Copenhagen, home of the Danish

graffiti on a building
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Our fight to Copenhagen was overbooked so we waited an hour for the next one and in return the paid us a hundred dollars, a good start for the city. The guys I was with had reserved a hotel room for four people and so I waited for them to check in and then I snuck in. There isn’t much room and I slept on the floor near the bathroom door. We walk out in the town and get some sub-par pizza for dinner. Drinking is legal on the streets so we grab a can of the local beer, Carlsberg, and stroll through the streets. We end up in a park before the sun sets (it hasn’t set before ten since I got to Europe) and relax by a lake. We are walking back in the direction of our hotel and we hear someone playing music in a pub so we stop in for a while to listen. After that we walk back to our hotel and it starts pouring down and we are soaked by the time we make it back. When we get back the other guys had found Christiana, the social experiment, and they are raving about it. There is this town that people, hippies, took over one night and made their own. Its not part of the EU and there are no police or rules. You can smoke weed all you want but you can’t legally buy it (although a couple inquiries and they found some easily). They have about a thousand people that live there and it’s a full on city. There is a huge lake in the middle and playgrounds and houses and shops.

graffiti on a picnic bench
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The next day we got some breakfast and found some of the free bikes and road around town. It’s a beautiful city and very clean and upkept. We make it to the statue of the little mermaid (the original story is not as happy as the Disney one) and stop there for a bit. After a little more walking we get on a boat tour and ten minutes into it starts raining and we are in t-shirts with no umbrella. The rain eventually stops and the sun comes out. The tour takes us all over town as the canals are extensive (and extremely low) and go everywhere in the city. We get some lunch and I got the herring. It was kind of good although I couldn’t eat much more of it and Travis barely ate any of it. From there we make our way to Christiana and when we get inside we are amazed. The buildings are all old but they are all painted with colorful and interesting artwork. Pictures inside are strictly forbidden. We wander in to a building that has a skate ramp in it and watch some of the kids ripping in there. We meet up with the rest of our group at the main hang out spot where everyone drinks beer, smokes hash and plays backgammon. There is an interesting mixture of people there and some of them look very young, but there are no questions asked in there. We get some falafels before walking back to our hotel. The next day we have some time to kill before our flight so we get some brunch and then go to the national museum which was really cool and informative. We are then off to Amsterdam.

Free Bikes and a visit to the social experiment