The Second Day of Rest in 4 Weeks

After a full day of sightseeing we went with Camilla and Rasmus to meet some friends at a block party on the other side of Copenhagen. The DJ played 90’s hip hop and I’m not going to lie to you-Funky Cold Medina was my favorite.

We enjoyed the party and break dancers for a while but our feet were killing us and we feel bad making people speak English for our benefit so we headed home before our hosts. Since that point we have been sitting on their couch watching DVDs (we did stop to sleep). We watched a documentary called The Bridge, finished up Friday Night Lights and almost made it through 2 discs of Prison Break before we had to leave for our train to Amsterdam.

I know you are thinking, what? you are in Europe…why are you watching American Television? We needed a day to relax and Camilla and Rasmus were able to provide that with a DVD player, a couch and TV on DVD . And you know what the best part is… on the way to the train station we were rewarded with an excitement to go to Amsterdam like we haven’t experienced since the beginning of our trip. We are ready to take in the last 2 weeks folks, Amsterdam watch out!

We can't believe this is real

On our tour of Copenhagen today Rasmus and Camilla took us to a place called Christiania. Is it an area of town? Is it a suburb? Nope-it is its own country...kind of.

In the 70s some hippies took over this abandoned military hold in the middle of town on the river and said, "this is ours." And they still live there-they don't pay the danish taxes, they have their own laws, and function on a pure democracy. Everyone has to attend a meeting and vote to change rules in the area, allow people to have certain things on their property, and to punish rule breakers. This section of society isn't' known for their perfect attendance, so not much gets done there.

Some rules are: 1. No "hard" drugs 2. No cars 3. No bulletproof vests and you can read the rest in the article link above.

The thing we can't get our heads around is how that can still exist within a modern city. They tried something like that in San Francisco but I think the government intervened in a month and these people have been "self governing" for over 30 years.

All that being said, they really did have some cool graffiti.

The Familiar

After four straight weeks of everything new, we have arrived in Copenhagen to the familiar and I never knew how much I would love it. We are staying with Rasmus and Camilla who were couchsurfers with us in Nashville in September of last year. They took an 8 month trip around the west hitting North America and Central America and have only been back in Copenhagen one month. We had to take an extra night train to get here but there is no doubt that it was worth it.

The most amazing thing is there was no introduction there were just hugs and breakfast and then a day of relaxing because they know the stress of travel.

We went and laid in the park by the water, we went to a little amusement park and then we did a little walking and ended the day watching Friday Night Lights. It was awesome.

This is what couchsurfing is all about, having people you know all over the world that can give you a comfortable feeling no matter how far from home you are.