A much delayed post - Part 2

Continuing on from my last post ...

Barcelona:

It was a bit of an ordeal even getting here, because as exciting as a 1.25 euro flight may be (for the record, thats about $2.50) it looses some of it's initial draw when you realize you need to buy two 18 euro bus tickets and spend a few hours getting to the airport, which is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. We got to Barcelona eventually, and were greeted by a day of rain. Woo hoo! I also happened to have a migraine (which didn't go away until 4 days later, lucky me) so I was completely content spending the day in the hostel. It was a pretty nice hostel, with a big common room with TVs and computers and a bar; it even had a fairly nice kitchen, laundry room and gym. The next day it was still a bit wet out,

 so we decided to pay for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour, thinking it would be a good way to see the city without getting wet, and if it got nice we could always move to the top of the bus. We rode around the entire city more or less and saw a bunch of buildings by Gaudi, including the Sagrada Familia church, which has been in the process of being built for over 100 years and is nowhere near done. (The next day we went inside and looked around.) We spent a good few hours on the bus, and did eventually get to move to the top. It was really the best decision we could have made. Later we ended up going to a big market with more fresh fruit, meat, egg and fish vendors than you could ever imagine. We got gresh fruit smoothies for 1 euro and they were fantastic. The rest of our meals pretty much just consisted of fruit from this market ... There were some awesome things about Barcelona, but I think the weather ruined it a bit for me. I don't really have any inerest in going back, although I'd like to see other parts of Spain for sure.

Copenhagen:

I spent a few days in Copenhagen with my family, and the weather was uncharacteristically beautiful, warm and sunny. I got to show them around and take them to have lunch with my host family. I also got to take them around to do a lot of things I haven't been able to do yet, like see the Little Mermaid, the crown jewels, the changing of the guards parade/ceremony, and the castle in Helsingor whose name I can never remember. I also got to eat at the nicer restauraunts, which is something I haven't been able to do on my tight student's budget! We had a really nice dinner out with my host family - it was one of those dinners where they explain every course to you (I think there were 6 of them) and give you a spoon of sorbet to cleanse your pallate after the fish. It was really nice to see my family (although I was glad when they went home, and I know they were glad to leave too ...) and also nice to see Copenhagen in the spring time. 

Munich:

Munich was pretty, and the weather was beautiful. I can't really remember anything we went

 to though, although I have a bunch of pictures. I did have the best meal ever in Munich - weinerschnitzel! It was delicious, and I got to eat it outside, which made it even better. On the way from Munich to Venice we took a train through the Alps, and even though I slept for the first hour or so of the trip, the rest of it was pretty, and the mountains were pretty incredible. I think I've forgotten what mountains (or even hills) look like since being in Denmark.

Venice:

I love Venice. End of story. It helps that I love water in all its forms - ocean, lake, river, fountain ... so a city with rivers

 and canals instead of roads was just perfect to me. The weather was again, perfect, so while I fell in love with the city I could easily see how you would get a different impression if it was flooded and you had to walk over those platforms the whole time. I really liked how you had to take boats to get everywhere, and you were always surrounded by water. We had a bit of drama in trying to find an internet cafe when I had to sign up for classes, but it all worked out in the end. I got a cool carnival mask, which I'm pretty much in love with, and ate a lot of fantastic pizza. Overall, I'd say it was an amazing city!

Florence:

I guess I may as well start off by saying that once again, we followed the good weather, and it was warm and sunny the whole time. We did the typical things - saw some churches and the David, got harassed by street vendors ... By this time we were all pretty much museum-ed out (except for dad, of course ...) and were happy to just walk around and shop. 

Well, I guess that finally concludes my travel adventures. Admittedly, I'm a bit hazy on the details since I did so much, and it happened about a month ago. I guess I should have updated sooner!

A Much Delayed Post

I've really been putting off writing another entry in here because I honestly would have no idea where to even start. But I realize it's about time for an update, so here goes.

Break was, in a word, awesome. Giving a play by play of 3 weeks of travel just wouldn't work out, so instead, I'll just write a few things about every city I went to.

London - This was part of my study tour, so I went with my core class and we had a few academic visits along with the cultural ones. I got a chance to see all of the typical things, like Big Beg, Buckingham Palace and Parliament. I saw the crown jewels, including the biggest diamond in the world. The trip made me come to the conclusion that my real goal in life is to amass enough funds to buy myself a scepter. While a sword would obviously be more practical, I think scepters are classy, especially when adorned with giant diamonds. We also got a chance to eat a fancy dinner then go see The Lion King, which definitely did live up to the hype. I ate fish and chips with beer, obviously, 

and successfully navigated the tube. And, as you can see, I got my picture taken in a phone booth, which was obviously a necessity. We also made a stop at King's Cross Station, where after a long and rather tiring search, we found Platform 9 3/4, and a photo shoot ensued.

