Kobenhavn

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Yeeehaaaaaaa first day to sleep my ass in. And that I did. Slept in till 950, just before Svetlana was about to wake me up. She got off work around 6 or 7 and had a meeting in Korsor so she was gonna drive me to the station which was really nice. Otherwise it was one hell of a long walk!!! She made a bit of breaky too cause the kids were here too Vadim and Maria, so she could hit two birds with one stone. But they werent about to be getting up anytime soon. They got the privilige of stealing the bed upstairs, while Benny and Svetlana took the camper outside! I was more than willing to give up my prime spot but they wouldnt budge!! I was really getting used to the whole bread cheese and meat breakfast. It was catching up with my fat ass too!!! Ha oh well ill loose it in India hopefully not by getting food poisoning the whole time at least!
Got to the station and Svetlana told me to behave myself and gave me a big hug!! The train to Copenhagen airport left just as I was coming in and there wasnt another one for an hour!! Hmmmm the problem was that most of the trains didnt stop at Copenhagen and it took me awhile to figure this out. Most of them went there though. I wondered around the town a bit. Not much to see that I saw anyways. Later on I found out I was wrong,
Figured out the train and jumped on the next one bound for Copenhagen. Cost me around 40 dollars for a return ticket!!!! OUCH oh well ill try to make the best of it. Too bad my pass wasnt valid yet this shit should be free!!! Something that I had trouble stomaching but thats just me. Got into town around 1ish. The plan was to walk through the red light district area of Kobenhavn to check out the action and wander to the Carlsberg factory. Found a great bookshop. Bought three Lonely planet guides for 50 kr. Which is like 10 bucks. One on Western Europe, Indonesia, and one on Thailand. The shop was quite amazing. He had books freaking everywhere good thing i didnt have my big bag I wouldnt of even fit through the door. I had to go downstairs to find the guidebooks which he showed me. TINY TINY staircase which I cut myself on something or other. Trying not to bleed everywhere I looked through the massive amount of shelves. COuldnt get the best picture to capture the closterphobia but it would have to do. The guy asked me are you going to all these places and I said YA. Wow so your on a year trip then. Yep thats great he says ill give you a deal. Got a picture and off I was.
Bad part of the savings was they were freaking heavy. Like 2 pounds each or something. HAHAHA this would get to be quite annoying later. At least I got a bag with it cause my clip off shoulder bag from my pack isnt that great for having more than a few things in it. Found my way through this cool square where everyone was hanging out and drinking. A labrador was swimming in the fountain haha, while his owner I think played his guitar. You have to look hard for the lab in the back.
Continued on my travels and found this lovely park with roses everywhere. People were lounging in the sun and tanning. Quite picturesque. Best thing was for me was that I was on track and on the exact road I needed to be to find the brewery. It was pretty easy with the huge Carslberg tower!! Found the famous elephants I wanted a picture with. Museum was closed!! It closed on June 1. SHitty deal. I walked up towards the Visitors center to see what that was all about. It was just a tour of the Calsberg and Tuborg history. You got two free beers at the end too! Met a guy from Portland at the gate who turned out to be a teacher on holiday for the summer. I said you look to Conservative to be from Portland. He says why cause Im not a hippy. Hahaha I said yah. Everyone so far has been of the same calibre. He said well were not all like that. I knew that I just wanted to bust his balls. He had a bike that lucky bastard!! I planned on grabbing one of those city bikes but I didnt want him to see me doing this. I told him my plan was to check out Christiana, and likewise was his. He recommended I check out Brussels in Belgium cause he had just come from there. I thanked him for the advice and we said our goodbyes.
I walked back towards where I came from before. I took a quick right after the Brewery to find a bike though;Nothing they all had those locks in between the spokes.Shit.Anyways I came across this football court where there was a few parked outside. Jumped on one and off I was. Nows when the books became a pain in my ass. I had a coat as well because you just never know about the weather. The bag kept sliding towards my crotch and got in the way of peddaling. The other problem was that the city bike had a stupid sign on it that was illegible, and caught the wind like no other. All of a sudden it would push me left or right without a seconds notice, and even worse then that the wind was coming straight at me making it 3 times as hard to pedal. Oh well I had a bike and I was rocking along happy as a pig in shit.
