There must be something about jetlag that makes one dislike a country intensely upon completion of a trans-oceanic flight, and then love the country the day after. To say that I had a bad start is an understatement. During the whole of the 9-hour flight to Frankfurt, I got not a wink of sleep. I started Sunday morning fresh at 6AM our time, and I arrived at Frankfurt at 3AM our time the next day. Already short on sleep, I made this condition worse by deciding to go straight to Berlin from the Franfurt HauptBahnhof, which required exchanging of money before a humbling attempt at buying a subway ticket. So it is that I boarded the InterCityExpress to Berlin, a 5-hour train ride through beautiful countryside, most of which I missed due to being a stupid bastard and not making a train reservation, which resulted in me sitting on my bags for four of the five hours, so desperate for sleep that I jammed my head in between two seats in front of me to try and calm the motion of the train long enough to slip away.

Then I arrived in Berlin with no hostel reservations and no sense of direction, laden with 45 pounds of baggage and speaking approximately five words of German. I have one term for this:

Utimately I found the Jugendgastehaus at Hardenbergstrasse 9A, where I collapsed dead of fatigue and slept uninterrupted for nearly five hours. After a brief interruption at midnight, I fell back into blessed dreamland, thinking to myself that very possibly I could have made a terrible mistake in going on this trip.

Due to the lingering after-effects of jetlag I awoke at 4:45AM and I was undeniably up for the day. After about two hours of laying in the bed lying to myself that I might fall asleep again, I finally arose.

Somehow during the next hour I made myself feel immensely better about being in Berlin, and about being in Europe. This morning I had a bit of trouble remembering what actually happened yesterday, as if the events were so traumatic that I was mentally blocking them out. All I had was a brief glimpse into Hell. But I'm Much Better Now®. After I had my breakfast at 7:30 (incidently my first meal in over 24 hours) a quick walk around the Zoo restored my spirits to normal. And I dicovered that my German had improved by about 150% (which means I now know maybe twenty words). I have started seeing the pattern here in Berlin, the Way Things Are, and as a result I have started to blend in here (or at least I have the illusion of blending in) to the point where I have old German ladies coming out of the HauptBahnHof asking me for directions in German. "Bitte...." "Bitte, ich sprechte nicht Deutch" (or words to that effect) "Ach so! Danke..."

This afternoon I went on a short bus tour of Berlin after some hard pavement-pounding, and I began to notice exactly how many Americans are wandering the streets - it's utterly amazing to me that I should be in East Berlin and hear German, German, German, English, German... as women in Clinton '92 t-shirts pass me. And to think that my chief complaint yesterday was that nobody spoke English. Ha.

As a man I have also grown to appreciate the female form a bit more in the last day or so. The women here, well, it appears that when they have something to show off it gets showed off, and when they don't they know enough not to flash it. I hope that wins the Political Incorrectness award for the week.

I was much happier to get out into the cultural part of Berlin (my Guest House in in the commercial/tourist area) so that I could actually see something unique, such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

I returned to the hostel to talk for an hour or so with Frank, an Irish gent, about this and that, after which we decided to take a little stroll up the street. We switched streets, and walked some more, and walked some more, 'till we were back at the Wilhelm Church. Five miles away from the hostel. Along the way we saw a truly bizaare ritual being rehearsed for some sort of movie, involving Valkyries, offerings to gods, undulations, directors wielding flame throwers, and several musical instruments made out of sheet metal that produced a sound not unlike Pink Floyd at half speed. Then back to the hostel for ein bier mit Frank.

On a final note for today: If one looks closely enough on the map of the subway one can see a station named Unkel Toms Hnte. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Cute. Oh, and I *just* made the $100 cutoff for two-day's worth of budegeting.

Today I checked out of the Guest House in Berlin, leaving my card with a couple of guys and generally exchanging goodbyes, before heading to the HauptBahnHof to buy a few supplies and such, and to sit on the BahnHof quietly going through the section of my Lonely Planet dealing with Hamburg. Looks like kind of a grim place. Port city and all that :).

Then three hours of train ride on an empty train. Woohoo. To boot, the Berlin-Hamburg route has none of the interesting mountain landscape of the Frankfurt-Berlin route. It was three hours of farms... well Tom Clancy beckoned, and I heeded the call. I also heeded the call of nature on board the train, and I went into the WC not knowing that we were about to pull into a station. Dutifully, I did not flush while we were stopped (like most train toilets the drain opens out to the tracks) so I had three or four minutes of anxious waiting while I wondered if my luggage would still be there when I emerged.