Edinburgh - Probably the favorite place I've been so far. So much so, that I've been telling everyone I'm moving there as soon as I get the chance. It's sort of hard to explain what exactly made me fall in love with it, but I guess I can try. The city was absolutely beautiful, and just had a very friendly feeling to it. The people were moderately crazy, in a good way, and they have stores which sell fried ... everything. Seriously, you name it, and they'll fry it for you. These stores were especially plentiful on the street with all the bars. Go figure. Again, because I went here as part of my class trip, we had some academic visits, one of which was really interesting, while the other actually made me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon. We got to go on a walking tour of Edinburgh given from a medical perspective, so we heard all about the development of new medical technologies, and more interestingly, body snatching. Our tour guide knew a lot about Harry Potter, and she showed us the hotel where JK Rowling completed the last book in the series, the school which she based Hogwarts off of (it's also the school her daughters currently attend) and the cafe where she wrote the majority of her books. At night we had a haunted ghost tour of the city which ended in the underground vaults. In all honesty,

 it was almost too scary for me to handle! We climbed up to the top of King Arthur's Seat, which is a big mountain-ish thing. It was a lot tougher than I expected, and I definietly got my

 exersize for the next 3 weeks. By the time we reached the top, it was so windy that it literally took our breath away, and you had to crouch down and brace yourself so that you didn't get pushed off the mountain. I wasn't really looking forward to the hike, but it was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. Also, I feel it's worth mentioning that I ate haggis while in Scotland. It used to be cooked inside a sheep stomach, but isn't anymore. Now it's just ground veal, heart, liver, and one of those other organs it's only moderately gross to eat. It was actually pretty good, but I was all to aware of what I was eating, and inevitably got a little grossed out.

Paris - This was the first part of my vacation I had on my own, and I traveled with two of my friends from Gettysburg. We went to the Lourve, saw the Eiffel Towel 

lit up at night and ate ice cream under it during the day, saw the Arc de Triumph, went into Notre Dame and saw some famous church which I can't remember the name of for the life of me. Paris was pretty and I had a good time, but I was honestly fairly unimpressed. I expected to love it, but I sort of left with the feeling that since I had been there once, I never really needed to go back.

This entry is taking a bit longer than I expected it to, and since I really should attempt to get some work done today, I'm going to postpone writing the second half. I've covered a week and a half so far, although not quite half the cities I went to. I swear, I'll write more later, and I'll even throw in an entry on what Copenhagen has been like since I got back!

"You know, I've never seen an American before!"

As most of you are fully aware, my Wednesdays in Denmark usually consist of me sleeping in, updating my blog, and making dinner. This past Wednesday was a little different, because I was invited to my host brother's English class to talk about being from America. So yes, before any of you ask, I was essentially just a glorified show-and-tell.

The school itself was actually really nice. It's a private school, and almost set up a little like a college campus in that there are a bunch of different buildings. The inside of the buildings were bright and clean, and everything looked really new. Not like Mountain Lakes. At all. Honestly, I found the lack of mustard yellow and snot green paint a little disturbing - I was under the impression that all high schools looked like that. I got there during their break, so Johannes introduced me to his teacher and then led me to the classroom. Apparently, the other thing similar to this school and a college campus is the fact that during their breaks, the students are allowed to do essentially whatever they want. The few minutes I spent in the classroom were, to be quite honest, a little terrifying, and I completely understand why the teacher was hiding in his office. There were kids running around (I can only assume they were playing tag), kids yelling and screaming, kids throwing chairs and picking each other up, and loud dance music blasting. Obviously, I was more than a little curious to find out what this lesson would be like.A few students came up to me and introduced themselves (one girl in Danish, before she realized I didn't speak a word of it. She then ran to the back of the room with a red face.) and asked me a few questions about being in Denmark and how it was different from the US. The teacher arrived soon enough, and as soon as he set foot in the door all the kids ran to their seats and were quiet immediately. Cue stunned jaw-drop. 

The teacher started by asking what I thought about their school, and how it was different from my school at home. As I talked, the kids would raise their hands whenever they thought of a question. The fact that they actually bothered to raise their hands was impressive in and of itself, but I soon noticed that not only were they raising their hands, but they were all raising their hands in exactly the same, polite manner. They would rest their elbow on the desk, and face the back of their hand forward, while pointing upwards with one finger. There was no "oh, oh! Call on me!" or impatient hand waving. Just a calm finger pointing upwards, and patient waiting. It still amazes me too much to even make any further comments on the matter.