I wanted to get to Christiana so I rode along the water looking for the next bridge over. I was quite aways still and ladies were passing me on their fancy city bikes. Probably laughing at me. I saw one lady in high heels riding. Quite the fashion queen. I picked up the heavy sucker and walked up the steps to the bridge so I didnt have to ride all the way around. Got onto the bridge and jumed into bike traffic on the cycle path. There was a nice little park just across I wanted to check out. I thought it was Christiana but it was just near the border. I was already thinking be careful with that camera or its gonna be gondy.
There was this rap video they were shooting alongside the basketball court with these younger girls all dancing in the backround. Kinda funny. There was also a swimming pool that had a immitation rock cliff you could jump off. I was so hot from pedaling in the heat. The wind didnt help me much. I checked out my handy little map to see what my best route should be. Realized I wasnt even in Christiana and turned around. Found my way and cycled through the little town. I stopped at one of the little lakes they had bordering , Took the bike further in past the huge brown cathedral with a golden top part. Stopped the bike to get a picture of this mural and realized I was in Christiana now. Gravel pathways and murals with people in hippy type clothing all around me. I heard music coming from close by so I headed for there. Saw this one park where everyone was just sitting around and lounging in this tiny spot. That was right beside where one of the stages was. There was a music festival to through saturday in Christiana so I picked a great time to visit. Reggae as well my favourite.
Walked through the hords of people with my bike and decided to stash it somewhere so I could get a better perception of what was going on here. Everyone seemed red eyed and giddy. I knew I was in the right spot!! I parked the bike by the Woodstock Cafe, behind as many bikes as I could get infront of it to camoflauge that it didnt have a lock. Little food stands everywhere. There was 3 stages around the area that I saw. One was a dj doing more of a hip hop thing. The next was a rock band by the Greenland grass shack. The main stage where all the food vendors surrounded, looked like a hash garden oasis was playing good ol Reggae. I decided to start here. At EVERY picnic table around the square people were either rolling or smoking FAT doobies. Eyes were red and slightly dazed it smelt terrific wandering through there. I stopped at this table by the bar which this older guy with glasses was sitting making a sale with everything all laid out in front of him. He had about 10 different kinds of hash. About an ounce of skunk weed he called it and pre rolled fatties. Some had hash the others had the skunk weed. I asked him about the prices and sat down for a chat. Told him where I was from and said oh well sit down I want to talk to you. He told me im Kendal whats your name. I told him Andrew. There were kids surrounding him the whole time. They would come up to him break a chunk of hash off and throw some money on the table. Never bothering to count it or anything. I guess he knew quite a few people!! There was a gang of kids all around the whole time. I think some of them worked for him but not sure. One of them was counting things up and writing things out on a schedule! The guy sat me down and started telling me about his past in Christiana. He had moved here when he was 18. He told me he saw this place once, and said to his friend I gotta move there. So he did. He knew someone living here and they said there was a free spot by him and he could take that! So now its been 27 years and he had 3 kids here 16,23,25 years old. He talked about his passion for hot rods and how he had 3 of them. Old 30s Mercurys and everything, he showed me pictures of them. He bought me a beer as they were filling this crazy cone looking things. Packing it with precision. They smoked it with their hands cupped. I was told if I tried it I had to be really careful. HA i chickened out. But I did get to sample a spliff that he had going. I hated the taste of the tobbaco they used with it. UGH it made me cough my ass off. Ha this group of bulldogs were all hanging around going from person to person for affection. It was a community feel that I got. This one guy came around looking to sell a new jacket. Kendel wasnt interested but asked me if I needed one and I told him NO THANKS!! I sat down with him for probably the better part of an hour. One of his old friends came by. Similar age bracket. Had glasses. THey told me they got busted once for having sold 300 kilos of hash. Ha he was in jail for a few days i think. Crazy. The other story he told me was about the gangs around Christiana. They want a piece of the cake as well. They got rid of them all banning gangs from Christiana or even the colors of the gangs. I heard that they didnt even want you to have music patches but i think that might be false. One night they had a hand grenade go off during the middle of the night destroying part of this building standing right in front of me. Kendal lived right beside there in a apartment complex. Anyways he was packing up all his stuff and invited me to come see his house tommorow and see his most