Day 182: Return to Seattle

My flight would leave at 7:40am. I took an Uber at 6am a mere 15 minutes away to the airport.

Waiting in line to check my bag was a bit stressful due to the erratic behavior of the line attendant. I had a mobile boarding pass, but the line attendant kept repeating over and over "You must have a printed boarding pass", followed by a passing mention of "Mobile boarding passes are okay, too", before repeating ten more times how we absolutely must have a printed boarding pass to be in line. When I was just a few people from the front of the line, the same lady starts yelling out "Do we have anyone flying to Seattle?! Everyone flying to Seattle gather here!". I couldn't understand what the hell she was on about now, seeing that it was almost exactly 70 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave -- long enough that I needn't be expedited but short enough that she couldn't possibly want us to prioritize passengers on other flights. I ignored her, and checked everything perfectly fine at the counter, glad to finally be out of earshot of her. The rest of the boarding process was uneventful and I was in the air on schedule, on my way home.

Landing in Seattle, I met up with my girlfriend at the baggage claim (Yes! We survived 182 whole days apart!) and took the light rail back to the University of Washington, near where I had leased an apartment for the year. We stopped at Cafe on the Ave (our all-time favorite Ave cafe) for lunch. Even after all those stellar European cafes, Cafe on the Ave still holds its own pretty well.

I'm pretty sure weather conditions were exactly like this when I left half a year ago.
Thankfully it is now considerably warmer.

If we count the day I left Seattle, I spent just over half year abroad. I haven't done the exact calculations yet, but because of my quick pace of travel (typically a week in each location, then bus, train, or plane to the next), I spent about 10,000 USD. Perhaps a third of that was on inter-city transportation costs. Compared to simply living in the US, $10,000 is an astoundingly low amount to spend for half a year of traveling the world. But it's unfair to make a direct comparison considering I had no income of my own during that 6-month period.

Perhaps I will write some further posts, but until then, this journal has ended. See ya.

Day 181: In Baltimore

The next morning another aunt and uncle pair, Matthew and Phyllis, picked me up at noon to take me to Ellicott City for sandwiches and coffee.

The city is beautiful and visibly historic, and the cafe we went to looked so cozy with its courtyard full of tables. There was very loud live music there, making hearing anyone sitting across the table from you difficult. Of all possible times and places, I could not think of a more inappropriate moment to host a live rock concert than Sunday morning/afternoon at a cafe with a small courtyard. The absolute perfect venue for socializing, drinking coffee, reading the paper or a book, and the cafe thought what we needed was a bloody rock concert.

The food was good, but we left rather quickly after finishing our meals.

Ellicott City is filled with all kinds of knick-knack shops, and I had a good time exploring a few of them while hearing about the history of the town from my aunt and uncle. Returning to my cousin's place in the afternoon, I spent the rest of the day relaxing on the sofa while rays of sun filtered through the front windows. The house wasn't close to anything interesting, giving me the perfect excuse to lounge around all day while packing away my things for tomorrow's flight.

Day 178-180: In Lancaster, To Baltimore

The next few days I would eat better than I ever had in my six months of traveling. Every new aunt-uncle pair that came down to Lancaster to see me would take Grandma and myself out to a fine dining establishment and I would gorge myself on delicious food and drink. When I wasn't eating, you could find me lying supine in a recliner or sleeping in my own queen-sized bed. I think so much food and rest confused my body, and I spent most of my days in a soporific state.

When it was finally time to leave for Baltimore, I was loath to go -- but it had to be done if I ever wanted to get back to the west coast of the country. My uncle, Rich, was kind enough to drive me 40 minutes to York, where I snatched one of the last remaining tickets to Baltimore.

The ride went quickly enough, and at the bus terminal in Baltimore my cousin, Kelsey, picked me up and took me back to her place, which she shared with her boyfriend.

That night we went out to Fells Point, one of Baltimore's most happening areas of town (according to my cousin).

We met up with a few of my cousin's friends and went bar hopping. I can better appreciate the bars typically closing at 2am in the US, since a night out in Europe often entails staying up until four in the morning or later.

I look unnaturally out of place and tan in this photo

Day 177: To Lancaster

I took the metro to Port Authority Bus Terminal and caught a 12:25pm bus to Reading, PA, where I transferred buses to Lancaster.

My aunt picked me up from the Lancaster bus terminal and took me over to my grandmother's home where I would be staying the next few days.