We pulled into the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, a scene very reminiscent of Victoria Station in London, except this station has crowds of rough-looking people standing around inside. My usual paranoia about being in a stange city kicked in at this point, and I found myself developing evasive maneuvers to lose possible tails or at least let them know that I was onto them. Part of it is paranoia, part of it was the guy who followed me out of the Hbf for two blocks and finally came up into my face screaming incoherently in German, to which I gave my usual reply of, "Nien, Nien," and walked away, not knowing what the hell he was after. I have gotten fairly good at turning away everyone who looks like they might not have it quite together - in Berlin I'm fairly certain that one girl was willing to render certain services in exchange for some cigarettes - alas I shall never know.

I can blend in fairly well once I have established a place to stow my bags, but it's very difficult to blend in with three feet of bags hanging off my back. Of course there are approximately, I'd say roughly about a gazillion other twentysomething backpackers in Europe right now, but it still makes you an easy mark. So it was with all due speed that I got my own room in the Hotel-Pension, three blocks from the train station, for DM35. Ok, so the room is 2mx1.8m, but hey, what the hell, it's mine, at least until 11AM. I settled in my bags, and set out again into the Great Unknown.

Then I started walking. And walking. And then for variety I walked some more, until I realized that I had literally walked from one side of the city to the other, from my hostel in the extreme north to the docks on the extreme south. Damn. I decided to walk back up a different way, as I had mostly been walking through residential areas up to this point, and was beginning to see some neighborhoods that I thought I shouldn't be in. So I headed northwest to see if I could find something different. Boy, did I ever!

My uncle had given me warnings about the Reeperbahn in Hamburg before, but I had forgotten his little tirade up until the moment I walked into one of Europe's largest red-light districts. Times Square has nothing on this place. I got to practice "Nien, nien..." a few more times as prostitutes offered services in droves.

I discovered just how sexually uptight and repressed Americans are in comparison to Europeans - for instance, in America a man will go into a sex-store nervously looking around to see if anyone he knows is around, then once he has decided to buy something he may explain the item as something for a stag party or use one of many other equally lame excuses.

Here though, this is just another type of shop, and you see all ages of men and women window-shopping: from old ladies to toddlers, there seems to be little shame about the whole affair. I mean, for god's sake, I even saw several guys go into sex-shops today with their girlfriends, like they're skopping for wallpaper or picking out a china pattern. Well it was amusing, but I decided that I had overloaded and that it was time for dinner and rest. Well the dinner part went fine, but when I went into the S-Bahn station my legs gave out on me as I was coming down a flight of stairs. My calf muscles absolutely would not relax and so I walked to the platform in extreme pain. When I got off at my stop things seemed a bit better but it was still a rough three blocks after that to the hostel.

Well I suppose that it may not have been such a great idea for me to exercise strenuously everyday after three months of very low athletic activity. I am trying to be optimistic - hey, it's gotta be helping my muscles, right? And if I poop out after four hours' walk here at sea level how the hell to I walk for nine hours straight in the Himalayas?

Ah well, it's off to Kobenhavn for me tommorrow, and now it's time for Clancy...

I think that this journal entry shall be a lengthy one- I have crossed two more borders since I last wrote. However I will do my best to start right where I left off.

Thursday morning I woke up in Hamburg after a good night's rest, packed up my things and checked out of the 'hotel,' making my way down to the train station, where I cached my luggage so I could walk around a bit before having to catch the 11:20 train to Copenhagen. On my way out of the station I had the fine honor of watching a man keel over dead of a drug overdose as paramedics looked on helplessly and shook their heads—not what one would say was a good omen for the day, however I thought that my day was almost certain to be better than his!

Off I went for the five hour ride to Copenhagen—one that I dreaded due to the duration of the trip and the unending stretches of boring countryside in the region. However I ended up sitting across from an English fellow named Lawrence Featham. We talked nonstop throughout the trip and somehow I ended up baring my soul to him. Lonely me, I guess. Fortunately for me he also knew Copenhagen rather well, and wandered around with me for almost an hour as I tried unsuccessfully to find lodging. Due to some bad planning the main hotel district behind the train station is also the main red-light district, and as we walked we got to observe either a gang-initiation ritual or merely someone beating the hell out of someone else, in any case there were too many of the 'beaters' to be able to do anything about it, but that's no consolation to the 'beatee.' Shortly after that bit of fun Lawrence and I found ourselves surrounded by four men who were circling around us and jostling us and our things, perhaps just bored or intending to rob us—I'll never know because I quite definitely elbowed my way out of the feeding frenzy and on to the other side of the street, where I checked all of my items and counted to ten. The reason for the dearth of beds became clear: apparently Pink Floyd had followed me to Copenhagen and was to play a set that night. After another bout of rejections from even the pricey hotels, I became increasingly worried that I might spend the night on my bags in the train station. Finally I gave in and went to the room-finding service of the Rejsebureau, who pointed me towards a place that they knew had a bed for me. I got my directions, but was wary of the place because there had to be something funny about it if the agent knew without looking that they had room even though every other hotel room in the city was booked solid. I thanked Lawrence, who had been so selfless, and was off.

