After a simple yet tasty breakfast of bacon, fruit, and some slices of baguette with butter, we headed out into the sunshine to explore Freetown Christiania, a "hippie" commune established in 1971.

The original Christianians established squatters' rights in some abandoned military barracks, which were, oddly, just a 10-minute walk from the Danish parliament building. Thirty-seven years later Christiania is still going and has in fact become a popular tourist destination, despite the "no photo" policy.

We spoke briefly with a young man working the counter of a cafe where we stopped to buy a bottle of water. He told us that the current government is feeling pressure to "normalize" Christiania and in fact, has already banned the marijuana stands that used to line the main drag (aptly nicknamed "Pusher Street"). Although I had read elsewhere that the land was highly sought after by condo developers, this young man said that the soil was so contaminated that he doubted anyone would want to take that on - supposedly even Halliburton had shown some sort of interest but later backed down once they realized the difficulty involved in making loads of money from it. (Much easier to just keep ripping off the American taxpayer - ha!)

After reading Rick Steves' description of Christiania, I was completely underwhelmed by the reality of it. I'm pretty open-minded about things, but Steves paints a picture of Christiania as almost some kind of bohemian utopia, but all I saw was a bunch of dirty shacks, graffiti, and creepy guys, some of them stoned out of their minds. Still, I am glad that I was able to see Christiania as it stands today, because who knows what the future may bring?

I doubt the original intent of this sign was to be humorous, but that didn't stop us from laughing.

After our re-entry into the EU (see picture above), we stopped for a light lunch and took the Metro (a first for us in Copenhagen) back to Norreport station. Since Michael was fighting a cold, he went back to the apartment to rest, and I decided to do a little shopping. I visited two stores, but didn't come away with much other than sore feet and a pounding headache. Even H&M is expensive here! I got a bit lost on the way back to the apartment, but that wasn't such a bad thing as I stumbled upon a delightful little square with some interesting "art" in the center:

Ahhhhhhh ... how I would love to be riding a bike around Copenhagen right now.

I soon found my way home, showered (the second of three in one day as it was warm and humid), and relaxed for a couple of hours.

Craving some green space, we later hopped the Metro again (old pros now) and headed for the district of Frederiksberg. We walked through part of the beautiful Frederiksberg Have which apparently is hugely popular with runners. Watching all these healthly, tanned Danes sprint by, I suddenly felt even older and fatter than I usually do. Oh well, the gym will be waiting for me once I return home to Portland.

One of the many ponds in Frederiksberg Have.

Since M was still fighting his cold and we were hungry, we headed home, cooked a quick pasta dinner, and then hit the bed early. We've got one more day in Copenhagen, and then Saturday it's on to Stockholm and access to a washing machine and dryer again - yippee!