It was beginning to dawn on me that my travels were coming to a close. Suddenly I had a room and bathroom to myself, a queen size bed, car transport around town, and as much free food as I wanted to eat. In exchange I'd be giving up meeting friends from all around the world, exploring a new, major international city every week, and experiences so unique and unexpected there's no way I could summarize them in a single sentence fragment.

I had dinner with my grandma and another aunt-uncle pair as soon as I arrived.

That night, I slept like a baby.

Day 176: Fireworks on the East River

Today is the Fourth of July! And also my last day in New York City.

I still hadn't thought of anything that I really wanted to do or see, and it being a federal holiday I presumed there wasn't too much open. So off to the park with my book I went.

I hadn't been reading too long before the writing on my shirt caught the interest of a park passerby. Of all people, it was the same guy I had seen performing on the piano two days ago.

This guy

We started talking and our discussion went on for another 45 minutes before he decided to wander off. His name is George and he's a retired linguistics professor. I told him about my trip and he told me about his time abroad on a professor exchange program in China. An all-around pleasant exchange.

After stopping at a Starbucks for a cool, cozy place to sit with WiFi, I met up with Kate at an Indian restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we took the metro to a park on the East River to get a good view of Macy's 4th of July Fireworks that night.

The park was fully saturated with people, but we still managed to find a patch of grass to sit on until the show started, then found an alright spot to stand at while the fireworks went off.

Of course, photos can never do fireworks justice.

But you can expect the main, NYC Fourth of July fireworks show to be stellar.

After 30 minutes, it was over. I walked back to my hostel and Kate took the metro back to the Village area.

Day 175: Reading in the Park

After taking tally of the remaining sights I wanted to see, I found there wasn't much left on my list. I considered going to MoMA, but it's relatively cheap $14 student tickets and renown couldn't top my historical lackluster experience at art museums, often finding myself way out of my element and over my head to fully appreciate whatever I'm looking at.

What I did find more appealing was stopping at a used bookstore to pick up a copy of Gulliver's Travels for $5, finding a shady bench in Union Square Park, and sipping on a Slurpee from 7-11.

And that's exactly what I did.

In the late afternoon, the day's sun and heat turned into storm clouds and wind. I took the metro back to the hostel before things got any hairier.

Day 174: Midtown with Kate

After restocking on groceries in the morning I met my cousin Kate underneath the Washington Square Arch in Midtown Manhattan at 12:30pm.

Kate was in NYC doing a research internship at NYU.

We spent some time talking on a bench in the park while listening to one of the numerous jazz groups that busk there during the weekend.

From the park we walked to the adjacent NYU main library, which I loved (plentiful seating, outlets, WiFi, reading rooms with fantastic views of the city!). Visitors aren't normally allowed, but security was kind enough to give me a one-time pass.

We were getting hungry, so we walked over to a weekend market that Kate had seen on her way to the park. I got a mango and pineapple smoothie, but had to go back a few hours later and get myself a pita gyro as well. We returned to the park, me with my smoothie and Kate with her kebab, and listened to a performer who had rolled a grand piano with wheels into the park to perform.

According to Kate, the university often rolls pianos into the park. Although we saw multiple performers on the piano, there wasn't any indication that it was a university sponsored event. On both sides of the piano are stickers with "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" written on them.

After the second performer ended his set, they opened the piano up to passerbys. I wasn't confident enough in my piano skills at the moment, and Kate and I went down to the fountain to take a selfie for our parents.

We decided to go to Starbucks, Kate to study and myself to work on my blog. On the way there, we passed by the piano again. It was sitting empty, and my brain waves at that moment were running at just the right frequency for me to do something spontaneous like sit down and play something. I played the only thing I was reasonably confident I wouldn't mess up too badly, a sort of variation on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star where I first play the classical, harmonically perfect version of the piece then switch into a jazzed up version of the harmony and rhythm. Some people in the audience laughed (good naturedly, I'm sure) when I first began playing the "straight" version of the piece, but I got a healthy round of applause after I hit the last notes on the jazzy variation. The whole experience made me look forward to getting back to my own piano even more!

Thanks for the fun day, Kate!

After a few hours at Starbucks, Kate left and I followed shortly after, back to the hostel.

Day 173: World Trade Center and Times Square

After taking care of some necessary business in the morning, I took the metro all the way down to Lower Manhattan to where the World Trade Centers were located.