prized garage. I told him it wasnt likely but maybe on monday cause i will be back to leave Denmark. So we said our goodbyes and off I went to encounter what ever else I had in store for the rest of the day. I really wanted a picture to capture the element of what was happening here. It was pretty tough with everyone sitting around there and watching the music. I was told that if you did take pictures the locals screamed out no photos no photos and sometimes even confiscated your freaking camera. I had wayyyyyyyyy to many great photos on there to be risking that. But I managed to sneak a few. I got a spliff for the road and jumped on the bike to explore. Thankfully it was still there. I thought they might take exception to the tourist bike in their town even though most people there were tourists. My mistake here was I thought all of Christianshaven was Christiana but it was only a very small part of it. I took off on the bike up the canal. Saw an interesting shack that someone was living in on the side of the road. They were playing this game ive never seen before in kayaks which was like water polo. Pretty neat. Gotta look into that and get a name. Continued on my quest and came to a dead end at this marina.Got a picture of some crazy houseboat that had a wild design to it. Then i went backwards to a main road that cut across the island. My bag became unzipped somehow and the books all fell out and I ran one over bending some of the pages. DAMN i worked out a way for the bike to hold the pack on the handlebars that helped me out major. AHHH i was starting to get hungry now and was looking for a good spot. Went up this dead end road which turned out to be a garden house district trying to cut across to Christiana. They Had a river seperating the two so I had to keep riding on. Found a bridge and was back at square one again at the festival. Hmmm not exactly the tour I was planning. The road around was very industrial on the right side of Christianshaven. Some soccer fields and parks but nothing too scenic.
I decided to phone Benny to tell him when I would be arriving home so he wouldnt have to worry about it. After that I went to the smokers square and ordered some food. Sat down with this table full of girls smoking their joints. Ha it was a wicked band playing and the best thing was it was all free. They gave me this red light that would flash when the food was ready. It didnt go off for about 15 mins. When it did go off I was busy watching the music, and the girls beside me all shouted ahhh your food is ready as if they were watching it like hawks. They didnt say a whole lot more than that to me actually. After dinner I rode the bike back over the bridge to downtown Kobenhavn and started making my way to the train station. Got a bit lost on the way. I managed to find the big lion but it was getting a bit dark now so it didnt turn up as well as I wanted. Found the Erotic Museum that I wanted to visit but it was very much closed.
Finally the train station. I heard English being spoken clearly and I thought to myself ahhhh shite thats way to easy to find your way around the station that way. I wasnt that lucky before directing myself through a cloud of non english speaking nictoine freaks!!! On the train I sat down at this 4 seat table section. The couple in front of me were quietly discussing something or other. I never was able to tell Benny exactly when I was gonna be at the station so I wanted to ask them if I could use their phone for a second to call him, cause the journey took around an hour and thats lotsa time for him to make it there. I got up the nerve and told them I just needed to make a short local call to my uncle to get him to meet me at the station. They looked at me funny and asked what the number was. They told me they never heard of this local calling stuff. Only in the movies have they heard of such a thing!!! I told them ahhhh wow in Canada if you phone somewhere 50 kms away its more money to call depending on the company. They laughed and punched in the number for me. It was nice because i only needed it for 1 minute and it was a good introduction for a conversation after the call. We talked about Denmark and the launguage difficulty. They said dont even try to learn it. Its too tough and a lot of the words sound exactly the same!!! HAHAHa I pretty much had to agree with them there. It is tough but I would have be involved in a lot more conversations in my time in Denmark thats for sure!!! They told me about Greenland and how much more tough their language is. They moved there for 2 years for a job in some engineering facilty. In the time that they were there they didnt even get close to learning the laungage thats how tough it is. Letters have different sounds then what thhey would normally be. FOr example i think the P sounds like a B. We rolled into Slagelse and I said goodbye and thanked them again for their kindness.
Benny was waiting for me in the Audi. He asked me if I had a bag full of hash!!! I told him nah its only half full hahaa. Told him about my crazy day. Got home had a good strong cup of coffee. Hit up the computer awhile and then off to bed. Tommorow I had no plans so it was ok to sleep in...YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
Nighty night

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