Interrailing - Day 2

Day 2 began with a slow morning, we woke up late due to not much sleep the day before. Two of our hosts are massive coffee nerds, so we were treated to some high quality coffee - including a blend fermented with berries, which smelled a bit like the berries you get in Special K.

At around 12 we headed out to get some brunch, walking around the pretty town centre of Karlsruhe. We first visited a very cute tea shop and bought a nice smelling blend of tea leaves, then tried and failed to get a European SIM card (one of our phones doesn’t support eSIMs). For some frustrating bureaucratic reason, this needed the original passport of the customer, a photocopy wasn’t sufficient. After this, we went to a local döner place for lunch – due to being in a student area, this was only about 6 euros, and very generous portion sizes!

Unfortunately while eating, we were persistently harassed by wasps, who insisted on going inside our drinks cans. We fled to go and check out the KIT campus, marvelling at the incredibly cheap student bar which had €1 soft drinks, €2 hard drinks, 75 cent coffees, etc.

A short break later (I had to have a meeting about my PhD) and we went to go sit in the grounds of Karlsruhe Palace, which has a very large park around it. In the local lake, we noticed a funny critter swimming around, which we were able to identify as a Nutria!

By now it was getting later, and we wanted to make dinner for everyone to repay our hosts’ generosity, so we went to do a little shopping before heading home to cook. We settled on Katsu Tofu as our meal of choice — complicated enough to feel like a gift, but still within the realms of practicality. Even with 4 of us working, it took over 2 hours, but I think it paid off!

Overall this was a shorter day than before, but it was nice to relax a bit more and take in the local attractions without being super tired at the end of the day :))