Paris je t'aime

To my long-suffering readers, I have finally made the time to share some more travel stories. This time: PARIS!!!

This next stop on my European tour was totally non-negotiable. Quite simply, you haven't gone to Europe if you haven't been to Paris. That said, I was only able to spend two nights here as I couldn't get accommodation for longer.

I travelled to Paris from Ghent via Brussels where I caught the high-speed Thalys which travels at around 250km/h. For 70 Euros I had a first-class seat that was like a lazy-boy, and was given a meal en-route. Upside: no-one checked if I had a ticket. The only downside: turns out that someone couldn't handle the incredibly smooth ride and left what can be described as the mother of all messes in the loo. The splatter pattern was quite impressive.

After encountering a rather rude Frenchman (my first, and only, one) at Gare du Nord who didn't so much not understand me, but rather did not want to, and taking a hour-long detour because yours truly didn't read the Google map properly before he left Ghent, I ended up at my hostel (and just to make it even more fun, it was 30C that day)

I stayed at Le Village which was about 2 minutes from the steps to the Sacre Coeur Cathedral, in Montmarte. It was pleasant enough though quite expensive for what you got compared to other places I had stayed in. On the upside, it was the first place to offer free breakfast and there was a really cheap supermarket a few doors down the street. On the downside, I was a wee bit apprehensive about staying there as it had mixed reviews online, and stories of things getting stolen from rooms etc cropped up a lot. I had no issues, but then I did decide to carry my laptop with me everywhere I went in Paris, just to be safe.

While in Paris I saw quite a few different sights so I will have to be brief in describing them.

The Sacre Coeur


The Cathedral was just around the corner from the hostel, and I had a magnificent view of it from my dorm room. There were so many tourists there, crowding the steps, enjoying the sunshine. There were performers as well, and Africans doing this weird string trick to you. Someone I had class with in Copenhagen suggested that I should be wary of them as he thought they were a wee bit dodgy, but they seemed OK.

The Cathedral itself was really amazing, with a huge domed roof, and an amazing view over Paris from the main doors. I ended up staying for a Mass (wasn't much else to do at 6pm) which was sung entirely by resident nuns, and presided over by a priest. Some people were in tears afterwards. Seems the spiritual experience doesn't lose any gusto on account of being in French. Me? I was kinda hungry....

Arc du Triomphe


The following day I took the subway to the Arc du Triomphe which was quite something to behold. It was so big, and the workmanship and detail was incredible. But ever so slightly more interesting than the Arc was the roundabout it sat in the middle of. This thing was about 8 lanes wide and had no lane markings. There were also about 8 roads converging at this one point. All this adds up to hours of entertainment watching unbelievably risky merging maneuvers and exit techniques. Speed is essential, as is a lack of fear, and also a lack of care that you got no insurance cover if you have an accident at this one roundabout in Paris.

Here is a video for those who want an example of a typical day.

Alas, I had limited time, so it was off to the next destination: the Catacombs. I got there, reasonably early, and the line went round the block and nearly met up with itself. So I had to pass on that one...

After that disappointment, I went to the next stop on my tour.

Saint Chappelle


This was without a doubt the most beautiful Church I have ever seen, and anyone who has been through my Facebook photos will see that I went to a few. The stained glass windows just blew my mind, such beauty and artisanship I have never seen before. Even the floor was interesting, though it seemed that I was the only one looking at it. You can find it on the Ile de la Cite, a lovely island in the middle of the Seine.

I highly recommend it. In fact, don't bother with Notre Dame, which I also saw. Notre Dame is so plain in comparison.

An amble down Saint Germain

Not only is St. Germain a favourite musician of mine, it is a charming Parisian street which I decided to amble down. I found some quite cool shops down side streets that came off it, as well as some seriously nice homeware and furniture stores. Sadly, pretty much everything was closed as it was Sunday but window shopping was plentiful.

One rather cool discovery was that the McDonald's on Boulevard Saint Germain was licensed! Yes, you read that right, you could get a nice Kronenbourg 1664 with that Big Mac combo if you so chose.

