Christiania

I apologize to the gentlemen out there but I need a girl moment. There are an awful lot of very good looking men in Denmark. From the 'i just walked off the cover of a fashion magazine' guy to the 'I just finished rowing my Viking ship into the fjord' guy, they all just have something about them. Part of it might be that most of the Danes I've seen and talked to are in very good shape. I feel so lazy being exhausted after a few days of walking around town. Anyway, georgous men here!! Brings whole new meaning to saying "I want a danish! Hahaha...
Today the task at hand was to examine certain areas of Copenhagen from an english speaking tourist point of view. Offering feedback to the author of a Copenhagen travel guide was the main objective. We got up early for our meeting with Gunhild (the editor) and Tom (the author) from Politiken Publishing. Myself and five others choose to examine Christiania in a section of town across the canal from the main areas of the city. We piled onto one of the city buses and headed out.
Christiania is a very beautiful and interesting area. It used to be military barracks in the 60's and in 1971 a group of hippies took over the space after the military left town and they've been there ever since. People have been living their lives and raising their families in what some might consider an alternative lifestyle. But its been working for almost 40 years and i like it.
We were in Christiania kind of early on a Monday morning so it may not always be as laidback as we saw it but everyone seems to just have a go with the flow attitude. There are some less than legal aspects to life in Christiania but they aren't forced on you. My biggest impressions of the place was how friendly the shopkeepers were and how beautiful and colorful the art is. There are large murals painted on the sides of buildings and graffiti in some areas but it all fits the space (all over Copenhagen it's illegal to get caught graffiting something but if you don't get caught, it's considered art). Most of the graffiti I saw in Christiania and in Copenhagen isn't like the stuff we see at home, where the purpose behind it seems to just deface, here it's a colorful improvement to a less than attractive alley way. Professor Sorensen told us that if the graffiti gets cleaned off or painted over that it is done by private citizens, the danish government doesn't consider it enough of an eyesore to have a budget for graffiti removal.