Most zoos stateside feed a ground meat or commercial diet - this results in poor dentition and the development of inadequate muscles around the jaw. Such methods are less common in mainland Europe, and very uncommon in the UK (with carnivores at least).
Now this is what the thread has been missing, the Snowleopard personal experiences outside of zoos!I’ve posted 4 days of zoo reviews and a total of 15 zoos have been visited. Here is a recap in chronological order:
Kattegatcentret Center (Grenaa, DK) - mid-sized aquarium with an open-topped shark tank and a brand-new immersive penguin exhibit.
Skandinavisk Dyrepark/Scandinavian Wildlife Park (Kolind, DK) - a zoo with only 18 species, although that includes a pair of 6-acre habitats for Polar Bears and Brown Bears. Also the world's largest Steller's Sea Eagle aviary.
Skaerup Zoo (Borkop, DK) - small, home-made zoo with 100 species and several rarities. I counted 19 primate species.
Givskud Zoo (Givskud, DK) - world's largest exhibits for Spectacled Bears and Humboldt Penguins, plus many other great animal habitats. A portion is a drive-through area.
Ree Park Safari (Ebeltoft, DK) - big African Savanna for probably 80 animals, plus huge carnivore exhibits for the likes of Lions, Cheetahs and African Wild Dogs.
Munkholm Zoo (Munkholm, DK) - small, home-made zoo out in the country.
AQUA Akvarium & Dyrepark/AQUA Aquarium & Wildlife Park (Silkeborg, DK) - 4-level Aquarium with a focus on Danish Lakes. Also an outdoor loop with a dozen native mammal species.
Jyllands Park Zoo (Videbaek, DK) - a privately-owned zoo with a wide range of exhibit quality and a little bit of everything. Has a brand-new Giraffe House that is almost finished.
Nordsoen Oceanarium/North Sea Oceanarium (Hirtshals, DK) - one of Europe's top aquariums, with a million-gallon tank and a small Whale Museum in the outdoor zone.
Aalborg Zoo (Aalborg, DK) - 22-acre urban zoo packed with ABC animals. A brand-new Bornean Orangutan exhibit is a highlight, but the whole zoo is enjoyable.
Randers Regnskov/Randers Tropical Zoo (Randers, DK) - unlike any other Scandinavian attraction, as there are three tropical domes and an outdoor area. Also the famous Snake Temple and two Nocturnal Zones.
Odense Zoo (Odense, DK) - also a 22-acre urban zoo, but with a higher quality of exhibits. Manatees, penguins, Sitatunga walk-through, African Waters aviary = highlights.
Terrariet Reptile Zoo (Vissenbjerg, DK) - a Reptile Zoo with approximately 70 species.
Fjord & Baelt (Kerteminde, DK) - a small Aquarium building and then seals and Harbour Porpoises outdoors.
Malmo Reptile Center (Malmo, SE) - a Reptile Zoo with approximately 100 species.
We are halfway there! Well, 4 days are done and there are 4 days to go, but the second half of my trip features less zoos. During my 2019 zoo trip to Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (and two zoos in France!), I made many comments about Europe in general or comparing zoos from one continent to another. Today, instead of a review, I’m going to ramble on about a few odds n’ sods.
Hotels. On all 9 of my previous ‘Snowleopard Road Trip’ threads on ZooChat, I essentially never pre-booked any hotels. Sometimes that would come back to haunt me, as I can recall driving from hotel to hotel in 2008 and 2010 with my wife, desperately trying to find a place that had a vacancy. On some later trips, I mainly slept in the back of my minivan. I’d go to a truck stop in the U.S., pay $10 Canadian for a towel and access to a shower, wash up and have a delightful sleep on a full-sized mattress in the back of a van with the seats all folded down. Many truckers all around me were doing the same thing and we'd all be parked for the night in the truck-stop lot. By doing that, I saved a fortune! Of course, those days are now over, and it is hotels all the way on my two European jaunts. This time around, with packed airports and people traveling like crazy everywhere, I’m so happy that I pre-booked everything beforehand. The whole world seems to be traveling again and every hotel is sold out. It was a relief to have a hotel lined up at the end of each night, with the only major downside being that on a couple of evenings, later in the trip, I would have wanted to stop driving earlier but had no choice but to continue.