Eiffel Tower

The following day I decided to do that thing that you must do in Paris and climbed the Eiffel Tower. I got there really early and took the stairs to the 2nd level. Not only did this save me about 10 Euros compared to taking the lift, it also gave me a serious amount of exercise. After 669 steps leading me up 21 stories (and nearly killing me on the way), I reached the 2nd level of the tower which is about halfway up. I didn't go all the way to the top which many people do, as it was quite a cloudy day and the top of the tower was shrouded in mist. I had a perfectly awesome view from where I was, and was able to take in the vast scale that is Paris.

I could see all the way to the Sacre Couer, which was a dot on the horizon, over the low roofs of the city.

The other thing I saw at the Eiffel Tower, the day previous to me climbing it, was a rather large group of Asian wedding parties having their photos taken in the park by the Tower. It was rather strange to watch as these large groups waved, clapped and posed for photos, much to the amusement of passers-by.

Rue de St Honore


I had this street recommended to me as the street to walk down. It had every high fashion store you could imagine: Ermenegildo Zegna, Chanel, Lanvin, Hermes, Issey Miyake, Collette and many more. It is also home to several embassies like the British one, and I saw a motorcade with foreign dignitaries from Africa blast along the street in Bentleys (from memory) that had no window tints surprisingly.

Another really cool shop along this street is Laduree which sells the best, most delicious macarons ever. I also had a Strawberry and Mascarpone tart that was scrumptious (and also made several people back at the hostel seriously envious).

Collette was really cool. It was the first store I have encountered that uses iPads as listening stations, if you wanted to listen to a CD they sold. They also had a big promotion on Penny Loafers by Tommy Hilfiger. Hmm. Couldn't quite see myself wearing them.

Au Revoir

That about sums up my two days in Paris. In a way, Paris reminded me of Auckland in that you have to either drive or catch public transport to get to anything. Not like all the other cities I visited where you could walk to all the main visiting sights quite easily. At the same time however, it was visually appealing. The architecture and tree-lined streets was quite romantic really, if you are that way inclined.

That said, a new adventure awaited me further east....

At the Belgian Crossroads (and to the West a bit)

As I write this I am back in NZ and am ever so slowly catching up on a variety of things, this blog included. Please bear with me.

When we last met, I talked about Antwerp. However, this was only stop one of three in that wonderfully weird country of Belgium where they like to go hundreds of days at a time without a functioning Government.

Stop Two: Ghent

This was a 30 minute train ride from Antwerp and sits very much in the middle of Antwerp, Brussels and the biggest tourism hotspot in Belgium: Bruges. Consequently, it has been somewhat ignored by tourists who tend to bypass it completely. This is rather unfortunate as Ghent is a truly lovely city to visit.

My first night there I stayed in a hostel called Ecohostel Andromeda, which was actually a canal boat. The owners lived on board as well it appeared, were complete hippies and super friendly. We were served freshly baked bread and other organic goodies for breakfast. It was a shame that I could only stay there one night. The other two nights were at a converted Monastery. It was not so good as the building was very tired and the walls paper thin. That said, BEST shower in Europe so I can't complain too much.

The town centre is very medieval though nearly everything you see was constructed around 100-150 years ago. The story goes that Ghent was Dullsville in the late 1800s, so the town mayor decided that seeing as Medieval was 'in' that it would be prudent to re-design the town with this era in mind. His strategy worked as Ghent soon became a popular place to visit.

Some of the highlights are the Castle, called the Gravensteen, which has been there for several hundred years. You can do a self-guided tour, which wasn't too bad. The castle has a lovely history as a place were people were imprisoned, tortured and killed in a variety of interesting ways. There are two churches and a watch tower on the main thoroughfare through the township that one can view. I didn't as they weren't that interesting architecturally. The streets are all cobbled, and a river runs through the town. There are also a few canals around that are quite beautiful to behold.

One rather hidden treasure I found, so described as it was about 15-20 minutes walk from the town centre was a modern art museum called S.M.A.K. I have no idea what that stands for, but I will say this: that museum had some quality work on display. I paid the youth rate too, of 1 Euro, so that made it all the better. I highly recommend it. Two of the more stand-out pieces were a large aluminium S that had a current running through it so it hummed (innovative use of modern materials in my mind); and a room with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and holes where the speckles of light would have hit the floor, walls, and ceiling (slightly spooky).