The World Trade Center is actually a building complex of five buildings, a memorial, and a museum -- the modern day buildings in the process of replacing the original seven buildings that collapsed during the September 11 attack. The main building we see today is technically called One World Trade Center, the others being sequentially named Two WTC, Three WTC, etc. Although Five WTC and Six WTC are not being rebuilt, one, two, three, four, and seven are.

I visited the memorial for the fallen towers and those who died in the attack. It's quite sad just being there. Water falls from all sides into the pool below, and slowly makes its way to a smaller hole in the center, where it falls down one last time. It's designed in such a way that you are unable to see the bottom of the second hole, no matter which angle you look from. On one of the sides of the smaller hole there is a somewhat obvious door for easy maintenance access, which I didn't like because I felt like it took away from the purity of the minimalist monument.

I spent some time exploring the nearby waterfront and Westfield mall before grabbing a calzone at a pizza shop and hopping on the metro elsewhere.

The white spikes belong to the modern architecture of this Westfield mall.

My destination was Columbia University. 

I wanted to see the campus and library of one of the most prestigious universities in the US, but when I got there I was in for a surprise.

Thunder and lightning!

The main campus looked beautiful, if small, but a flash downpour sent me scampering back towards the metro station.

I was intending to go directly back to the hostel, but after I emerged from the metro station during a transfer the sun had already come out again and I heard someone mention going to Times Square. I was only a few blocks away so I figured why not (more like "why not in spite of my socks being wet").

The sidewalks are, of course, inundated with tourists, but I found a space with some breathing room at the south end of the square to snap photos of the buildings from while the sun set.

After some confusion on the metro ride home with route changes during the weekend and scheduled changes for the June 30th to July 3rd period, I made it back to the hostel around 10pm. I had had a few interesting experiences on the metro that day. The first being when a flutist/beat boxer performed for us while on my way to the WTC. The second being when a clearly mentally unstable man kept raising and lowering his arms above his head on my way to Columbia, at one point telling the people sitting across from him "Ayyyy fuck you!" before remaining silent for the rest of the trip. The final experience involved another man playing a bluesy version of When the Saints Go Marching In on his harmonica on my way to Times Square.

It had been a very productive and busy day.

Day 172: Staten Island, Rooftop BBQs, and Carnegie Hall

I went with my latest kiwi friend to Whitehall Terminal to take a free ferry ride by the Statue of Liberty, onward to Staten Island.

We got a bit lost on the metro on the way and had to backtrack a few stations until we finally got to where we wanted to be. There's no tickets to be reserved, you just arrive at the ferry terminal and congregate in a large crowd until they open the flood gates and everyone flows on board. The ride to Staten Island takes only 25 minutes.

Jersey City, Manhattan, and Brooklyn from the Staten Island ferry terminal

After arriving on Staten Island, I got the sense that the ferry ride was free in part to help inject some money into the area via hungry and bored tourists. The ferry terminal looks like a mall and is easily the most lively part of the city. In stark contrast to Manhattan, Staten Island feels like any other small sized American town -- boring, quiet, and poor.

We bought a few snacks from a convenience store and consumed them in a nearby park before catching the next ferry home at 1:30pm.

I went back to the hostel while the kiwi went to see the Brooklyn Bridge. I was planning on going to the Museum of Modern Art, which I heard was free from 4 to 6 that day, but by the time I got food inside of me it was already 5pm and I was too jet lagged to go out. At 6pm there was a barbecue put on by the hostel atop their roof. The trains running by every few minutes and Empire State Building in the distance made for a really great vibe.

I had to leave the BBQ early to go to Carnegie Hall for tonight's concert. Fortunately it only took me 20 minutes to get there from the moment I walked out of the hostel front door.

The recital that night truly was an eclectic mix of old (like 16th century old) English music, minimalist pieces like Philip Glass, and self compositions by the performer. 

In general, I have an active dislike for minimalist piano pieces, but felt like the quality of the concert hall and piano this time were able to do the pieces more justice this time around (opposed to when I had to sit through an hour of minimalist piano performance in Belgrade). Overall, it was a tolerable recital, but not, for me, worth the $30 student tickets I purchased.

After the concert I went directly back to the hostel to get some sleep.

Day 171: Central Park

In the morning I took the E line to a few blocks south of Central Park.

 I walked all the way from the south end at 57th St. to the north end at 110th St.