Covid. There really are no masks anywhere in Scandinavia. At the AQUA Aquarium & Wildlife Park I came across a family of 4 wearing masks and I did a double take as they might literally be the only people wearing masks that I saw in the first few days of the trip. It is 99.9% zero masks anywhere in Denmark, and when I hit Sweden and Norway nothing changed. It’s like Covid protocols never existed out here. Speaking of Covid, at the Canadian high school I teach at people are quite open about when they get Covid as they have to miss a few days of teaching or even take a full week off. There's no hiding if you are gone for a week! There are exactly 40 staff members, from teachers to the principal to youth care workers, etc., and as of June, half of them had already had Covid and I'm sure that several more have contracted the virus this summer. Of those, 18 had either mild, practically non-existent symptoms or were extremely sick for a few days but easily recovered, and only two staff members ever had to go to the hospital. Neither were vaccinated and both were anti-vaxxers and they suffered terribly. One guy lost 25 pounds and was gone for a month. All the other staff members, and all the various people in my life who have had Covid, have been fortunate enough to have recovered within days if they even needed to recover at all. It's really a shame that Covid has disproportionately affected much older people, quite often retirees.
Zoo maps. In all my years of visiting hundreds of zoos in North America, I only ever paid for a zoo map on a couple of occasions. They are free everywhere and quite often I’d grab 4 or 5 maps because I trade with various zoo nerd friends around the globe. Then in 2019, I was shocked when so many Dutch, Belgian and German zoos charged money for the paper zoo maps, and it led to some interesting conversations on this site. Paying a couple of Euros at a huge number of zoos adds up financially. This time around, all through Denmark, Sweden and Norway I never once paid for a zoo map. These are expensive countries to visit, but the zoo maps are free everywhere you go.
Carcasses. This has been a big revelation for me on this trip, starting on the first day when at Givskud there is a sign detailing how twice a week a dead horse (fully intact!) is deposited into the lion exhibit and left for the animals to devour. At the Scandinavian Wildlife Park, the stench from the European Wolf exhibit was abysmal, as there was a pile of bones and meat strewn in all directions. Spotted Hyenas were chowing down on a goat at Jyllands Park Zoo, African Wild Dogs had what appeared to be a dismembered horse at Ree Park Safari, and there have been plenty of zoos with hooks or wire cords containing chunks of ribcages or assorted pieces of meat inside exhibits. There are what appear to be BBQ ribs just hanging around. You don’t ever see any of that in North American zoos, and I don’t recall seeing much of that anywhere in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany either. It adds a whole new stinky layer to a zoological experience.
Walk-through exhibits. European zoo nerds are so accustomed to the idea of having a White-faced Saki or a Barbary Macaque stroll in front of them that it’s not really a shock anymore, and the same goes for me at this point in time. With around 120 European zoos under my belt, going in with lemurs and a variety of other primate species on a big trip is a daily occurrence. Usually there are zero staff around as well. In North America, where some fool will sue a zoo if a lemur farts in his direction, the notion of having a walk-through with pythons or marmosets or basically anything other than wallabies and budgies is too much to comprehend. In Europe, I famously went in with Wisent and Przewalkski's Horses at Natuurpark Lelystad (Lelystad, NL) in 2019 and this time around there were snakes everywhere in Randers.