For eating, there were an abundance of restaurants and cafes. But, just out of the town centre and away from the tourist eateries, was Sleepstraat. This is the main street in the Turkish district and it is lined with fabulous Turkish restaurants. When you see the Turks eating there, you know it's going to be good. I certainly enjoyed mine.

Finally, a rather weird discovery: the City Hall was completely restored to resemble how it would have looked 100+ years ago. The locals thought they had it down until someone found a hitherto undiscovered building plan that showed that one of the downpipes was painted in blue and white striped paint. So, what did the Ghentenaars do? Yip, they painted it. The building now sports its own lollipop-look downpipe. It honestly looks sooooo out of place.

All in all, Ghent was a beautiful, somewhat sleepy town but well worth the visit as there weren't too many tourists around the place. Though maybe go during May/June as this is when the 65,000+ uni students aren't there and before the Turks leave for 2 months to go back to Turkey for a holiday.

Stop Three: A Day in Bruges.

One word, actually not really a word but a sound: AAAAARRRRGGGHH!

There were so many freakin' middle-aged Yankee tourists around the place, and the rest, many eating at restaurants that served Steak and Chips which is NOT Belgian food. I got claustrophobic. Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful town with pretty Medieval buildings and canals and they shot a seriously good movie there. There is even a Church with the only Michelangelo outside Italy (a statue of the Madonna with Child). But DO NOT come here during high season if you have a dislike of large crowds. After a couple of hours I had to find a more deserted part of town, which I succeeded in doing: a river-side park with a couple of windmills and some sun-bathing Belgians. It was bliss on what was a very hot day.

The two touristy things I did were to see the Madonna (if I didn't know it was a Michelangelo, I would have considered it boring) and a trip to the top of the Belfry, which I think a guy fell off in the movie, and also put me off spiral staircases forever. I got so dizzy going up and down. Also, the wait time was AGES!

In conclusion Ghent was a lovely town, Bruges also but the latter was insanely full of people so if anyone ever goes there to visit, bear that in mind. In case you are wondering, Bruges is about 20 minutes from Ghent by train.

After a tiki-tour through charming Belgium, it was off to Paris. But that is another post...

All This Beauty!

In the ultimate case of the juxtaposition of two disparate images, here I am writing this post while listening to Euphoric Trance and drinking a rather delightful cup of Twinings Earl Grey. I also used the words juxtaposition and disparate in the same sentence. I can tell this is going to be a great post.

Central Station

Having left the joy-filled environs of The Hague, I made my way to the next destination on my itinerary: Antwerp, Belgium.

The original plan was to go to Brussels, but having been warned off it by some fellow international students who described it as dirty and uninteresting, I redirected to Antwerp, a city which I knew next to nothing about.

It turns out that it is a large diamond trading centre (50%-80% of the world's rough diamonds are traded here) and also the fashion capital of Belgium. One of Belgium's finest exports in this respect, Dries van Noten, has a flagship store in the fashion district. It has the second largest port in Europe and the surrounding docklands have a massive concentration of petro-chemical industries and four nuclear power plants. This last point was included for individuals of my ilk who find such inane details incredibly interesting.

The hostel I stayed at was called ABHostel which was in a converted chocolate factory and was privately owned. It was out of the city centre, in the "real" Antwerp. The owner was super lovely, and the hostel itself really nice. It was quite small in terms of capacity which made it more intimate. My particular favourite feature was the beer vending machine. The owner gave me one really good tip: DON'T do as the tourists do and buy chocolate from the boutiques in the centre of town. These are essentially tourist traps. Just do as the Belgians do, and buy it from the supermarket. I did so and got me some damn fine chocolate for 60 Euro cents from a supermarket one block away. In town, that same thing would probably have cost me a few Euros.

I only had one full day here, so I did a small amount of exploring and visited a few places, a couple of which will be explored in some detail:

Diamond District

This area is all around the Antwerp Central Station, which is a magnificent structure I must say. All marble and gilt (read: opulent and gorgeous). There were so many diamond/jewellery shops it wasn't funny. I saw some seriously nice pieces though. I also went down the Diamond Street where all the diamonds are traded behind closed doors and if you are lucky you might see a man handcuffed to a briefcase making a beeline for a particular building. Four of the world's 28 Diamond Banks are in this area, as are quite a number of Hassidic Jews who represent the old school in diamond trading. More recently Indians and Arabs have moved into the trade.

