Notes from Germany
I am an American expat living in Germany. It's a far away land on the other side of the ocean. It's interesting and often weird here. If you read this and want to comment then email me at nate(the at symbol)chillmost.com. If you find any spelling or grammar mistakes, you can keep them.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Rĝd Grĝd Med Flĝde
We arrived back from Copenhagen last night at about half past midnight. If you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. It's so choice. Some observations...
- There are lots of children in Denmark. All over the place. They can't all be on vacation can they? Surprisingly, they all seem to be very well behaved.
- Consequently, there are a lot of pregnant women in Copenhagen. This is no surprise as there are lots beautiful women there as well. Seriously though, I have never seen so many pregnant women in all of my life. I kept asking myself if there was some sort of power outage 9 months ago or some other event that prevented Danes from leaving there house for like a week or something.
- There are lots of blonde people.
- In addition, it also seems to be a very racially diverse city, including many Greenlanders.
- Alcohol in bars and clubs is very expensive. Thus, many Danes will buy beer in bottles or cans in a kiosk and drink on the street. In the summer this can lead to spontaneous parties breaking out in market squares.
- The Danish seem to be very chill and laid-back. Oh, that guy walking down the street wearing women's lingerie? Interesting, isn't it?.
- Lots of bicycles. Especially of the Christiania variety, which fits in with the whole theme of children.
- There is a lot of cool scandinavian architecture and minimalist design. There's even a museum.
There is also a city-bike program there where you can pick up a bike at a designated points in the city. In principal it sounds like a great idea. The problem is that most of the bikes were falling apart or missing key components like wheels or seats. It took us a 2 days to find one that wouldn't kill its rider. Then M rode that all over till she found another. Even though they both had fucked up chains/pedals/sprockets/brakes, it sure beat walking.
Other highlights included:
- Christiania and the guided tour from longtime resident, Pete.
- Boat ride through the canals
- Watching people's reaction as M wandered through the streets of Copenhagen with braided hair while wearing a huge plastic viking helmet.
More to come...