Food. I eat healthy at home, and I work out on an elliptical and rack up a lot of steps each day, but when I’m on a zoo trip I fully admit that I consume a lot of fast food. All over Europe, food is a big thing and tourists come over to taste their way around the continent. There are cafes in all directions, but being alone and pressed for time means that the chance of me casually eating some food in a restaurant or little café is zero. It would be awkward. I don't like either tea or coffee, preferring water instead, and I usually have a lot of Gatorade back home, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere in the Scandinavian gas stations here. So, it’s lunch at a zoo but more frequently McDonald’s or Burger King while I’m driving at the same time. I’m not a big fan of fries, so I’ve been getting a burger and healthy carrot sticks and a milkshake at McDonald’s as my most frequent lunch. At least I’m 6 feet tall, 168 pounds, and quite skinny for my age (almost 47). A few Danish Mcburgers won’t kill me off.
Cameras. These are everywhere. Instead of a constant police presence in the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, with guys hiding behind bushes with radar guns, in Europe I’ve had two big trips and in 40 days on the continent I’ve hardly ever seen any police. They don't seem to exist unless there is an accident on the road and it's quite refreshing. However, in 2019 I came home to find two speeding tickets in my mailbox, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same occurs this time around. There are so many cameras that it stretches belief. In Norway, near the end of the journey, I must have driven past 40 or 50 ‘Toll Road’ signs, all captured by camera and not a person in a booth like around Chicago. It’s about a thousand times faster than all the old toll booths in the U.S. when I’d drop a dollar or two into a steel bucket, but how much I’m getting charged in Scandinavia I have no idea. I guess that my rental car company (AVIS) will just tack on a few cents for every bend in a Norwegian road.
Money. The entire trip, from flight to rental car to hotels to all the zoo and aquarium entrance tickets, from food to absolutely everything, was put on the same credit card. I have been tap, tap, tapping my way across Europe in 2019 and 2022. I know coworkers who told me that I needed some Danish Krones, some Swedish Krona and some Norwegian Krones (probably all pretty much the same thing), as well as some Euros for the Paris and Hamburg airports, but in the end I did nothing and just tapped my card 100% of the time. Who carries cash these days?
Thoughts on any of that?
My next review (in a day or two) will be a hefty one. Stay tuned for approximately 15 paragraphs and plenty of photos on Kolmarden Wildlife Park. It's a zoo I have mixed feelings about as it's the Disney's Animal Kingdom of Scandinavia. Amazing exhibits...and rollercoasters. Hmmm...
Don't get me wrong, love the reviews as always but it's some of the differences you come across and how you react to them that are the true highlights of these threads for me. 
Sunday, August 7th, 2022
Zoo/Aquarium # 14: Fjord & Baelt (Kerteminde, DK)
After finishing up at Terrariet Reptile Zoo, I drove 45 minutes east to my 3rd stop of the day. This facility is famous for 25 years of work with Harbour Porpoises, a species that I used to see frequently at Vancouver Aquarium (although no longer there) but is incredibly rare in zoological facilities worldwide. The cost to see the two porpoises is $26 Canadian, a steep sum to view what are tiny cetaceans in a pool with no underwater viewing. There is also a second outdoor exhibit, this one for Grey Seals and Harbour Seals, and a small touch tank area. Indoors there is a grand total of 19 tanks, none of them memorable except for another touch tank, with a few highlights being Moon Jellyfish, Broad-nosed Pipefish, King Ragworm (kind of cool), Brush-clawed Shore Crab and Great Spider Crab.
Aquarium entrance:
Harbour Porpoise exhibit:
Harbour Porpoise exhibit:
Harbour Seal/Grey Seal exhibit:
There is a planned 53.5 million DKK (7 million Euro) expansion in the works, which will include a new schoolroom, an auditorium, a café and an entrance building. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that any additional species will be added to what is an establishment that can be toured twice in the span of 30 minutes. Admittedly, the Harbour Porpoises are neat to see, and they are always much smaller than anticipated, but Fjord & Baelt needs to offer up more to entice higher attendance numbers. There are several interesting posters on the walls talking about the research done here. The porpoises are trained to have their eyes covered (like horse blinders) so studies can be done on echolocation. At times, suction cups hold a small computer on the back of a porpoise so that scientists can track its movement. Sometimes headphones are put on the ears of the porpoises, so their reactions can be studied.