Fashion Museum

Being the home of one of the more prestigious design schools in Europe, it was decided at some point to open a fashion museum in the Fashion District of Antwerp. The exhibition changes every six months, and when I went it was all about knitwear through the ages. There were some really nice bits dating back a few hundred years and others that were only made in the last couple of years. In one area they had a display of Japanese, British, French and Italian knitwear. It was intriguing to see the differences between these four countries and how they approach knitwear.

Sculptural Knitwear

The French designs had simple silhouettes that pushed the boundaries through the use of colour and pattern while retaining cultural references to things like country life. The British designs went further by exploring the limits of the knitwear fabric itself, blurring the line between function and art. The Japanese designs were clearly based on the Kimono and modern interpretations of this cultural icon. The Italian designs were a combination of tasteful design and outrageous experiments in colour and pattern.

It only cost me 1 Euro to visit because in Belgium if you are a youth (which has an arbitrary upper age limit of 24-26 years old) you can get steeply discounted admission rates to quite a few places. I thought this stop was totally worth it!

Modern Art Museum

Modern Art that I can understand

I left this one more bewildered than when I entered. I will say this about modern art: done well, it is thought-provoking and interesting; done poorly it is crass and self-indulgent. I saw plenty of the latter at this museum. Mind you, I got the youth rate for admission so it isn't as though I paid lots only to be disappointed.

Alas, as I only had one full day in Antwerp, I didn't have time to visit an apparently superior museum which had only been open a few weeks that was down towards the docklands called MAS. Someone at the hostel went to it and raved about it. I'll have to save that one for next time...


All in all, I found Antwerp to be a nice stop, with nice architecture in the older part of town, and I would like to go back if only to explore it in a bit more detail.

The Beauty and the Beast

This post covers my time in Amsterdam and The Hague. 

Amsterdam

Stop Two on my trip was Amsterdam: the city with a reputation for friendliness, liberalism, and hedonism. While I knew all about the Coffee Shops where marijuana is available for customers’ enjoyment, and a red-light district famous the world over, I wanted to find what else was here that makes Amsterdam special.

I stayed at a really nice hostel called CocoMama, which was a converted brothel. The staff were super-friendly and the location was really nice. Out of the city centre but in an ideal spot for doing a circuit walk through all the cool districts that make up the city. The one downer with that hostel: really small rooms, and even smaller bathrooms. I read a review where someone commented they had to sit on the toilet sideways. I’m not at all surprised.

I did a big walk right round the city, through the museum and Jewish districts, the “9 Streets” district which had a lot of alternative shops, the Central city then out along the harbour a wee way to find a windmill.  I whipped through the Albert Cuyps street market for breakfast: satay chicken skewers, a blueberry smoothie and sausage roll (unhealthy I know) before heading to the Van Gogh museum, which had some nice pieces, but the crowds just kept pouring in making it hard to appreciate what I was looking at. What made it worse were these big tour groups that just moved like a school of sardines: all together now, and God forbid you stray 4 feet from your companions… (insert image of me shaking my fist angrily).

I was going to go to Anne Frank’s House but the crowds for that were huge as well. The line went down the street and around the corner. An Australian guy I met at the Hostel said he went past at 8.30am and there were about 60 people waiting for it to open. So I skipped that. If it hadn’t been blowing a gale, cold as a frog’s tit, and raining, I may have deigned to wait in line for 30-45 minutes to get in.

Walking through the central city I saw the abundant Coffee Shops with bongs on all the tables. I may have been tempted to pop into one but the tourists going in were very much the lower rungs of society, which was quite off-putting (so I’m a bit of a snob, so sue me, though bear in mind you’ll lose). I also find weed smoke rather sweet and sickly. There were also lots of shops selling various strains of weed and seeds as well. I read that the Dutch are quite adept at mixing varieties to get a range of effects for the user. I also skirted the red light district. I was warned it was dodgy security-wise, but the abundant “Live Sex Show” signs were enough of an introduction. At this point, you are probably saying: Man, what a PRUDE! My reply, read the first paragraph again.

I eventually found my windmill, which was nice. You can’t go to the Netherlands and not get a windmill photo!!!

