Day 2 Copenhagen

31 October
Day 2 Copenhagen

After a restless night's sleep on the creaky swaying bunk beds I did breakfast then headed towards the free town of Christiana.  Basically a hippy commune that in some way seems to be separate from the laws governing the rest of Copenhagen.  I gather this is mainly to do with drugs.

It was a pretty interesting place to walk around but I arrived a bit early I think to really see it going.  I suppose it's not surprising that a group of hippies like to sleep in while I, disciplined of mind and body, like to get up early.

There were a couple of shops open and there were a few people up and about. A couple of them definitely looked a bit strung out.  And there was already someone buying some weed from a local vendor.  I'll have to come back later in the day before I leave Denmark and check it out when there's a bit more life about the place.

I headed back towards the city centre where I was going to do another walking tour of the city.  I'm starting to get a bit addicted to these things.  It is really quite enjoyable to have some context to my random wanderings.

Stopped in at a nice little coffee shop on the way and sat by a canal to drink my coffee.

The tour started next to one of the city halls in Copenhagen.  I forget which number this was but there are quite a few that kept having to be rebuilt because they kept burning down.  This one is pretty nice.  It's not the most beautiful building I've seen but it's quite pleasant and has some nice sculptures and murals floating around.  It also has this pretty cool clock ... Jens Olsen's World Clock.  It's an astronomical clock that shows various things like lunar and solar eclipses, positions of stellar bodies as well as the time (duh!  It's a clock!).  Interestingly it also has a gear that only completes a rotation once every 25753 years.  This has something to do with the time it takes for the earth's axes to get back to the same position After they wobble about a bit.  Google it.

A few people in the way so I didn't get any pictures of the clock so I ripped some from google images.

The tour started after that. It was a 3 hour walking tour of central Copenhagen I guess.  We had a Peruvian tour guide called Luis and he was really entertaining AND had good information.  This one was much more interesting than the one in Stockholm.  Copenhagen burns down ... a lot.

By the end of the tour my right foot was really sore (bruised) and the sole of my right shoe had given out.  I've been wearing these almost every day for the last 6 months and the tread was gone in some parts anyway so I'm pretty happy with the wear I got out of them.  Unfortunately I now have to go and buy a new pair of waterproof boots and break them in before I get to Svalbard and Iceland.  Blisters ahoy!  Good thing Denmark is pretty mild at the moment.  It's actually really comfortable outside wearing thongs.

Given my foot was so sore I didn't do anything for the rest of the day really.  I just hung around at the hostel, did some laundry and booked some flights for later in the year (to Svalbard, Iceland and Seattle).

I've been umming and awwing about Iceland because it can be dangerous to drive there in winter but I've decided to just go for it.  Got to learn to drive in the ice and snow sometime in my life and where better than the Arctic.  I'm sure it'll be fine.

I did go out for dinner to a Korean restaurant next door to the hostel which was pretty good.

I take off tomorrow to Aarhus to meet up with Julian and his friend John.  I kind of expected to be here a bit longer but I will spend another couple of days in Copenhagen before I leave Denmark so I'll have time to explore more of the city.