Harbour Porpoise posters:
Zoo/Aquarium # 15: Malmo Reptile Center (Malmo, SE)
Here is a zoo that was only vaguely on my radar, but since I finished Odense in 2.5 hours, did the nearby Terrariet Reptile Zoo in 45 minutes, and spent a very short time at Fjord & Baelt, it gave me the ability to add on a 4th zoo (Malmo Reptile Center) at the end of a long day. It was a two-hour drive from the porpoises to Malmo, crossing an international border in the process. After 14 zoos in Denmark, it was time to hit up Sweden for the next few days. You all know that I'll be returning to Denmark, because I've still got the nation's two most attended zoological facilities to visit.
Cruising through the Oresund Tunnel, which is an amazing drive, I used my rental car’s GPS to locate this small Reptile Zoo. For the first time on the trip (and what would end up being the only time), I struggled to locate the establishment. I drove up and down the street that it was on before parking in an alley and proceeding on foot. I still could not find the Reptile Zoo as its entrance is not actually on the street and I was staring at the back of a building which was a blank wall with zero signs anywhere. Going down the road, cutting into a park, then coming back up again, it was revealed that the Malmo Reptile Center’s entrance and façade are only accessed via the park.
This is an establishment that is a little ‘old-school’ in terms of its charms. There has been only one owner for the past 40 years and there is stuff crammed into every corner. There are tanks on top of tanks, random items in all directions, free-ranging Flying Foxes and Pygmy Marmosets up in the rafters, and a cluttered atmosphere. In many ways, that made a visit more exciting, as I didn’t know what was waiting around each bend in the building. There’s an entry area that is essentially a gift shop which is bursting at the seams, and someone hidden behind a mountain of merchandise by a cash register. Beyond that, there are a series of rooms at the back and a small outdoor courtyard. It’s a chaotic, somewhat thrilling place to visit and I enjoyed puttering around, avoiding bat droppings, enjoying the stench of monkey piss, and seeing a lot of species in well-furnished yet average-sized terrariums. However, there are a number of exhibits that don't meet modern standards.
Assorted terrariums and tarantulas in cookie jars:
Here are 8 terrariums crammed into a corner:
After seeing Green Anacondas everywhere, here was the only place on the trip that had a Yellow Anaconda:
African Dwarf Crocodile exhibit:
Typical hallway view:
Assorted terrariums...and souvenirs? Junk? Note the overhead walkway for Pygmy Marmosets:
Outdoor exhibits:
Outdoor exhibits:
It was fun to come up with the species list, even though it took me a tremendous amount of time to go through all my photos of signs on my iPhone and type out the names. My best guess is that I recorded perhaps 95% of the species at the Malmo Reptile Center, but with exhibits stashed in all directions I might have missed a small percentage of the animal collection. I really enjoy reptile zoos and it was neat to see a few rarities that one normally doesn’t come across in major zoos.
Here is the species list (exactly 100 species):
Mammals (4): Red-handed Tamarin, Common Marmoset, Pygmy Marmoset and Egyptian Flying Fox.
Birds (6): Indian Ringneck Parrot, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Common Myna and at least 3 parrot/parakeet species.
Crocodilian (1): African Dwarf Crocodile
Snakes (20): Indochinese Spitting Cobra, Monocled Cobra, Green Mamba, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, Green Bush Viper, White-lipped Tree Viper, Nose-horned Viper, Copperhead, Northern Adder, Water Snake, Baron’s Green Racer, Corn Snake, Pueblan Milk Snake, Aesculapian Snake, Yellow Anaconda, Reticulated Python, Burmese Python, Ball Python, Carpet Python and Jamaican Boa.