The things I loved about Amsterdam were the beautiful canals, many lined with houseboats and the amazing old architecture. Some of the buildings were literally one room wide, and a few were leaning on each other for support. It was everything I wanted Europe to be in that respect. There were lots of bikes everywhere as well including my fave, the cargo bike. I so wish you could get those in NZ.

Alas, my time here was short and I had to get to stop number three: The Hague, a 10 Euro, 50-minute train ride away.

The Hague

A few words: dull, dull, and even duller still. Whereas Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands, The Hague is the seat of Government. It is a city devoid of life and culture. Let’s face it; I’m sitting here in my hotel room writing this, as there is nothing better to do.

Mardurodam miniature

OK, not totally devoid of culture. They do have this one museum called Mauritshuis with a bunch of Dutch Masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt including Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. And the Queen lives here. Oh, and there is Mardurodam which has a bunch of famous Dutch towns and famous buildings done at 1:25 scale. I did enjoy that one.

Finally, there is Scheveningnen, a sea-side village (more a suburb) with a really tacky, over-developed beach. I did learn one interesting thing. They are building a dyke along this beach as it is the weak point in the system of barriers against the sea that threatens to swamp most of Holland. Given that it is the North Sea which is pretty rough on a good day, I can see why.

Tomorrow I depart for Antwerp. I can safely say that I will likely never return to The Hague for leisure purposes. 

Being Berlin

Berlin Central

Stop One: Berlin!

I had limited time in this destination so I went for breadth rather than depth in terms of stuff I did. This post will be a something of a chronology for two days exploring. Please note that around all this stuff I was also engaging in copious amounts of people watching and window shopping. Mainly the latter.

I decided to catch the train from Copenhagen to Berlin, which took me 7 hours. I took the train because I wanted to see the countryside rather than the inside of an airport. The most surprising part of the journey was that we went on a ferry between Denmark and Germany. I couldn’t understand why we were told to get off the train but I followed everyone anyway, and despite it taking me a while, it finally clicked that we were motoring over the Baltic. I saw lots of cute country villages and a couple of big cities, including one with lots of Churches in its skyline. There are also heaps of wind turbines again, but on a much grander scale than Denmark. I also noticed heaps of houses with roofs covered in solar panels. Government subsidies perhaps?

One weird thing was that despite me booking a train that went direct to Berlin Central, I had to get off at Berlin Spandau (which is on the outskirts of Berlin) and use the local S-train to go the rest of the way.  No matter, it was pretty easy to get to where I needed to go.

Holocaust Memorial

Berlin itself is really cool. Very busy, lots of people and with a really interesting mix of old and new buildings. The public transport network is really well run with trains, busses, trams, and subway all working in with each other.

I stayed in a hostel called EastSeven in Prenzlauer Berg which is in East Berlin and just on the edge of the main CBD area called Mitte. The hostel was fantastic. Friendly staff, clean, and safe. They cooked vegetarian dinner (free) two of the nights I was there, and offered a really cheap breakfast of toast and cereal if you wanted it. They also had a selection of beers available for 2Euro. I also found this really amazing café down the street and around the corner that had the best scrambled eggs I have ever had.

Some of the obvious touristy things I did included the Holocaust memorial and museum underneath it. It was pretty appalling what happened back then, but the memorial itself was so amazing. It is a square of about 200 stelae (upright concrete blocks) of varying heights, standing on an undulating ground so that the light kept changing as you walked through. The blocks were tallest in the centre. At least, I think so…

Brandenburg Gate

I also saw the Brandenburg Gate (with Star Wars characters posing for photos in front: so bizarre), Berlin Wall, and Eastside Memorial. This last one is the longest stretch of wall left and is covered in really amazing artwork. I followed the hoards of tourists to Checkpoint Charlie (the Yankee gateway to Soviet East Germany) and couldn’t help but appreciate the irony of there being a McD’s right beside it. Fun fact with the McD’s, and something I have noticed in The Netherlands, is self-service kiosks. I tried using one somewhere (can’t remember where) and found them a bit hard to use. They are best for ordering your basic combos rather than a custom order

Got lost but eventually found Ku-Damm, the billion-euro street, so named as that is how much is spent along here each year, and visited the most amazing department store Kaufhaus de Westin (KaDeWe). It was amazing to see watches and diamond earrings selling for E50,000.

