A Backpacker in Northern Europe. Travel around Berlin, Germany and Denmark

So in London once again, this time spent the Saturday heading to the zoo with some friends – hmmm how to describe it, well let me put it this way – it's in keeping with most of the rest of London, that is it is old and rather run down. The poor animals have very poor cages, most with overgrown, messy dirty vegetation and they don't even have an elephant! (which in hindsight is probably a good thing – I guess people don't get much room in London so why should the animals).

I was disappointed that the ‘bird eating spider' in the show we saw did not in fact eat any birds at all. But we did see the giant ant eater which is a most strange looking creature which did lead to one of my friends making the comment (“All he eats is ants? Well he must eat a shit load then! – much to the amusement of the guy overhearing us – and a bit of trivia for you, the ant eater does eat 300 000 ants and termites a day! No don't ask me where he gets them from). I think the most exciting aspect of the zoo for us was either seeing the cows (yes very exciting indeed, note sarcasim here – it wasn't even a cute black and white one just boring brown) or playing around in the gift shop putting the big puppets on my head and being scared to death by a rubber snake. So that was the zoo! So that was all the fun and games in London before heading back out to Heathrow again on Sunday to fly out and begin my Scandinavia and Russian tour!

Made it through to Berlin airport with no dramas (just multiple security checks which I guess is not surprising at the moment really). Berlin airport was interesting, passport control and the luggage belt are immediately as you come off the plane so that each gate has it's own. I then made it onto the right bus from the airport with no dramas, but once at the train station I had difficulty finding where to get my ticket and then got yelled at by the rude German man behind the counter when I tried to buy my ticket, because he put in the wrong destination and then couldn't or perhaps wouldn't change it on the computer (I think that was what was going on – my understanding of ‘angry' German is not very good).

A lovely man with two little girls then came and helped me out after watching me be yelled at and bought my ticket for me and showed me where to get the train. I then thought I was set but after only a few stops most people got off the train but some got on so I thought it was just a popular stop, but no, another nice old man came and tried to indicate to me in very broken English that I needed to get a bus for a few stops and then get back on the train because the train was going back to where it came from because it wasn't running for some stops due to track work or something I suppose. Anyway two hours later after having been harassed by some drunk on the train (was quite glad I didn't understand German at this point) and having missed the orientation meeting for my tour I did make it to the hostel in one piece, (all be it a hot tired piece). Then managed to meet some people from the tour and head out for a Mexican meal (why not in Germany eh?!).

The next day saw us tour a little around Berlin – won't give you too many facts because I know you read up on all my brilliant facts last year when I was in Berlin – oh ok I can't resist just one more fact that I don't know that I knew last year – Berlin is 9 times the size of Paris! After seeing more of the Berlin wall I felt the need for another walking tour as I just didn't quite have a full understanding of why the wall went up, don't worry I get it now though (in brief it was due to the division of Germany and also Berlin between the 4 allies , UK, USA, France and Soviet Union, after WWII and the Soviets basically running their sector as a communist state which people wanted to leave so they put the wall up (that ran 155km – did I tell you that last year?) to keep people in their sector of East Berlin – ok that might be a little simplified but you get the idea).

Plus there was plenty more to learn about WWII that I didn't know- (did you know Hitler never once set foot in a concentration camp?! It was all run by Himler, that side of things). Other interesting points of the tour was hearing all about the ‘Funny Green Walking Man' which is a traffic light to indicate when to cross the road on the former East German side of Berlin – he is a little fatter, wears a hat and is actually walking rather than just standing there as most other green light men do – anyway the story behind him is that when Berlin was unified everything East German was seen as bad and replaced, only people complained so much about getting rid of the ‘Funny Green Walking man' (even to the point of protests) that they put them all back where they used to be. We also went through the new very controversial ‘Memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust' (which was being built when I was in Berlin last year) – the memorial is a series of 2177 hollow concrete blocks all varying in heights on uneven ground with a museum underground below it all.

The Memorial is controversial for so so many reasons, some of which are because there is no marking of what the blocks are for (you are just supposed to know that it is a memorial), it was named memorial particularly to the Jewish victims which doesn't acknowledge the 8 million non Jews who were killed (ie communists, homeless, gays, or anyone speaking against the Nazi regime) and the blocks themselves that make up the memorial are coated with a chemical to stop them being graffitied, only the company who provided the chemical was apparently the same company that supplied the gas to the concentration camps (but it is reported that they didn't know what they were supplying gas for at the time). Also when they were building the memorial (which took 2 years) they discovered Gerbals's (is that how you spell it) bunker but didn't know what to do about it so they just covered it up and now ignore the fact that they found it).

I then spent the rest of the afternoon kind of wandering around as the queue to get into Check Point Charlie museum (for a second time) was too big. We then enjoyed a traditional German meal (roast pork and dumplings) for tea before heading out on a German pub crawl (complete with David Hasslehoff t-shirts we had to wear – no we didn't stand out as tourists much!) which took us to a beach bar right along the river (complete with fake sand) and a former Communist bar where if you got any lemonade with your vodka you were lucky. Happy to say that I didn't get too inebriated (unlike the last night out in Berlin I had).

Moving along the following day saw us leave Berlin and take the bus on the ferry across to Denmark (hence the title there's nothing like a Dane). Now I'm racking my brain for these facts as I was half asleep on the bus when we were told them but here goes;

The Danish flag is the oldest unchanged flag still is use today out of anywhere in the world. Denmark has 5.2 million people (only a few million more than Berlin), it was the first country to perform a sex change operation in the 1950s and was the first country to legalise same sex marriages in 1999 – yes very liberal the Danes! It is the home of Hans Christian Anderson (writer of Fairytales), Carlsberg beer and of course far more exciting for me Lego! (which literally means ‘play well').

Apparently 300 million sets of Lego have been sold since it's beginning by some carpenter who originally built it from wood but had to change it to plastic for health and safety reasons (imagine how many kids would have splinters in their mouth after sucking on some bits of Lego!). Home for our stay in Denmark is a campsite with cute little cabins that amazingly do sleep 5 (never mind that 2 people have to climb up into the loft). So at this stage all is well (just a little cold). The people on the tour all seem nice (31 of us at this stage with 5 of them being Kiwis, 1 from Taiwan and the rest Aussies of course), and I am actually probably pretty much right on average in terms of the age of the group – so all good so far. Due to spend the day in Copenhagen tomorrow so should be good – I'm sure you'll hear all about it!