Lizards (23): Savannah Monitor, Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, Fiji Banded Iguana, Green Iguana, Frilled Dragon, Basilisk, Bearded Dragon, Panther Chameleon, Veiled Chameleon, Madagascar Day Gecko, Wall Gecko, Gargoyle Gecko, Fat-tailed Gecko, New Caledonian Giant Gecko, Tokay Gecko, Gila Monster, Water Dragon, Eyed Lizard, Sand Lizard, Spiny-tailed Agama, Rock Agama, European Legless Lizard and Slow Worm.
Chelonians (10): African Spurred Tortoise, Indian Star Tortoise, Marginated Tortoise, Hermann’s Tortoise, Russian Tortoise, Yellow-footed Tortoise, Red-footed Tortoise, Alligator Snapping Turtle, Painted Wood Turtle and European Pond Turtle.
Amphibians (15): Vietnamese Mossy Frog, Tomato Frog, Pig Frog, Tropical Bullfrog, Golden Poison Frog, Cuban Tree Frog, Green Tree Frog, White’s Frog, European Leaf Frog, Colorado River Toad, Fire-bellied Toad, Smooth-sided Toad, Cane Toad, Fire Salamander and Axolotl.
Arachnids (15): Black Widow Spider, Cameroon Crab Spider, Golden Blue-legged Baboon Spider, Mexican Fire-leg Tarantula, Brazilian Salmon Pink Bird-eating Tarantula, Peacock Tarantula, Chilean Rose Tarantula, Antilles Pink-toe Tarantula, Indian Ornamental Tarantula, Red-kneed Bird Spider, Burrowing Scorpion (Ophistophthalmus glabrifrons), Desert Scorpion (Androctonus australis), Giant Forest Scorpion, Emperor Scorpion and one other scorpion (Androctonus mauretanicus).
Creepy Crawlies (5): Ringed Millipede, Chinese Red-headed Centipede, Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, Giant Spiny Assassin Bug and Giant African Land Snail.
Fish (1): Piranha
I actually have seen one American zoo feed whole carcasses - the wolf pack at Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary gets an entire White-tailed Deer carcass once weekly.I’ve posted 4 days of zoo reviews and a total of 15 zoos have been visited. Here is a recap in chronological order:
Kattegatcentret Center (Grenaa, DK) - mid-sized aquarium with an open-topped shark tank and a brand-new immersive penguin exhibit.
Skandinavisk Dyrepark/Scandinavian Wildlife Park (Kolind, DK) - a zoo with only 18 species, although that includes a pair of 6-acre habitats for Polar Bears and Brown Bears. Also the world's largest Steller's Sea Eagle aviary.
Skaerup Zoo (Borkop, DK) - small, home-made zoo with 100 species and several rarities. I counted 19 primate species.
Givskud Zoo (Givskud, DK) - world's largest exhibits for Spectacled Bears and Humboldt Penguins, plus many other great animal habitats. A portion is a drive-through area.
Ree Park Safari (Ebeltoft, DK) - big African Savanna for probably 80 animals, plus huge carnivore exhibits for the likes of Lions, Cheetahs and African Wild Dogs.
Munkholm Zoo (Munkholm, DK) - small, home-made zoo out in the country.
AQUA Akvarium & Dyrepark/AQUA Aquarium & Wildlife Park (Silkeborg, DK) - 4-level Aquarium with a focus on Danish Lakes. Also an outdoor loop with a dozen native mammal species.
Jyllands Park Zoo (Videbaek, DK) - a privately-owned zoo with a wide range of exhibit quality and a little bit of everything. Has a brand-new Giraffe House that is almost finished.
Nordsoen Oceanarium/North Sea Oceanarium (Hirtshals, DK) - one of Europe's top aquariums, with a million-gallon tank and a small Whale Museum in the outdoor zone.
Aalborg Zoo (Aalborg, DK) - 22-acre urban zoo packed with ABC animals. A brand-new Bornean Orangutan exhibit is a highlight, but the whole zoo is enjoyable.