Finally, I wandered through Kreuzberg, a big up-and-coming area that is undergoing a lot of redevelopment.

 

Less touristy things included finding a Mercedes showroom (Heaven On Earth for me, such a delight of modern engineering. One day a Mercedes and I will be together, one day...), a Mini showroom where I discovered that you can actually customize them a bit to suit your individual style, and a Bugatti Showroom where I locked eyes on the Bugatti Veyron: a 1000hp beast that sets the hearts racing of hot-blooded males the world over.

I also found Deutsch Bank’s Bank of the Future: a bank branch with a (non bank-related) general merchandise shop, educational centre (also not related to the bank and money) and restaurant/bar (where anyone can come for lunch etc) combined with the usual bank functions. The opening hours were also much longer, 10am to 8pm. Apparently this is the Deutsch Bank’s vision of what a future bank should look like. Seemed like a good concept to me!

I finish off this ridiculously long post with a couple more photos for your enjoyment.

Original Berlin Wall fragment

Subway Station

Day Trip to Møns Klint

Danish Countryside

The Cliff of Møns (pronounced like a shortened version of 'moon')


Two days before my first exam I went for a Student Association-organised day trip to Møns Klint which is a really amazing geological formation about 2.5 hours south of Copenhagen. I got to see some lovely Danish countryside which can be summed up in two words: green and flat. 


We had a charming Danish guide who spoke well-good engrish who was able to explain some of the more stand-out stuff we were seeing. Along the way we passed through a village that was having a market day. There was one stall, one stall owner, and one customer... Well, it was a small village so that could have been a record turnout for all we know.


The area that you pass through on the way to the Cliff is described as the 'rotten banana' due to the fact that people can't make a living in that area, so everyone is selling up (or trying to) and moving into Copenhagen or Odense which is one of the other main cities about 2 hours West of Copenhagen. Perhaps, then, that market day was a runaway success...

The Cliff itself was absolutely amazing! It is made of limestone and about 100m high. If you dig through the bits that have crumbled off you can find fossils (or fossiles as our tour guide pronounced it). I got part of a fossilised octopus tentacle out of it.


Around the Cliff is one of the first National Parks in Denmark, which was created in the last 10 years or so. National Parks are something of recent arrival in Denmark, but then as I learned in one of my law classes, Denmark has had fairly robust environmental legislation since 1849 so the Danes likely didn't need them. (Just a little factoid to prove that I didn't sleep during my classes.... much)


Within the park is a really beautiful beech forest and apparently we were lucky to go when we did, because the sunlight filters wonderfully through the leaves, and only for two weeks a year. After that the trees bush up and under the canopy becomes dark and gloomy.

Liselund

Liselund 


Stop Two on our tour was a 'garden' that was more a park than anything. It was done in the romantic style apparently but I wasn't that overly wowed. 


The History of it is that there was a summer palace there and in the 1800s a Danish King decided to make a park/garden for his beloved wife Louise. 


By this time I was hanging out with this Canadian girl from Toronto who took verbal diarrhea to a whole new level. As unfortunate as this sounds, she would have to be the first Canadian that I didn't really like. We got a wee bit lost while she unleashed the verbal floodwaters which turned out to be quite a nice detour as I got a really good photo out of it. 


Elmelunde


Stop Three was one of the first Churches ever built in Denmark, built in the 1200s. It had some amazing paintings on the roof that told the Bible stories. I will now embark on what I think is a super interesting history about it. If you don't want to read it then scroll down to the next chapter.


This Church was originally Catholic and fairly simple in design, until a couple of hundred years later when some rich locals built internal walls for it. The area where this Church is located is littered with Churches every few kilometres, which is a sign of the wealth of the area in Medieval Denmark. The locals would have had to have been wealthy to support that many Churches. (Contrast that to the modern-day 'rotten banana' that this area has become)


Because the area around the Church was agricultural, it is likely the locals were illiterate so the roof was painted with Bible Stories to show the faithful what the priest was telling them.


After Denmark converted to the Lutheran faith in the mid-1500s, the church was painted white inside and out and the roof art was painted over. This is because one of the fundamental points about early Lutheranism was that it was a marked departure from the excesses of the Catholic Church with its paintings, gold filigree everywhere, corrupt priests etc. The whole idea of Lutheranism was to focus your mind on the word of God and not be distracted by visual frippery.