Central Park has at least a dozen baseball fields of this size

Fellow tourists in Sheep Meadow

Perfect place to relax in the shade, Sheep Meadow

Beethoven and I meet again

A family by "The Lake". There's a beautiful fountain directly behind me, but photos don't do it justice.

Rowers in The Lake

The massive Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. Popular with joggers.

Residential units with a view of "The Pool"

Central Park has these beautiful sedimentary rocks that are sometimes exposed at the surface. They shine in the sunlight from the silvery specks that spot their surfaces. Apparently it's this same kind of rock that makes the ultra tall skyscrapers of Manhattan possible, without which they would lack sufficient structural integrity. 

After ascending and descending Great Hill at the top left corner of the park, I took the metro back to Midtown. I had passed by Carnegie Hall on my way to the park, and stopped there once again to see if I could snatch some cheap tickets while I was here. I bought $30 tickets for "An Eclectic Exploration" piano recital, to be held in the Weiss Recital Hall tomorrow night.

I returned to the hostel and was so tired from walking and jet lag that I didn't find the energy to go back out again until a newly met friend from New Zealand took me out around 10pm to get drinks at a nearby bar, The Beast Next Door.

It was a good time, but paying 7 USD for a beer was a bit of a painful experience. I went to bed shortly afterwards.

Day 170: To New York City

To say I was excited to finally be going back to the US would be an understatement. Oh the possibilities! Suddenly I would once again be the most fluent speaker of a country's official language, all the signs would be in English, and I could finally use the citizens only fast lane during passport control.

I woke up an hour before my 8am alarm and took my time getting everything I needed together, leaving the hostel around 9am. 

My train to Amerika!

I arrived at Schönefeld Airport with plenty of time to spare before my 12:25pm flight. Unfortunately, there was congestion at Schönefeld and our plane didn't leave the ground until 1:40pm. I should say that I was worried, because my original layover in Keflavik, Iceland was only 55 minutes, but I was partly curious if I had any chance of receiving some sweet, sweet compensation.

When it was apparent our plane would land only five minutes before my connecting flight to Newark, I could smell cash like a loan shark. I had dreams of lounging in 100 euro a night Icelandic hotels, courtesy of the airline. I envisioned the airline bending over backwards trying to satisfy my insatiable demands, begging me to take thousands of dollars in compensation in exchange for a later flight -- eventually chartering a private jet for myself once they realize that it's their only hope of not losing every last penny they own in airline court.

But it was not to be. They announced that the connecting flights (there were multiple scheduled to leave around this time) would all wait for us, and I made it onto my next flight uneventfully (if you could call walking out of one plane and onto another within five minutes, with no waiting in lines whatsoever, a non-event).

After landing in New York I bought a ticket for an express bus into the city. A new bus was supposed to arrive every 15 minutes, but presumably because it was rush hour, and the bus company can't plan for an entirely predictable event, I had to wait 80 minutes for the bus to finally arrive.

After the 45-minute drive to Manhattan Island, I bought a weekly metro pass and took the E line a few stops to Queen's Plaza, where it was a 5-minute walk to Q4 Hotel and Hostel.

It was only 9pm, but my body was still on Berlin time (3am) and all I'd had to eat that day was a small lunch on the plane and breakfast in Berlin. I wanted to cross the street and get a kebab or a slice of pizza, but excessive pride wouldn't allow me to accept a $3 ATM fee at the hotel or brutalize a business to the fees charged by credit card companies for such a small transaction -- so I walked half a mile to a nearby 7-11 and splurged on cliff bars, banana bread, and a healthy smoothie. Back at the hostel, I played an intense ping-pong match with another guest from Saudi Arabia before showering and turning in for the night around 11:30pm.

Day 169: Turkish Market

I had made a friend, Laura from Hungary, last night -- so today we agreed to meet at 3pm at the biweekly Turkish Market in the southeast part of the city. The market was full of plenty of fresh produce, fresh smells, and fresh people. We stopped to watch a musical performance along the river.

After perusing the market, we stopped at a cafe to the south for drinks and conversation. We moved our conversation to a nearby park before heading back to the hostel and topping the night off with a beer. We both had modes of transportation to catch in the morning -- Laura a train back to her current home in the Netherlands, and myself a plane to New York City -- and went to bed relatively early.