Randers Regnskov/Randers Tropical Zoo (Randers, DK) - unlike any other Scandinavian attraction, as there are three tropical domes and an outdoor area. Also the famous Snake Temple and two Nocturnal Zones.
Odense Zoo (Odense, DK) - also a 22-acre urban zoo, but with a higher quality of exhibits. Manatees, penguins, Sitatunga walk-through, African Waters aviary = highlights.
Terrariet Reptile Zoo (Vissenbjerg, DK) - a Reptile Zoo with approximately 70 species.
Fjord & Baelt (Kerteminde, DK) - a small Aquarium building and then seals and Harbour Porpoises outdoors.
Malmo Reptile Center (Malmo, SE) - a Reptile Zoo with approximately 100 species.
We are halfway there! Well, 4 days are done and there are 4 days to go, but the second half of my trip features less zoos. During my 2019 zoo trip to Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (and two zoos in France!), I made many comments about Europe in general or comparing zoos from one continent to another. Today, instead of a review, I’m going to ramble on about a few odds n’ sods.
Hotels. On all 9 of my previous ‘Snowleopard Road Trip’ threads on ZooChat, I essentially never pre-booked any hotels. Sometimes that would come back to haunt me, as I can recall driving from hotel to hotel in 2008 and 2010 with my wife, desperately trying to find a place that had a vacancy. On some later trips, I mainly slept in the back of my minivan. I’d go to a truck stop in the U.S., pay $10 Canadian for a towel and access to a shower, wash up and have a delightful sleep on a full-sized mattress in the back of a van with the seats all folded down. Many truckers all around me were doing the same thing and we'd all be parked for the night in the truck-stop lot. By doing that, I saved a fortune! Of course, those days are now over, and it is hotels all the way on my two European jaunts. This time around, with packed airports and people traveling like crazy everywhere, I’m so happy that I pre-booked everything beforehand. The whole world seems to be traveling again and every hotel is sold out. It was a relief to have a hotel lined up at the end of each night, with the only major downside being that on a couple of evenings, later in the trip, I would have wanted to stop driving earlier but had no choice but to continue.
Covid. There really are no masks anywhere in Scandinavia. At the AQUA Aquarium & Wildlife Park I came across a family of 4 wearing masks and I did a double take as they might literally be the only people wearing masks that I saw in the first few days of the trip. It is 99.9% zero masks anywhere in Denmark, and when I hit Sweden and Norway nothing changed. It’s like Covid protocols never existed out here. Speaking of Covid, at the Canadian high school I teach at people are quite open about when they get Covid as they have to miss a few days of teaching or even take a full week off. There's no hiding if you are gone for a week! There are exactly 40 staff members, from teachers to the principal to youth care workers, etc., and as of June, half of them had already had Covid and I'm sure that several more have contracted the virus this summer. Of those, 18 had either mild, practically non-existent symptoms or were extremely sick for a few days but easily recovered, and only two staff members ever had to go to the hospital. Neither were vaccinated and both were anti-vaxxers and they suffered terribly. One guy lost 25 pounds and was gone for a month. All the other staff members, and all the various people in my life who have had Covid, have been fortunate enough to have recovered within days if they even needed to recover at all. It's really a shame that Covid has disproportionately affected much older people, quite often retirees.
Zoo maps. In all my years of visiting hundreds of zoos in North America, I only ever paid for a zoo map on a couple of occasions. They are free everywhere and quite often I’d grab 4 or 5 maps because I trade with various zoo nerd friends around the globe. Then in 2019, I was shocked when so many Dutch, Belgian and German zoos charged money for the paper zoo maps, and it led to some interesting conversations on this site. Paying a couple of Euros at a huge number of zoos adds up financially. This time around, all through Denmark, Sweden and Norway I never once paid for a zoo map. These are expensive countries to visit, but the zoo maps are free everywhere you go.
