In the land of the Johansens


Copenhagen :: Denmark

Man, I love this place. Hamlet and Carlsberg!

Places: Copenhagen

Coolest thing I did: Went to the castle Big Willie Shakespeare (as his mates know him) based Hamlet on.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: They don't dub movies into Danish here (viva Matrix 2!).

I think the weather here has helped my impression of the city a whole lot, but I'm loving it here in Copenhagen. It's one of those European cities where everything is big squares, cobbled streets and people on bikes instead of cars. As the days are already quite long, I'm finding myself with not much else to do after dinner but sit in the squares or on the canals and watch the people go by. I was going to go and see one or two of the other two big cities in Denmark whislt I was here, but right now, I can't really see the point. I like it right here.

The Danes, as a people, are quite easy to get along with. I think this has alot to do with the fact that they all speak immaculate English (when I say all, I mean all the ones I've spoken to. Obviously I'd need to be here a while to speak to all of them), but there isn't a time where you find yourself sitting in a park or square when someone won't engage you in conversation. I find them alot like the Dutch, except the accent is a lot easier to follow and they are way better looking here. Right now, I'm starting to think I wasted alot of my Euro time working in London. And I've been promised Stockholm is going to be even better.

I didn't know a whole lot about the country that begat my last name (has anyone noticed the amount of begating that goes on in Genesis?), except for Hamlet and Vikings. I still don't know a whole lot, but I have seen some castles, including the one where Hamlet was set. Having read McBeth at school I've only seen Hamlet as a movie, and I wasn't aware that the whole thing was made up (I mean, I assumed Big Willie took some liberties with the plot, but I assumed the people existed). Man, do I feel like such a tourist. Anyway, there's a couple of good castles within a day trip from Copenhagen, and you get to see a bit of the country too. What I did notice is one of the towns is also the closest port to Sweden. I thought alcholol was quite expensive here (ok, it is quite expensive) but all the Swedes were loading up on "cheap" grog before getting on the boat. Seeing as I've pretty much had to give up beer whilst I've been here (except for the free tasting at the end of the Carlsberg brewery tour, bless 'em) due to the cost, I can't say this bodes well for Sweden being any better

I also like the Viking gods too. They are so much better than those pissy Greek gods. To punish Loki (the trickster and devil figure), Odin (the old fella with only one eye) had him tied to the root of the tree at the centre of the world and set a serpent to drip poison into the sockets (where his eyes had been ripped from by his half brother Thor, the thunder god) for all eternity. Ouch. Seriously, if you were the norse gods, would you'd laugh out loud at the greek ones. Not only that, but you get cool axes and hammers and stuff.

Wednesday is free day at the museum. Whislt Danish history is fascinating, I've seen the Lourve and the British Museum, so the ones here kind of pale in comparison. I did learn, there was a bloke called Christian IV, who was quite important. He fought the Swedes alot. He also had a mate called Old Worm who looked at runes all day. That's about the extent of my museum tolerence.

Something worth seeing is the Free State of Christiana. In 1971, some squatters took over an old military camp over the water from Copenhagen and declared it a free state. It even has a sign over the exist stating "You are now entering the EU". I thought it was funny, anyway. It's been well and truly de-militarised and they now openly sell hash in the street there. This lends itself to a very relaxed looking beer garden, where loads of people sit around in the sun and talk bollocks. Talking bollocks being one of my favorite pastimes, I couldn't help myself, especially with the complete stoners. The topic of choice seems to be America and the evils that they do. About every second person wanted to mention Lars "maddog" Von Trier and his new movie Dogville, starring our Nic. Apparently, he's quite famous for making artsy films and is a reknowned lunatic. As a result he keeps winning things at Cannes.

Did I mention the Carlsberg Brewery has a free tour with a tasting at the end. As a result, we have a new crowned champion of Brewery tours. The title used to go to the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam, until they changed their policy from as much free beer as you could consume in an hour to 2 half litre tokens. They are such sell outs. At least someone is keeping it real.

One thing that's become apparent is I've stumbled back onto the American backpacker route somehow. I have a theory that they must stick to the big cities and only show up in Western Europe. By big cities, I mean capitals. The fact I didn't meet any in Hamburg was telling.

Right, the sun is still out (and will be for quite some time).

Stevil's adventures in Hamburg


Copenhagen :: Denmark

Everyone said it was a big night out, but I didn't belive them.

Places: Hamburg & Copenhagen

Coolest thing I did: Saw a cannonball that was fired by the English into the Copenhagen Uni library. It landed on a book entitled "Defender of Peace".

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Danish word for beer is ol.

After leaving the people I know in Germany (yes, I saw all of them I think) it was time to go north once again. I'd stagnated a little and needed to put a few miles on the clock (I have to be in Russia in less than a month, after all). Everyone I'd met in Germany had told me that I had to go to Hamburg on my way to Denmark, which was good as there is a fast train from Hamburg to Copenhagen.I spent the first afternoon getting myself settled into the Jugendheberger looking over the harbour (it's for once, in an excellent location) and taking a bit of a walk around town. I was a bit of a wreck from the previous week's activity and didn't have the energy for a full blown tour. I got the idea that it was a much bigger place than I'd anticipated.