Day 168: Berlin's Books by Bike

I rented a beat up single gear bike from the hostel and rode into downtown. I had identified a few locations of interest: two libraries and the "gay museum", which purportedly has exhibitions on LGBT life in Germany throughout the ages.

Eight kilometers later, I found myself at Berliner Stadtbibliothek, one of the two locations that the Berlin State library calls itself home to.

It had everything I love about libraries, including plentiful seating, free WiFi, outlets, and, as a bonus, one euro coffee at the builtin cafe. I spent some time there working on my Spanish and finishing up blog posts before heading out to the next closest destination on my list, Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek.

AG is the second building housing the Berlin State Library's collection, and was partially funded by the United States during the beginning of the Cold War. Whereas Stadtbibliothek is where books on medicine, law, mathematics, computers, (among other things) are kept, AG holds books on religion, social sciences, music, etc. There's a fairly wide selection of sheet music available to be checked out. All of these cool state libraries I've been visiting makes me wonder what Washington State's state library is like. (I can already feel my expectations being lowered in anticipation of that Google search).

I spent some time at AG browsing the shelves and taking advantage of the free WiFi before getting back on my bike for the long ride home. I took a wrong turn after passing through Alexanderplatz and ended up pedaling a few more kilometers than necessary. Luckily, Berlin is mostly flat.

Day 167: German Museum of Technology

After a shockingly long 12-hour sleep and a flash downpour in the afternoon, I took the tram and metro to the German Museum of Technology.

I arrived a mere 2 hours before closing time, but most of the signs being in German sped the whole process up for me. The museum showcases German trains, windmills, textile machines, computers, planes, ships, among other things. I found it amusing that the very first sign of the computer exhibition states that "The German engineer Konrad Zuse built the very first computer". Only later in the exhibit is there a brief mention of the English engineer Charles Babbage, who is largely considered the "father of the computer" (at least according to the English Wikipedia). Zuse was actually the inventor of the first working electromechanical programmable, fully automatic digital computer, a distinction that I'm sure most museum goers don't care much to make -- but perhaps a distinction that the 50-years-before worth of analog computer creators might feel a bit more strongly about.

After seeing everything I cared to see at the museum I walked to Potsdamer Platz.

After the rain earlier that day, it had been partly cloudy and very pleasant to be outside. Good smells abounded and my shorts and sweater felt extremely cozy.

Looking down on the Landwehr Canal from the 4th floor viewing deck of the German Museum of Technology

After the 20-minute walk to Potsdamer Platz I conceded that I needed to buy something to eat before going back to the hostel, and got myself a kebab before settling at a Starbucks with the cheapest coffee I could buy. I wanted to use my laptop while I was there, since I had been having issues connecting with my laptop (but not my phone) to the WiFi back at the hostel.

After some blog work, I went back to the hostel after the Starbucks shut down at 8pm.

The cost of cooking yourself breakfast and dinner, a fast food lunch, drip coffee, round trip transportation, a single, 4-euro tourist activity, and accommodation for a day in Berlin? About 32 euro (~36 USD). Berlin is a city that I can just barely fit into my preferred budget.

Day 166: Hold Up

I was able to get a decent amount of sleep -- perhaps 7 hours -- after last night's shenanigans.

Although I was now in one of the most expensive places I had ever been, I was still trying to stick to my budget of 30-40 USD per day, but was finding it difficult. Seeing that yesterday I had had a free lunch and made myself breakfast and dinner, I still spent 3 euro on coffee, 8 euro on taxis and trams, 14 euro on accommodation, and about 30 euro at the clubs, for a grand total of about 61 USD, I was ready to slow way, way down on my spending. And so today, to lessen the blow to my bank account from last night, I didn't spend a single euro.

The courtyard of Sandino World Improvement Network

I had sufficient groceries remaining from my visit to the discount grocers, and in the evening I walked to a nearby park to sit on a bench, watch the jets of water from a fountain blow in the breeze, and contemplate life.

Day 165: Charming Encounters and Berlin Nightclubs

In the morning I went out with Annie, whom I had met in the dorms last night. Annie was "made in China" but now lives in San Francisco with U.S. Citizenship. Turns out Annie is good friends with one of my university friends, Grant, whom I had a class with at the University of Washington. Bizarre that we should meet in Berlin!

We visited Berlin Cathedral Church, an utterly massive Protestant church on the Spree River.

The entry fee is 6 euro normally, and 5 euro for young looking people that carry their old student card with them. The nave sits exposed to the central, towering dome in a way that makes the building feel strangely hollow for how thick and intimidating it looks on the outside.

