to look at the bells with perfect timing to hear their thunderous roars. While I would definitely recommend paying the money for the stair climbing session, I couldn’t help being annoyed by so many people who don’t seem to understand how to move in narrow spaces.

After visiting the church, I changed into exercise clothes and enjoyed a short (6km) jog along the Rhine as far south as the Chocolate and Sports museums, before showering, and going to the Penny discount supermarket to source a healthy dinner. In order to fill myself up, I bought two bags of salad and sprung for a package of “salad seeds” which contain a mixture of sunflower, pumpkin and pine nuts. I walked over to a small green space between the terrace cafes and the Rhine to eat my meal with a backdrop of a million street buskers.

---

Pfand return	-0.07
Regional Train	18.1
Hostel (4 nights)	68
Frikadelle mit Kartoffeln	5
Starbucks coffee	2.39
Cathedral Tower	5
Two salads	5.46
Total:	103.88 EUR (810.3 RMB) (USD 114.76)

Running Total: 23255.8 RMB (USD 3293.7)
Daily Average: 381.2 RMB (USD 53.99)

---

In the morning, I decided to spring the for hostel’s “small breakfast,” which included a bowl of muesli and yogurt and one cup of coffee at a third the price of the all-you-can-eat deal. I hung around the hostel most of the morning working on stuff before eventually deciding to go out to one of the city’s many museums. Taking the scenic route, I decided on the fly to grab a small sandwich in a pretzel-y bun from one of hundreds of always crowded bakeries.

Arriving in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, I was stopped from buying a 9 euro single ticket by the advertisement for a 18 euro City Museum Pass. Stopping to look up the terms and conditions, I discovered that the Museum Card was a really good deal, covering the handful of museums which had caught my eye and being valid for two days. Having already wasted half the day, I needed to shift all my museum going to the following two days in order to extract maximum value.

So, I headed back to the hostel to hang out and rest and work and what not. At one point, I went out of my way to go to a fancy little espresso shop that made really good coffee (and sold a wide range of espresso machines in retail). In the late afternoon, I went for a longer run (8 km), cross two bridges across the Rhine. It rained slightly after I finished, so although I bought a pair of salads from the Penny, I decided to eat in the dorm room rather than outside. I feel its a real crummy move to eat food in a shared space like that, but one of my roommates had brought in takeout the previous night.

Actually the living situation is quite weird. It appears that my five roommates are all long term residents. Two of them are around the room most of the day, watching videos or playing games on their mobile devices. The others only show up to sleep, one of whom comes and goes dressed for business. Another one made the strangest sounds in the middle of the night–a loud, rhythmic rubber squeaking. Being awoken by the loud sounds, I was a little freaked out that some kinky shit was happening, but I could never figure out exactly what caused it. It would come and go.

Breakfast	2.5
Tomato & Mozzarella Sandwich	3.2
Doppio Macchiato	3.7
Salads	3.99
Total:	13.39 EUR (104.4 RMB) (USD 14.79)

Running Total: 23360.2 RMB (USD 3308.48)
Daily Average: 376.8 RMB (USD 53.36)