Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Denmark

Teegan and I made our way to Denmark on the weekend and spent 3 days in lovely Copenhagen. I am normally not much of a fan of traveling to cities, prefering to get off the beaten track a little but Copenhagen actually was a beautiful city to visit.

We spent our first day exploring and using the Lonely Planet's tiny map and on the second day we discovered the hostel had a larger map and we which we then looked at only to discover we'd been walking around and backtracking because we'd thought things were further away than they really were. Frustrating but we got a great workout.


On our way to the hostel, Teegs and I were consulting the map when I pulled my suitcase away and all of a sudden I heard Teegs gasp and I turned around just in time to see a man in a lycra jogging suit literally HOP over my suitcase because I had accidently pushed it right in front of his jogging path giving him no time to get out of the way. Lucky he was able to hurdle over the top of it otherwise things could have gotten nasty! Pretty funny though and I wish we'd recorded it. It was bad because I was totally oblivious to the fact that I almost tripped him over until he'd jogged off down the road... it was early in the morning ok!

We spent so much time sitting in a bar, sipping hot chocolate. It was great, such a relaxing weekend away. We went down to the canals and spent some time admiring the colourful houses and the amazing boats and I even found a boat called 'Simone L' so I was a little excited and got Teegan to take a million photos of me and this boat! We then caught a boat and sailed through the canals and got to see Copenhagen from the water.



In Norway, one of the girls at the hostel that I was staying at told me that I should find the sqautting area in Denmark. I had no idea what she was talking about until Teegan mentioned we should go to Christiania... all of a sudden, this girl's remark came flooding back to me and I was excited about going to visit this place. It is such a strange place to visit because the kind of people who live there enjoy their weed and have a pretty laid back lifestyle. Think of hippies. The buildings are run down and have graffiti all over them and the town is all paved meaning no traffic. I read an interesting sign while I was in there but I cannot remember what it said but basically it was referring to the fact that they aren't interested in materialistic or commercial things which is why they are so insistent on having their own community. When we were inside Christiania and were looking at the exit, there was a sign that said 'You are now entering the EU' which was their way of saying they don't want to be part of the EU. People were buying, selling and smoking weed on the street and although it is illegal and punishable in Denmark, police struggle to get any control over Christiania so now they don't even bother trying to stop it in this area. It was interesting because we saw all these people stoned as we were walking through and it is actually quite scary. One guy we met at a bar the night before suggested we go to Christiania for a drink and luckily we said no because it was scary during the day, let alone night! It was a culture shock for me because Copenhagen is such a nice city and it was unreal to see such a dirty side to the city. I guess every city has this side to it but Copenhagen isn't afraid to hide theirs.




We also went into this church and climbed up to the top and got an amazing view of the city and it was beautiful. Nevermind that I thought I might fall off the top thanks to the barriers being really low but it was worth it to experience the amazing view. It was a church that was just near the royal palace but I can't think of the name right now. The photo shows how windy it was but also the amazing view.

I would love to go back to Copenhagen and explore some more. It was beautiful!