Carcasses. This has been a big revelation for me on this trip, starting on the first day when at Givskud there is a sign detailing how twice a week a dead horse (fully intact!) is deposited into the lion exhibit and left for the animals to devour. At the Scandinavian Wildlife Park, the stench from the European Wolf exhibit was abysmal, as there was a pile of bones and meat strewn in all directions. Spotted Hyenas were chowing down on a goat at Jyllands Park Zoo, African Wild Dogs had what appeared to be a dismembered horse at Ree Park Safari, and there have been plenty of zoos with hooks or wire cords containing chunks of ribcages or assorted pieces of meat inside exhibits. There are what appear to be BBQ ribs just hanging around. You don’t ever see any of that in North American zoos, and I don’t recall seeing much of that anywhere in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany either. It adds a whole new stinky layer to a zoological experience.
Walk-through exhibits. European zoo nerds are so accustomed to the idea of having a White-faced Saki or a Barbary Macaque stroll in front of them that it’s not really a shock anymore, and the same goes for me at this point in time. With around 120 European zoos under my belt, going in with lemurs and a variety of other primate species on a big trip is a daily occurrence. Usually there are zero staff around as well. In North America, where some fool will sue a zoo if a lemur farts in his direction, the notion of having a walk-through with pythons or marmosets or basically anything other than wallabies and budgies is too much to comprehend. In Europe, I famously went in with Wisent and Przewalkski's Horses at Natuurpark Lelystad (Lelystad, NL) in 2019 and this time around there were snakes everywhere in Randers.
Food. I eat healthy at home, and I work out on an elliptical and rack up a lot of steps each day, but when I’m on a zoo trip I fully admit that I consume a lot of fast food. All over Europe, food is a big thing and tourists come over to taste their way around the continent. There are cafes in all directions, but being alone and pressed for time means that the chance of me casually eating some food in a restaurant or little café is zero. It would be awkward. I don't like either tea or coffee, preferring water instead, and I usually have a lot of Gatorade back home, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere in the Scandinavian gas stations here. So, it’s lunch at a zoo but more frequently McDonald’s or Burger King while I’m driving at the same time. I’m not a big fan of fries, so I’ve been getting a burger and healthy carrot sticks and a milkshake at McDonald’s as my most frequent lunch. At least I’m 6 feet tall, 168 pounds, and quite skinny for my age (almost 47). A few Danish Mcburgers won’t kill me off.
Cameras. These are everywhere. Instead of a constant police presence in the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, with guys hiding behind bushes with radar guns, in Europe I’ve had two big trips and in 40 days on the continent I’ve hardly ever seen any police. They don't seem to exist unless there is an accident on the road and it's quite refreshing. However, in 2019 I came home to find two speeding tickets in my mailbox, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same occurs this time around. There are so many cameras that it stretches belief. In Norway, near the end of the journey, I must have driven past 40 or 50 ‘Toll Road’ signs, all captured by camera and not a person in a booth like around Chicago. It’s about a thousand times faster than all the old toll booths in the U.S. when I’d drop a dollar or two into a steel bucket, but how much I’m getting charged in Scandinavia I have no idea. I guess that my rental car company (AVIS) will just tack on a few cents for every bend in a Norwegian road.
Money. The entire trip, from flight to rental car to hotels to all the zoo and aquarium entrance tickets, from food to absolutely everything, was put on the same credit card. I have been tap, tap, tapping my way across Europe in 2019 and 2022. I know coworkers who told me that I needed some Danish Krones, some Swedish Krona and some Norwegian Krones (probably all pretty much the same thing), as well as some Euros for the Paris and Hamburg airports, but in the end I did nothing and just tapped my card 100% of the time. Who carries cash these days?
Thoughts on any of that?
My next review (in a day or two) will be a hefty one. Stay tuned for approximately 15 paragraphs and plenty of photos on Kolmarden Wildlife Park. It's a zoo I have mixed feelings about as it's the Disney's Animal Kingdom of Scandinavia. Amazing exhibits...and rollercoasters. Hmmm...