I was asked a lot of different questions - way more than I thought I would be asked. Here are some of the ones I can remember: Why are you in Denmark instead of somewhere else? How long have you been here/will you be here? Where do you live in the US? What are the differences between NYC and here? What do you think of the Danes? Do you think Danish guys are better looking than American boys? Are you allowed to use cellphones in school in the US? What age do you start school? What age do you leave home and live on your own? Can you drive (I then told them how much it costs to get your license in the US - probably 5 times less than it costs in Denmark, not to mention the fact that after I said my family has 4 people but we have 5 cars the entire room broke out into a dull roar - families here only have one car, if they're lucky. Everyone uses bikes or public transportation, and cars are so expensive I'd imagine the only person in Denmark who could afford to have 5 is the queen herself.) Have you tried any Danish food, and what do you think of it? What do you think of the weather? Do you have the same plants and trees at home as we do here? How much does your school cost? (Again, there was a dull roar when the numbers were converted from dollars to kroner. Have I mentioned that in Denmark, you don't pay them to go to school, they pay you?) What are you studying? Where have you been in Denmark so far? The teacher named a few places, and I responded by saying that I hadn't been there but it's on the list of things my friends and I plan on doing. One girl then goes, "YOU HAVE FRIENDS?!" So I explained that there are a lot of kids here from my school at home, and there's a couple hundred Americans at DIS. Her next comment was, "THERE ARE MORE OF YOU?!" Apparently, Americans are kind of a big deal. This fact was reinforced when one boy said to me, "You know, I've never seen an American before!" I replied by saying that I hope I didn't look so strange that seeing me was something special. He laughed, but didn't refute it. Hmm ...

There were a lot more questions, and a lot of them were pretty funny. I was impressed by their English - I was told that it was the advanced class, but that didn't prepare me for the fact that the entire class of 15 year olds was completely fluent in English. They even had most of the grammar down, and only once or twice did they forget a word and have to ask their teacher to translate. To be honest, when I was walking over I had no idea what to expect, and I was dreading it ever so slightly. Imagine being a foreigner and going to a class of 15 year olds in the US to speak to them - I imagine it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. High schoolers are not nice people. They still scare me a bit, to tell the truth. But I had a really good time talking to these kids and was really impressed - they were excited and seemed legitimately interested, and had so many questions to ask me. Maybe they were just excited that they weren't going to have a normal lecture, but I'll never know for sure, so I might as well give them the benefit of the doubt. I think I'm going to go to my host sister's school in a few weeks, and I'm actually looking forward to it.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but I probably won't be updating for a few weeks. I'm officially on travel break as of 4:30 this afternoon, and over the next 3 weeks I'll be heading off to London, Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Venice and Florence. Try not to be too jealous. =)

US Profanity < Danish Profanity

Every Friday night, I watch X-Factor with my host family. It's basically the Danish American Idol, except that the judges aren't mean - but yes, the judging panel does still consist of a black guy, a crazy woman, and a snide old man.  And instead of Ryan Seacrest, the host is some woman who wears absolutely ridiculous clothes, which always make for good conversation. My favorite part about this show, however, is that fact that every single song is sung in English. One episode the theme was "Danish composears" and some girl still sung in English, because that's the way the Danish band wrote the song. As it turns out, there's one more thing in the show that is in English - the supportive signs that the fans wave around. One in particular caught my eye, numerous times, as it turns out, since the camera kept going back to it. It said, and I quote, "Mohammed, you're the F*CKING GREATEST!!!" With one exception - the whole word was written there, and it wasn't censored at all. Clearly, the Danes don't quite understand that that's really the worst curse word us English speakers have got.

Here's another one of my favorite examples of the differences

 in the acceptability of "profanity" between the US and Denmark. This ad was posted on the sides of bus stops for around 3 weeks. It's seemingly short stay wasn't due to some angry groups demanding that it be taken down - that's just how long ads stay around before they get rotated to something else. I got a good chuckle every time I passed one for about 3 weeks, and I'm glad I managed to take a picture of it before they all got taken down.

I also frequently hear Danish teenagers cursing at each other in English, but that's to be expected of the little drinking-cases-of beer-on-trains, pants-tucked-into-socks hooligans, really.

To be honest, I expected to have way more to put on here than I actually did. The two things I wanted to say probably weren't worth a whole entry ... 

Of Mice and Men

As it's Wednesday, I once again am finding myself with too much school work to do and not enough motivation on my day off to do it. So, as I wait for the clock to hit 17:30 so I can stick my quiche in the oven [side note: My host family probably thinks I don't eat anything healthy at all at home, considering the fact that so far, I've made quiche, fish with cream sauce, baked macaroni and cheese, Hamburger Helper (thanks to mom) and lasagna for dinner, in addition to about a million and one different baked goods ranging from muffins, brownies and banana bread (all made from scratch - not to brag or anything) and some peanut butter cookies.] I figured I'd throw up another update. I doubt it will have much of a theme, and it will probably just end up being a few random anecdotes. I'm feeling rather inspired, which probably had something to do with the fact that my current background music is Ave Maria - not exactly by choice, however. I don't know if I've ever mentioned the fact that I have the basement essentially to myself, with the exception of my host dad's work room. Because he's an artist/writer/singer/actor, he's frequently either playing piano or singing in there, and it should be said that he's absolutely amazing. As is the rest of the family. The daughter, mom and dad all sing, and the son, dad and mom play piano. Nothing puts you in a good mood quite like walking upstairs and hearing a 3 part harmony going on in addition to piano music, and I'll stop writing about it now, because words really don't do it justice. But I promise you, they're all wonderfully talented and could put every single artist on the radio and TV to shame.