You can climb more than 200 steps to the viewing deck, which circles the central dome at the top. It really gives a sense of just how flat and expansive Berlin is.

Looking down upon "Lustgarten". A dangerous name for a garden adjacent to a church.

After the cathedral we decided to go to a nearby Vietnamese place, but on the way Annie got distracted by "Bandy Brooks, Homemade Ice Cream". To describe what happened next, I have to talk a bit about Annie.

Annie is one of the most charming and vivacious persons I've met on my trip, and is often innocently naive in the way she expresses herself. Her English isn't perfect, but she's not afraid to say whatever happens to be on her mind, usually in a blunt or otherwise unusual manner. After describing to me her very busy itinerary for the day, and myself telling her that I would quickly wash up and have breakfast so we could leave, she quipped back "Take your time, because I will take mine". Later that day she would fawn over 65 euro sandals, "So cheap!" -- a price that made me feel uncomfortable just looking at them. (Ten minutes later she would be the owner of a brand new pair of cheap, 65 euro sandals, despite having left the hostel this morning in new looking sandals).

She even told me that the only reason she voted for Donald Trump in the past presidential election was because "his son Jared Kushner is so smart", a sentiment that I found amusing since it was recently examined on an episode of Last Week Tonight. (The conclusion drawn by the show was that the primary facade, real or deceptive, of Kushner's great intelligence was the juxtaposition of his quiet and empathetic conversation style to his father's blunt and belligerent style -- that we couldn't decide one way or the other if Kushner truly does have a great mind hidden behind his stoicism because, publicly, he's done almost nothing but listen and empathize with others problems).

Annie is the kind of person that will spontaneously tell someone on the street how handsome they are or how cute that dress looks on them.

So when Annie walked into Bandy Brooks and asked in the most timidly hopeful voice at the register "Is your ice cream really homemade?" that struck off a 10-minute conversation with the owner that ended in both of us receiving free double scoops of ice cream and free currywurst and fries at the neighboring business, also owned by the same guy. My uncomfortably tight budget was henceforth eternally indebted to Annie's charm.

The owner we (by "we", I mean mostly Annie) conversed with had led an interesting life. He was Dutch, but grew up in Kenya and met his German wife while she was on vacation there, before moving back to Berlin with her.

After that pleasant experience, we walked through a park and Alexanderplatz to an Einstein Kaffee chain to sit down for a coffee. I was finally able to try an einspänner coffee, a concoction that I had been searching for in Vienna.

Einspänner is supposed to be a strong black coffee served with whip cream on top. One for two ain't bad.

After chatting at the cafe, Annie left to continue checking off items on her itinerary and I left for the hostel.

Around 10pm Annie came back as promised and her, myself, and two guys from Hong Kong went out in search of Berlin's hottest nightclubs. If you've read my past blog posts, you'll know that, historically, I never enjoy nightclubs. Tonight would be a partial exception.

We first went to Berghain, a club infamous for its seemingly arbitrary entrance criteria.

After waiting in line for anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, bouncers at the door will either give you the nod and allow you to pay for entrance, or the boot and send you away. We arrived around 12:30am and waited in line for 30 minutes before finding ourselves underneath the bouncers judgmental gaze. While waiting, we had seen perhaps 20 to 40 percent of those in line be rejected. Apparently they liked the cut of our jibs because they let us in to the club to pay the 12 euro entrance fee. (I wish they hadn't.)

We payed 3.3 euros each for small bottle beers and waited for the awesome to start. (It never did.) The music that night had a strange sound to it. Sort of like house music inspired by the intro to Michael Jackson's Thriller, except it never settles down into something interesting to the ears. The music was also, of all things, fairly quiet for a club. We decided to leave after 30 minutes, completely let down by the high expectations set by Annie and whatever NYT or GC article she had read on the internet before coming to Berlin.

[It was only later after some googling that I realized we had seen only one tiny portion of Berghain and that their main club floor, which had been completely blocked off to us while we were there from 1 to 1:30, is massive and cavernous. This is why researching a place before you go is important!!!]

Of course, we hadn't given up on the night yet, and took a taxi to Sisyphos.

