Friday, September 01, 2006

Danish dreams

Take one designer flat. Add two Aussies, a laptop and a fridge. What do you get? Sloth.

We've been in Copenhagen for one week and seen a total of zero museums, been to no famous landmarks (apart from sailing past them on a canal tour) and even fewer famous restaurants. In short we've been utterly lazy and spent a lot of time sleeping, eating and playing frisbee. This could be a sign of Europe fatige.

Copenhagen, on the little that I've managed to pick up, seems to be the coolest city I've been to so far, although this is pure speculation. I think if I could speak Danish I'd get more out of it. That being said, everyone, from the guy at the bakery to the random helpful at the train station, seems to speak perfect English. If everyone in Germany was this billingual I'd be out of a job in no time- and it's no wonder the Germans are embarrassed. The Danes are damn good.

The city is easy to get around, a bikers paradise, full of trendy little shops and cafes (and *sigh* museums) and happy, smiling, good-looking people. There seems to be a lot of multiculturalism, I've seen girls in veils on bikes, which I'm pretty sure I haven't seen anywhere else.

The other aspect which I find quite charming is the fairy tale heritage; they really seem to take it seriously and a lot of buildings, public art and space seems to be influenced by fairy tales. Yesterday we stumbled on a gorgeous park in the middle of the city, long avenues and fountains and sculptures everywhere. The old stock market has a tower of four dragons with their tails intertwined.

And of course the one place we did manage to visit is Christiania, the squat community tunred tourist attraction full of peace, love and mungbeans and a lot of lovely hippie housing on the side of a canal in the middle of the city. The kind of place every big city needs.

Today is our last day and I'm pretty sure we have a full plan of riding our bikes, playing frisbee and maybe, just maybe, seeing the last sights of lovely Copenhagen.

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