This TV, instead of channels, opens to a screen where he can create an account and then choose from "UNLIMITED movies, TV shows, and more!", divided into categories like "Popular on Streaming," "Trending Now," "Documentaries," "New Releases," "Award-winning TV Shows," "Action & Adventure," "Mind-Bending Sci-Fi," "Anime," and "Strong Black Lead."

He will watch something that won an award, since he doesn't know what documentaries and sci-fi are or why there is an entire section on lead that is black.

This is a show about starships, actually.

The starship crew is half women, conspicuously multiracial, and has several teenagers in prominent positions. (No one seems to remark on any of this.) The owl has not taught him many of the words used in this show, but he can more-or-less gather the plot. The captain is rescuing people from a colony that had severe weather issues resulting in a famine. Some of the refugees want to stay. One of the officers thinks the colony was a bad idea in the first place and if the refugees want to stay then they should not help. Another of the officers thinks that people have a right to decide where they want to live, and this right is meaningless if society does not make it possible for them to live where they want to. The captain originally agrees with the first officer, but is eventually argued to agree with the second officer.

In the second plot, all the replicators (?) which seem to create objects (??) are broken and that means this person in funny robes keeps getting various kinds of bread that they do not want (???) and being very frustrated about it. Eventually something confusing happens and they get the correct bread. It looks much less tasty than the previous breads. 

Huh. He's never considered what things people would expect the future to have. The first subplot makes more sense. Though he's not sure why they're taking on star cadets who can't even reasonably be out of school yet.

Out to see what there is nearby in the way of a grocery repository or, since he doesn't know how long he'll be here, maybe a restaurant.

Nearby there are a couple of those trucks selling food, and if he walks a little farther or calls a car there's pizza and "California comfort food" and a diner and a bar.

Truck food is fine. He will attempt to purchase a "burrito".

If he swipes his phone on this machine he can have a "burrito," which is apparently beef and beans and cheese and assorted vegetables and some kind of green paste and some odd sour white substance wrapped in a kind of flatbread.

He likes his burrito! When he has eaten it he explores more of his public housing's environs, waiting for moonrise.

The public housing environs have a similar combination of very short houses and shops with occasionally confusing purposes.

And then the moon rises.

Yep. That is Earth's famous moon. Without any stuff on it. Just plain, unmistakeable Luna.

He looks at it for a while.

He walks back to where he's been staying and sleeps there. And in the morning he tries to figure out how to phone Lev without making it seem like he is in distress and requires urgent rescue.

There's a button here that draws up a bunch of pictures of faces and one of them is Lev's.

That seems promising. Poke?

"Hi! Did you end up getting a hotel or something--"

"I am at a public housing suite but I did tell the person I might not stay long. I got a look at the moon and it... definitely looks like this is the past."

"Oh, was that why you wanted to see it, I just thought you liked stargazing."

"Earth's moon is very recognizable, and in my time it has some things on it that would be visible from here. I don't have to worry about classified information if there is no Ibyabek to betray."

"I'm-- sorry about the loss of all your people."

"Well, they - didn't die, they just haven't been born yet."

"I suppose. I'd still miss-- my parents, my husband--"

"I wasn't married. Hadn't seen my family in a while."

"Ah."

He... doesn't have anything to say about that.

"At any rate, if in the opinion of my host country I would be of more use answering questions, I'm prepared to do that now."

He sounds slightly confused when he says, "Sure. --So we don't actually have government buildings, do you want to meet in the office of my house until your house is sorted out?"

"That will be fine. What address do I put in to the car thing on the phone?"

Lev gives him the address.