It was partly my idea to go to Sisyphos, for no other reason than that I had heard its named mentioned in the lyrics of a Vulfpeck song I liked. After another 30-minute queue, we each payed the 15 euro entrance fee and went inside. While we were there, there were two dance floors open. The smaller one was located in a single room about the size of a small single-family home. The larger dance floor was the ground floor of a factory that used to manufacture dog treats. I actually rather enjoyed the larger dance floor. It was reasonably packed, but not uncomfortably so, and the mix of strobe lights, bright flashes of blue and red, and the artificial smoke made for a really neat experience. To enter the dance floor, you walk through a room with green lasers bouncing off mirrors in a symmetrical pattern. If you turn your phone flashlight on, you can use it to "write" on the wall, leaving green marks that fade with time. I'm still not sure the science behind all that. 

I was having a good time, and I think Annie was too, but the two Hong Kongers were still not fans of the music and wanted to leave ASAP. I was a bit peeved, since this was Berlin, a city renowned for its techno clubs, and these two came clubbing with us despite not liking techno music -- but it was already 4am, I had burnt through most of the 40 euro I had brought with me, and a future version of myself was telling me that it was probably best if we all go back to the hostel now.

[Unlike Berghain, it seems we were actually able to witness all Sisyphos has to offer.] 

We took a taxi back to the hostel and I made myself a PBJ before sleeping for the night.

Day 164: To Berlin

My bus left at 12:30, so I had an easy time packing up my things and carefully walking through the shade to the station in the afternoon heat. I had intended to look up directions from the destination to my hostel while en route, but the internet on the bus cut out as soon as we crossed the Czech/German border and I had to steal WiFi from a different bus once we arrived at the station. Public transportation is extremely expensive in Berlin, even more so than Seattle. A one-way ticket will cost you 2.8 euros (3.13 USD). It's possible to buy a week pass for 30 euros, which is what I had originally intended to purchase, but the ticket machines are confusing to use (even in English), and the line behind me was so long that I bought a 4-pack of tickets as quickly as I could for 9 euros and got out of the way. The tickets are good for unlimited transfers on any form of public transportation within some reasonable time limit, but that doesn't help much when all you want to do is take the tram 10 stops into the city center.

Once I arrived at Sandino World Improvement Network it was already fairly late in the day, so I paid a visit to a discount grocer and stocked up on groceries for the next few days at least.

There were some friendly people in my dorm, and I went to sleep rather early around 11.

Day 163: Back to Reality

Now that I only had one last day in Prague, had essentially seen everything I cared to see, and had no more friends left, I was free to get down to business on my laptop at the hostel. After practicing my Spanish and buying a bus ticket to Berlin for tomorrow, I updated my CV and started searching for jobs for once I arrive back in Seattle. I still had a semi-open offer from my old employer (conditional on their budget and need for new hires, I presume), but I wanted to be as prepared as possible and exercise all my options. I applied to 3 or 4 jobs and that, needless to say, took most of the day. An hour before sunset I was starting to get zombie brain so I walked to the viewpoint atop the park adjacent to the hostel to get one last look at the city.

After returning to the hostel, I cooked myself dinner and was in bed just before midnight.

Day 162: John Lennon Wall

As soon as I woke up and was ready for the day, I went out with my Vancouver friend in search of John Lennon Wall. Although it was a 3.5 kilometer walk, the downhill grade on the way into old town made things easier.

The wall itself is mildly amusing at best, and seemed mostly to be a prime location to take photos later to be posted on social media.

John Lennon Wall

From JLW we walked through a park and stopped at a cafe for a cider. We were getting hungry, but didn't want to pay exorbitant (i.e. North American) food prices so we grabbed more drinks and snacks from a nearby mini mart before returning to the park I had previously visited on Saturday. 

More wild babies

The day was a scorcher, and we sat in the shade on a bench with a view. We found so much to talk about that it wasn't until the sun began to set seven or eight hours later that we crossed back over Charles Bridge and took the bus back uphill to the hostel. 

Okay, maybe Charles Bridge can be nice sometimes.

Me, posing naturally

At this point we were both starving (me more so than her, because she had a bag of nuts that she hadn't even opened the whole time we were there because she was "saving them for tomorrow"). We crossed the street from the hostel and had pasta and drinks before capping the night off with more Netflix. She left early the next morning for Krakow so we said our adieus before turning in for the night at 1am.

Day 161: Malarkey

Nothing particularly of interest happened today, either. Tash and Kade checked out in the morning to leave for Munich. This time it was actually goodbye, unless they serendipitously decide to head to Berlin after their time in Munich, although I think they are planning on going to Slovenia instead.