I have to say that despite the fact everyone told me Hamburg is alot like Amsterdam (I'm assuming as Europe's other famous redlight district the Reeperbahn gives birth to this rumour), I found it alot like Liverpool in the UK (as opposed to the one in Sydney, which is more full of people with "fully sick" cars rather than canals and whatnot). I think this subconciously comes from the fact that the only thing I knew about Hamburg before getting there was the Beatles had played here in their early days. They may still have even been the Quarrymen, and George Best may have still been the drummer. I only know this from the Beatles Museum in Liverpool, so I'm a little hazy on the details. I even went to the pub they drank in on Grosse Feihart, but didn't stay long, as it's, well a bit of a tourist trap really. However, the port looks and feels alot like the one at Liverpool. The water looks about as clean as that of the Mersey too.

One of my favourite touristy things was the St Nicoli church, which was mostly destroyed in one of the Allies aformentioned firebombings in WWII. The steple remained intact and the city has left the rest of the building in it's current state, as an anti-war memorial. I liked it for this reason a whole lot better than any of the repaired churches I've seen anywhere else in the country.

My first attempt at a night out in the Reeperbahn was a bit of a wipeout. I headed out earlyish, and worked my way between both seedy and mostly empty bars. I did find a few places that had a bit of a pulse to them, or some level of coolness, but one of these was very expensive, and the other was having gay night, which is a bit much to handle when you're a single male in a country where English isn't the first language (it's hard to explain you aren't interested in German). I gave it a good go, but by about midnight I'd kind of given up on the whole thing. I also spent alot of time fending off prostitutes, who, for the most part, spoke excellent English. Whilst some sales techniques involved attempting to engage me in conversation first, there was one particularly scary moment when a woman who was no shorter than 190cm grunted "we go upstairs, make sex now!" at me and clutched onto my arm in a kind of death grip. I think I told her I was gay...

I spent Saturday touring the more studenty part's of town. The hostel I was staying in was full, so I needed to find somewhere else to stay. I'd recommend spending time in Schanzvietel if you find yourself in Hamburg. It's kind of like Camden in London, with alot of grungy eateries and cafes. I've been told you can have a pretty nice warmup for a night out in the bars around here, which have alot more character than those in the redlight district or city (the latter seeming to cater more for the suits than anyone else, judging from the prices).

I also found a whole truck load of sand had been dumped in front of the town hall and a beach volleyball tournament was taking place. This was a bit of a surprise, but not an unfortuante one. Now my pictures of the town hall have something more interesting happening in the foreground.

I hooked up with a kiwi bloke who I met in the hostel for an attempt at Saturday night out in Hamburg. This turned out to be the best night possible, as Hamburg were playing at home and the Eurovision song contest was being televised on the big screens all over town. This meant alot of people in the bars and cafes that were half empty the night before. After a few warm up beers and conversation involving things like programming, East Timor, mercenaries and rugby (as must come up when Aussies and Kiwis meet) we managed to find ourselves at a table with possibly the worst organised stag night I've ever seen. The blokes were all from Manchester and had flown one of the more unwilling stags I've seen over to Hamburg for his last night of freedom. We tagged along for the ride (or more acuately, dragged them along for the ride). There is a single street like those in Amsterdam, where the women sit in the windows and try and coax blokes off the street to sleep with them. At this point, we lost all control of the stag night at ended up with about 7 of them (less than half). Not asking too many questions, we decided to make for the Grosse Feiheit, the big club, bar street of town. Stopping for beers we lost all but the organiser of the stag do and another mate of his. We didn't ask what happened to the rest.

The night continued well into the morning, as our curfew for the hostel (2am) came and went without us noticing. We met up with some American girls my mate had gone out with the night before in one of the clubs and continued to dance until dawn. Arriving back at the hostel, we climbed through the balcony fence (hard to do in our state) and found the back door had been left open.

Needless to say, I missed breakfast at 7:30.

I checked out of the hostel at 10am and moved myself very slowly to the main train station. By the time I got onto my train at 2pm, I was pretty much asleep on the spot.

Then only thing worth mentioning about the train ride to Copenhagen is at the ferry, they put the entire train on the boat. I thought this was pretty cool. But I am easily impressed.

The most obvious change about being in Denmark as opposed to Germany was the amount of very good looking people around. I mean, people are all tall, thin and gorgeous here. It's wonderful. Having been about average height in Germany (they are also very tall) I feel like a midgit in most places here. I can imagine if you were a little Roman or English bloke in the early 4th or 5th centuries you'd have crapped yourself seeing boatloads of these fellas get out of the water and start swinging big axes about.

Further musing from Copenhagen later.