A Quiet Day in Space - Berlin, Sep. 15

Honestly, I haven't done a lot today. I was intending to try going a bit outside of Berlin to see some new places that aren't in the middle of the city, but that didn't really happen for a couple reasons: I switched hostels, and it started raining. And yes, I know, I'm from Seattle, I should be used to the rain. But I moved away from Seattle for a reason!

Anyways, nothing of much interest happened yesterday after my last post. I tried going to the social area in the hostel which was full of people. It reminded me a lot of sports bars in the US, which I've never been too keen on. There's too much noise, TVs are everywhere, half the people are drunk, oh and there's a pandemic still going on. So I instead just chose to hang out in my room and catch up on YouTube videos.

Sleep wasn't too bad, no one packed up and left at 4am this morning. Although the guy sleeping below me was snoring lightly, so I didn't really get any deep sleep unfortunately. I wasn't really enjoying this hostel to be honest, it's not really my style. Most of the things people talked about were sports or clubs, things I'm not really into. To be fair, I think this hostel sort of targets those type of people, and I maybe should have known that going in. Regardless, I decided to switch hostels for my last night in Berlin.

About a week ago, I had been looking through my hostel app for places to stay in Berlin, a lot of which seemed very similar to the one I was at. I had kept scrolling until one in particular caught my eye. As I mentioned in my post from yesterday, I actually took a look inside while on my travels to see it in person before committing. And this morning, I decided to book my last night there for the experience. This is:

The Space Hostel!

That picture alone should be enough to explain why I was interested. It's a very unique accommodation with a very strong theme. Each bed is a "capsule" with a variety of features inside. The entrance area even has an astronaut with a giant screen showing recordings from the ISS.

So as I said, I booked it this morning. The main down side is that I could only check in after 3pm, but I had to check out of the previous hostel by 11am. So that gave me 4 hours to kill, in which I needed to have all my luggage with me. In hindsight, I probably could have tried checking into the new hostel early and at least have my stuff locked up, but the thought didn't occurred to me.  And exploring around isn't super fun when you're lugging around multiple bags, so I just decided to hang out in the social area of the first hostel (which the staff kindly let me do). I wasn't really in the mood to meet people, so I caught up on some more YouTube videos. They do seem to have accumulated over the last couple weeks...

3pm came around, and I made my way to the space hostel. It had started raining by that time, so I got a bit wet. I was at least able to take the U-Bahn for part of the trip (I forgot to buy a ticket, don't tell anyone!). I checked in, and a staff member took me on a guide through. He began with the lockers, which are a bit confusing. You have to first enter the code you want to use, then enter it again to lock it, then again to unlock it. And each time you enter the code, you have to press a checkmark button both before and after. So locking up requires 12 button presses. Oh well, at least my stuff is secure!

Then we went to my capsule, which has a decent amount of tech in it! (Ok, well it's not a lot of tech by my standards, but it's a lot in comparison to the previous hostel.) Each capsule has a door that's locked by an electronic latch. You get an RFID card that is scanned to unlock the door from the outside, which is pretty neat. Inside, there's a main "console" on the side for controlling the capsule. The RFID card has to be present on the console for it to activate (which took me a lot longer to figure out that I care to admit...), at which point everything lights up! There's even lights outside the capsule that turn on to indicate you're in there, so other people know not to be noisy while you're in there. Cool!

There's a couple buttons for different lights, including either blue ceiling lights in the shape of a hexagon, or white lights behind a large mirror above the console. There's also a knob for controlling airflow into the capsule from a couple vents up top. The center of the console has an LCD screen showing the current time, date, and temperature. There are even some USB ports for charging devices, plus a reading light. Under the console is even a safe for extra security if you want it. On the opposite wall is a tray you can use as a mini desk too. I think these capsules are super cool!

However, there are a couple issues. The biggest one is that the only source of power is the USB ports, there's no mains outlet. So if you've got a device that uses more than like 10W (such as, you know, a laptop), it just won't charge if you're using it. So you have to instead go to the seating area near the entrance to get an outlet. And the seats there aren't super comfortable, there isn't any back support unless you're next to a wall (which is only marginally better).

Additionally, anything that you store in the locker isn't easily accessible from your capsule. I have a capsule on the top row, so I have to open the door, grab the RFID card, clamber down the ladder, lock the door with the RFID card, walk around to the locker, press 6 buttons to open the locker, grab what I need, press 12 buttons to lock it again, walk back to the capsule, open the door with the RFID card, clamber up again, put the RFID card back in it's holder so I have light, and close the door. It's a bit of a pain, so I've opted to just bring everything I need into the capsule with me (toiletries, PJs, etc.). They're spacious enough to have some belongings with you, so it's not super cramped.

Also, the price per night is about twice that of a normal hostel dorm room, about $40 instead of $20 or so. It's still a lot cheaper than a hotel, but I'm pretty frugal and try to save money where I can. But given the amount of tech put into the capsules, I think the higher price is justified, and definitely worth it for one night.

Okay, back to good things: the bathrooms. There's a hallway with about a dozen private bathrooms, each with a sink, toilet, and shower. On top of that, they even give you a towel (unlike the previous hostel), and both bathrooms I looked in even had shampoo to use. And the showers don't have stupid timers that shut the water off after 10 seconds!!! You can just have a normal shower in them! These are so much better than the bathrooms in the previous hostel, I'm definitely happy I chose to come here for a night.

That's pretty much all there is to this hostel, at least from what I've seen. There isn't really a social area, unless you count the seating area near the entrance. A few people have come and gone to charge their devices as I've been writing this, but everyone seems to keep to themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if this hostel has a higher ratio of introverts than other hostels.

The place I had the doner yesterday is part of the same building as the space hostel, so I decided to grab another since it was raining. And it turns out you're not allowed to eat inside unless you show a negative COVID test, or proof of vaccination (or at least, that's what I gathered from the staff member who told me off). I'm guessing that's why I've seen so many people eating outside over the last couple days, which I just figured was a German thing. Since it was raining, I just opted to eat in my capsule.

Aside from all that, not much else has happened. I really haven't gone anywhere new, so part of me is thinking this is a bit of a wasted day. But I think I needed a day off, I was feeling pretty stressed yesterday. It's been nice to step away from the busy city life and inhumanly large architecture of Berlin.

I'm off to Dresden tomorrow! A new place, hopefully filled with new experiences. I've booked my hostel for a couple nights, which looks a bit more inviting than the previous hostel I stayed at. Some of the reviews mentioned it can be a bit noisy at night, but I've got my noise cancelling headphones with me if needed.

I also booked my train trip down there through the Eurail app. It's super easy to find routes from anywhere to anywhere else. Just give it the endpoints and a time, and it will find loads of routes around that time, including routes that require multiple transfers. Then you can just add that journey to your pass, and it stores a QR code that can be scanned if anyone needs to check your ticket. Neat!

Right after I added that journey tomorrow, I discovered something not so neat. When I first bought the Eurail pass and saved it on my phone, I had entered today as the first travel date, thinking it wouldn't matter since I didn't have any actual trips saved. It turns out that it counted today as one of my 15 travel days! So now that's a travel day wasted, yay...

Anyways, that's all for today. It's getting late and it's still raining, so there's not much for to do except catch up on more YouTube!