Soon I discovered the why of the situation, as I found myself in a throng of people heading for the concert. The place I was to be parking myself was a disused gymnasium that was actually physically attached to the side of the stadium in which Pink Floyd would soon be playing. I headed inside the 'Sleep-In '94' and asked for a bed. This I got, but I soon discovered that my bed was only one out of 420 in the same room. This place had all the cozy ambiance of a train station, with the noise from the concert to boot. Well I gave up and went outside to enjoy the concert for free. I'm not kidding, now - we were within 100 feet of the band. I had fun giving a play-by-play of the act (I had seen Floyd back in the States) and watching people's amazement as my prophecies were fulfilled. Hey, would you have believed me if I had said to you, "OK, now, see those speakers? Well, in a minute two giant rubber warthogs are going to flop out of them. No, that's before the stage explodes..."

I slept that night on a bare mattress, fully clothed, and using some clothes bundled up in a towel as my pillow. Actually I slept quite well considering the conditions, and woke up at around six in the morning. My first act of Friday was to go and make sure that I had better lodging for Friday night - I was willing to spend a bit more not to sleep in the hive again. I found my place for 300 krones and settled my things in, and then out again to sightsee. Copenhagen has the most wonderful architecture compared to Berlin (I won't even talk about Hamburg) and I lost myself in it. I made my reservations for the 6:55 train to Stockholm the next day, and retired to my room to finish up the Clancy book.

Six o'clock Saturday arrived and I woke up only to say "Screw this" as I remembered that Lee had friends who lived in Lund, Sweden, only 1.5 hours away by boat and train. Dutifully I went back to sleep, to wake up at a staggering 11:00 in the morning, rushing to get my things together so that I could go catch the 1:00 hydrofoil at the docks. It is on the bus that I have my first minor crisis: as I am putting on my backpack one of the two shoulder straps went and ripped in half. "f***!" I cursed, to the amazement of several Danes on the bus; luckily I could see no long hauls with the pack in my immediate future.

One hydrofoil crossing and a quiet train ride later and I was in Lund, a quiet little university town of about 90,000 people spread out over a good bit of acreage. Lund is a charming little place, about 1000 years old now, and I wandered about for a bit before calling Lee's friends, who graciously said that they were putting me up despite having about 15 minutes' warning of my arrival. Did I feel guilty? Nahhh... conscience shmonscience. (sarcasm)

Ulla and Lars have three fine children at the moment, two teenaged girls and one boy of two, plus one in the oven. She has a fun six months to look forward to. They have a great little house, a happy family and a peaceful neighborhood to come home to. The boy is in his terrible two's and it shows - I was awakened by shouts of "Yabba Dabba Doo" at 6 this morning.

I left Lund this afternoon for Stockholm, a city that has stunned me with its beauty. I am berthed on the Af Chapman, an 180-foot three-masted clipper that has been permanently moored off the Museum Island here and turned into a IYHA youth hostel. The view off the beam of this ship is not to be missed. I struck out on the town at 9PM, and was surprised by the amount of nightlife on a Sunday night. Stockholm seems like a city that is full of life. At around 22:00 I called home and talked with them at great length, then called Tamara and talked at slightly lesser length. No doubt, the phone bill will be a whopper this month.

Today was a task-list day for me: I went and picked up a new and better backpack, stuck some film and postcards in the old one, and then mailed the old one home. Felt mildly guilty but I thought that the pack would pay for itself in terms of comfort over the next six months. The new one is a real honest-to-goodness trail pack, whereas the old one was a sort of yuppie pack/suitcase hybrid that was absolutely innapropriate to the trip.

Then I was off to take a boat tour of Stockholm, and I was very impressed by the variety of the architecture and by the sheer number of "tiny" islands that make up the city. Tomorrow night at 10:30 I'll be on a train to Trondheim, Norway, and I think I've decided to go North from there. Before then I should really get to some museums. Probably.