In recent times, there has been a move to uncover Denmark's history and as a part of that, the roof in this Church has been painstakingly stripped back to show what was hidden.

Bottom panel shows Fall

It was quite entertaining to see actually. For example in a scene depicting the Fall, Eve is much larger than Adam so as to remove doubt as to who was responsible. The Snake (representing the Devil) had a woman's head and was making eye contact with Eve, thereby implying that the two were in cahoots (and that women are to blame for all the stuff wrong in the world I'm guessing).


A scene of Adam toiling outside the Garden shows him with a plow. This was a hugely expensive piece of farm equipment in the day, so this picture gives a clue as to the health of the local economy. Other pictures showed 'poor' people wearing rather nice clothes indicating the aforementioned point again.


At some point however, a rather elaborate altar and pulpit were installed that, to me anyway, jarred rather alarmingly with the rest of the Church.


The other thing I learned was that every Danish Church has a model ship hanging from the roof. These ships symbolise the Ship of Hope which I am guessing serves as a metaphor for community, the importance of helping each other and the fact that everyone is striving together to find the 'Promised Land'.


So there you go children, you just got EDUCATED!!!


Jaettestue


This ancient, Stone-age Burial Mound was stop number 4. Jaettestue means 'Giant's Living Room' in Danish, and this name is given because people thought that only Giants could have moved the huge and heavy stones to the location and built it.


It was quite a remarkable feat of engineering, as the design takes account of the flow of water and so on, so that the crypt didn't flood every time it rained. Apparently, there were 200 people buried in there. Someone asked where they were buried. Reply: You're standing on them.


It was quite a cramped space, but we fit 50 people in there easy enough. 

A Day at the Beach and a Day in May

A Day at the Beach

Over Easter Weekend it was so lovely and warm (22C) and sunny here in Copenhagen that I just felt compelled to go find a beach.

A quick check on Google told me that the best one to go to is called Amager which is on the Metro line towards the airport. As a side note, apparently most beaches around Copenhagen are man-made.

Amager (pronounced Aamarg) has gorgeous white sand and is really long. It faces the Oresund so there were no waves to speak of. I would describe it as a Lake Beach as opposed to an Ocean Beach.

It was absolutely gorgeous, I got quite a nice tan out of it and while there, discovered that Danes are big fans of the all-over body tan. There were a number of topless sunbathers towards the quieter end of the beach. My roommate went a few days ago and said he saw an old man stark raving... All his bits on show, in full view of anyone who cared to look.

Also, in what seems to be a standard for Denmark, there was an offshore wind farm not far from the shoreline.

A Day in May

Two days ago it was May Day. In Europe, May Day celebrates Worker's Rights and and all the Unions and Labour Rights movements etc get together and organise big events.

Here in Copenhagen there was a big event at one of the larger parks in town. All the Unions were out in force with tents and sales pitches; the left-wing parties in Denmark were all out in full show as well. Families had picnics and lots of people were drinking beer and getting drunk. Suffice to say, the hedges didn't need watering. There was also a guy handing out weed to anyone who wanted some.

There was lots of food stalls and arcade game things like you find at a Fairground. What was really weird though, was that the prizes at the arcades were all fake flowers like red roses and stuff. I don't know about you but I'd take a giant stuffed bear before I take a fake flower.

They had a big stage as well with bands all day. Well I'm assuming so, I got there later in the afternoon and there was a band playing in front of a communist flag. The irony of it though, was that this band sang a variation on F*** the Police, despite the fact that Communist countries tend to have ridiculously powerful police forces that tend not to care about your human rights (maybe I am just stereotyping but... KGB anyone?)

Final observation: lesbians everywhere. And I mean Everywhere. You didn't have to walk far to see one, or two making out.

Side story: a friend of mine went and on his way home encountered some neo-nazis at a bus stop. Apparently they told some black girls to walk into the traffic, harassed an Eastern European woman then seigheiled (not sure of spelling) in unison. I have a feeling they were at May Day just to cause trouble.

Driverless Subway




I just thought I would add a photo taken from the front seat of the driverless subway trains that they have here in Copenhagen. I really like them, and I think that if NZ ever actually considered decent investment in public transport in our largest cities, then something like this would be super awesome.