Old friends and new

On Saturday 19th Dec, Julian was in Copenhagen for a trip through Sweden with one of his friends, Joel.  I've known Julian since High School (about 20 years) and he moved to London about 7 years ago.  Since then we've caught up a couple of times, but this was a good chance to meet up.

I traveled across to Copenhagen Saturday to meet with Julian and Joel, and they were coming to stay with us in Malmö on Sunday night before heading off to Kalmar.

We met up at Osterport in Copenhagen and explored the Kastallan castle, before catching a water bus across to Freetown Christiania.

Christiana is not a place I would take the kids, so it was cool to get to see it with Julian and Joel.  It is a subsection of Copenhagen that is "a self-proclaimed autonomous neighborhood" where the usual laws of Denmark do not apply.

(Photos courtesy of Wikipedia as photography is banned in Christiania)

The entrance to Christiania

The area was originally a barracks and part of the ramparts, but they were abandoned in 1967 and squatters moved in.  In 1971 the fences were broken down and the area was taken over by homeless people and surrounding neighborhood to use a housing and play area for children.

Jacob Ludvigsen who was a journalist and provo (political group aiming to provoke violent responses from police using non-violent activism) activist co-wrote the mission statement for the area:

The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the wellbeing of the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted.

The area became a hippie, squatter and anarchist commune.

Christiania Main street

Despite its dubious appearance, we found Christiania to be quite friendly.  There were barrels filled with burning firewood and people with their faces covered, and many stalls covered in camouflage netting selling various types of marijuana (illegal in the rest of Denmark), but there were also some bars and plenty of open areas to sit and have a beer.  We ended up chatting with a guy from Italy who was visiting.  The only interesting part was when we moved over to one of the barrels to get warm and a man with his face covered by a skull scarf, told us to move because "we were blocking his view."

After Christiania we walked back into Copenhagen and got a kebab/yiros and then headed out to a bar called "The Barking Dog."  It was crowded, but had a great atmosphere and some nice drinks.  I ended up catching the train back across to Malmö at 2am, with a guy who looked drunk and half asleep and another guy who kept dropping his phone and swearing at it.

The next day, Julian and Joel joined us at lunch time and we went for a walk through Västra Hamnen.

Joel climbing the climbing stones at the skate park - the hardest part was getting down after

Fountain in Västra Hamnen

Another fountain in Västra Hamnen

Diamonds Are Everywhere - an art exhibit.  They recorded the location of certain stones along the shore front, then shipped them to China where they were polished to a sheen and then returned to their exact location.  So along the shorefront are super shiny stones dotted among the regular ones.

Julian looking very impressed, with the Oresund Bridge behind him

Waterfall sculpture in Västra Hamnen

We ended the night back at our place and played some board and card games.  The next day Julian and Joel had to catch the train to Kalmar and courtesy of a late night and me being slow to get up, they made it onto the platform just as their train was pulling into the station.