Alex's Alliterative Adventures

Thoughts on Programming, Life, and Travel

Copenhagen II: the Day Trip

Unfortunately, the choir recordings were unusable, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say that they were really good.

We toured Copenhagen properly yesterday, it was a lot of fun.  After the changing of the guard, we saw a lot of statues and monuments, including two of the most famous, the Gefion Fountain and the Little Mermaid.

According to legend, a women named Gefion was to be given a reward from the king: she could have as much land as she could plow in one day and night with four oxen. She turned her four giant-begotten sons into oxen and plowed like it was going out of style.  The oxen were so plow-y that their plowing loosened the land and sent it into the sea, making the Danish island of Zealand.  Crazy ol’ Danes. The Little Mermaid was a gift from a Carl Jacobsen (of the Carlsburg Breweries) to the city of Copenhagen. He had it commissioned after he saw a performance of the ballet of the Little Mermaid.  I decided to defile the Danish landmark with my Canadian patriotism:

We then saw a Danish military wedding, climbed the Round Tower, which is a large observatory in central Copenhagen, and then we decided to find food.  We ended up in Freetown Christiania, which is a partially self-governing neighbourhood in Copenhagen. This place was the craziest shit I’d ever seen.  It was like walking into a mixture of one of Picasso’s paintings and a heroin overdose. The only phrase I can think of that even begins to describe this place is a post-apocalyptic drug trip.  The ground was littered in beer bottles, stray dogs weaved in and out of tourists’ legs as they were trying to eat, and a man ate a burger out of a garbage can in front of us.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the neighbourhood itself, so we couldn’t properly capture the sousaphone player belting out his bass line to the beat of the marching drummers while the rest of the wind players in white robes played along. (Iulia, I think you’d really like this place) The community functions on consensus, so the residents that want the communities public hash trade to disappear have met a lot of resistance.

There were lots of people taking lots of pictures, so hopefully I’ll connive some of them to hook me up with photos that don’t suck.  The photos I did take are available in a new album.  Check out the clock, it’s great. I won’t spam them all here, but I will leave you with the first photo I’ve taken here that I’m particularly proud of:

2 comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Swinger September 3rd, 2006 10:00 am

    The pictures are awesome; I feel that I am on the trip with you. So much in one or two days and what a contrast. Freetown Christiania would or has make an interesting sociology study. The little guy with the painted face is cute. It looks as if the “ride” was up to your expectations. I cannot comment on all the photos but I am enjoying them. Please keep them coming

  2. Alex September 5th, 2006 6:31 am

    If you liked the pictures, check out the video.

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