Berlin, Denmark and a barrel of monkeys

  Kopenhaven, Denmark
Sunday, February 19, 2006

This is in chronological order, just the wrong way around.
So a couple of weeks ago I packed my bag and headed of on an adventure. I had a four day weekend which really is not enough time to see two of Europes most interesting cities, but I was on the road and thats all that matters. The original plan was to head straight up to Kopenhaven but I was unable to book a ticket so I was stuck in Berlin until Saturday afternoon. Oh what a shame.
The overnight trains are awesome if you can sleep on them. You hop on after work and then get dropped of half way across Europe in time for breakfast.
Berlin is a strange city to walk through. Every now and again you come across a strip that has absolutely nothing built up. Its an eery reminder of Berlins past. The city is starting to use these areas to create parks, this is really nice as it allows the city to be far more open than most European cities. Berlin has a mix of very old and super modern buildings as you can see in the photos.
After checking out the city abit I headed towards the Pergamon Museum on the recommendation of my trusty LonelyPlanet. I was highly rewarded for this with some amazing artifacts from ancient Persia. Even though I could not understand most of the German information plates it was mind blowing to see the delicacy and scale which these guys worked with. Even though it was a little strange coming across twenty foot porcelain gates inside a German building.

By the time I got back to my hostel I was exhausted but could not pass up the opportunity to go clubbing with a group of American travelers.
The next day I was surprised to find that I had woken in time to do some more exploring before my train left, and that my brain was intact and operating. One of my favorite things is wandering through cities in places that aren't expecting tourists and seeing people doing their normal everyday things.

So thats it for Berlin. As the train moved through the country side I felt very content. I really enjoyed Berlin and there was another place to see ahead of me.

I was met at the Kopenhaven train station by a friend of mine Christian. Borriss and I had traveled with Christian from Brisbane up to Townsville the year before. I have not seen him since then so it was nice to see his grin through the train window as the train pulled in.
First things first, so we headed through the mist to a bar (once we found an open one, Saturday night Copenhagen hmm) for a quick gab. We both had many stories of what happened after we went our separate ways. Next we headed over to some of Christians friends warehouse apartment. The guys that lived here had a great sense of humor which I found to be typical of the Danes.They were starting a band together and kept making up silly songs. Later we found that the night life of Copenhagen did exist, maybe everyone was still recovering from the night before.
The next day we went to check out a place called Christiania near the centre of town. Twenty or thirty years ago this was a reserved military zone, but a group of hippies moved in and the government couldnt budge them. In the end they let them stay and pretty much let them do as they pleased. Unfortunately in recent times this has become a haven for drug dealers and the cops moved in. The whole area has a very odd feeling about it. I found it interesting to see but I did not like the vibe of the place. Maybe its nicer in summer when theres not mud everywhere.


So to cut a short story shorter I had a awesome weekend, got to see heaps of stuff and met some great people.

Lots of Love
Rahn

PS. I could never actually work out what I was supposed to do with the barrel of monkeys. Im told that they are a whole lot of fun but except for being noisy not much happened.

PPS. I didn't leave the monkeys in there for very long so none where harmed.