As a last huzzah I went with them to their favorite Prague restaurant, Eska Restaurace.

The food was delicious and, at a bit over 10 USD for a coffee and an omelette, was not too expensive by Prague standards (yeah, Prague is really effing expensive).

After the kiwis left I faced the prospect of either trying to find something of interest to do in town or relax at the hostel. Though Prague is filled with historic buildings and a myriad of museums and art galleries, I didn't particularly feel like visiting any of them on my own, and so I spent most of the day at the hostel. There was supposed to be a walking tour put on by the hostel at 2:30pm, but that never materialized. I had made a friend from Vancouver, British Columbia yesterday and we chatted some and watched Tarantino's Pulp Fiction with others from the hostel in the evening.

Day 160: Prague Public Piano

After my usual cafe visit in the morning, I decided to hunt down one of Prague's public pianos. I went to the one that seemed to be located in the least touristy area of the city. As a musician, you live your life in perpetual tension: always hoping that someone will listen to you but constantly dreading that anyone will actually overhear you.

The piano there was in fine shape. After 20 minutes a buxom Czech lady came up to me and started talking to me in Czech. I didn't understand a thing she said, except "black people music", which I assumed meant jazz. After not too long she expressed a desire to scat sing while I accompanied her. Initially, I took her to be a friendly, outgoing local. But after 20 more minutes of duet, my impression was that she was a bit off her rocker -- not clinically diagnoseably so, but more like she had an eccentric cat lady type personality. When someone else came up to us and asked to play the piano I took the opportunity to say good riddance and walk back to the hostel.

A bizarre television tower built 30 years ago during the communist era

I spent the rest of the day relaxing, and nothing more of interest happened.

Day 159: Lesser Town

Once again I found myself at Café Pavlač in the morning (where I find myself again, one day later, typing this post), working on my Spanish and blog posts, starting the day off nice and slowly. I went back to the hostel briefly to make myself lunch before taking the bus to the Franz Kafka Museum. (This time I actually bought a ticket, because I happened to have coins in my pocket and, of all places, there is a ticket machine directly outside of the hostel entrance).

The museum was alright. It did all it's necessary requisites -- walk you through the life of Kakfa, his private conflicts, his friends, influences, romances -- but it was so unusually crowded for a museum that you constantly felt rushed and in the way of everyone else.

The amount of tourism in Prague is astounding. It's particularly evident on Charles Bridge, which has hundreds of people walking over it at all times of the day. The bridge itself has some historical significance, but is not particularly aesthetically pleasing. A renovation of the bridge in 2008-2010 was carried out so poorly that it caused UNESCO's World Heritage Committee to adopt a decision that "the restoration of Charles Bridge was carried out without adequate conservation advice on materials and techniques". Furthermore, all the statues along the bridge are merely replicas of the original, leading me to believe the bridge itself is more facsimile than original. For some reason, tourists absolutely love it.

From the museum I bought a lunch of bananas, chocolate milk, and Skittles from a convenience store and walked to the base of a park to partake in my feast.

The park itself sits on the eastern face of a steep hill, so I climbed up it, hoping for some good views.

Although you might be tempted to think that atop a hill on the opposite side of old town is where all the locals hide, you would be wrong. The top of the hill is once again infested with tourists, though there is a slight respite from the crowds while climbing the hill because most don't bother with all that physical activity and take the funicular rail line to the top instead. 

While on my way down from the hill I stole some WiFi from a nearby beer garden and connected with Tash and Kade to get some burgers back on the eastern side of the Vltava River. A 40-minute tram ride, an ATM hunt, and kilometer walk later I was eating a tasty burger with fries and a Pilsner at The Tavern.

The food was delicious, but (surprise, surprise) there were some noisy tourist groups at the place and we had to move tables twice to get some relative peace. It was the coldest day of the week, and the wind combined with sub 20 degree temperatures made eating outdoors a bit unpleasant.

After dinner we went back to Tash and Kades homestead, Brix Hostel, and they ordered drinks. I had been a bit budget conscious lately, and didn't feel like ordering anymore alcohol for the day. We played some ping-pong, but for a Saturday night the bar located in the hostel was absolutely dead. Tash and Kade decided to go to bed around 10pm and I went back to my own hostel, finished my bananas, and turned in for the night at midnight after a hot shower.