This past Saturday some friends and I found ourselves at Ice Bar, which is somewhere you really just have to go while you're in Copenhagen. It's exactly what it sounds like - a 

bar made entirely out of ice, and kept constantly at -5 degrees. Everything, from the tables to the walls and cups, is made out of ice, and they give you thermal parkas and gloves so that you can stay (moderately) warm. It's absurdly expensive to actually drink there (although included in the cover charge is one free drink), so once we got in, we realized we were probably the youngest people there. I'm sure it didn't help that we were there around 10:30, and most 20-somethings don't head out until around 11-11:30, but it also didn't help that we weren't 30-40 years old with money to throw away. It was definitely a place worth going to, but I'm not going to be frequenting it in the future. My poor college wallet just can't afford it!

Yesterday morning I went into the kitchen and heard some rustling in the cabinets, and realized immediately it was either a mouse or squirrel. Why my immediate thought was squirrel, I can't really explain - but there was a fair amount of rustling, which sounded like it had to come from an animal larger than a mouse. So I open the cabinet a little to scare it away, and as I'm doing so, it occurs to me that the mouse, which was out in the middle of the day, could very well be rabid and decide to jump on my head if I opened the cabinet. I quickly closed it again, and heard the mouse run away. Or so I thought, because when I opened the cabinet for a second time, there it was, staring me down from atop the box of cookies. I slammed the door shut again, and this time heard it run across the entire kitchen by way of the connecting cabinets. Gross. Later that night I told my host dad about it, and as it turns out, my host mom is terrified of mice. She then proceeded to talk about selling the house throughout all of dinner, and whenever there was a pause in conversation she would say, "aye! En mus!". My host dad set up a mouse trap where the cookies used to be, and left for work. My host mom didn't realize that her husband had already thrown away the cookies, and wanted to get rid of any other food that was on that shelf, so she went into the kitchen, and screamed. Apparently the mouse was upset that his cookies had been removed, and decided to be waiting there to stare down whoever happened to open the cabinet next. I was legitimately worried I would need to call 221 because my host mom had had a heart attack, but she just ran out of the kitchen and seemed to be alright. About an hour later, we were watching TV and heard a loud snap which was clearly the mouse trap, and my host mom did not like this at all. I turned to her and convinced her to leave the mouse alone until her husband came back - I knew there was probably no way she'd be able to handle getting rid of it herself. She agreed, and we continued watching TV. A little while later, I went back into the kitchen to put away some glasses, and heard a lot of rustling in the kitchen - turns out, the mouse wasn't dead. This bothered my host mom even more, and she decided she just had to take care of it - so she put on some plastic gloves, and cowered in the doorway until she convinced herself that the mouse could wait until her husband came home. I went down to my room a little later, and didn't hear anything about the mouse until this afternoon, when I found out that after mouse 1 was removed, the trap was set back up, and in the morning there was a new mouse inside. Mouse 2 was removed, and by the afternoon mouse 3 had been captured too. And with every new mouse, my host mom gets more and more jumpy every time she hears any noise at all. Admittedly, it's really gross that they're in the kitchen, but I'm glad we're getting rid of them. 

Almost every time someone finds out I'm from the US, they say something to me along the lines of, "Good job with Obama!" (Really, I personally worked quite hard to make it happen). People think it's cute when I try to ask for something in Danish with my silly American accent, or when I follow up an all-English interaction with "tak!" They're more than willing to help me when I'm lost, or when there's an announcement on the train/metro and I need it translated so that I can understand. That's why I was taken very much by surprise the other day, when I was actually looked upon with disdain by an older gentleman because of where I'm from. I was standing in the supermarket, when he turned around and said something to me in Danish. I apologized, for about the millionth time that day, for not speaking Danish. He thought about it for a second, and then said, "I just wanted to make sure I wasn't skipping you in line." "No," I said, "It's alright - you were here first." So the man turns around, and about 30 seconds later turns back to me saying, "Where are you from? You don't sound like you're from the UK. Are you a student here?" quite excitedly, I might add. "Oh no," I responded, "I'm not from the UK. I'm from the US." As a response, I got a quite disgusted, "The US?" "Yes, the US." "Oh," he said, again quite disdainfully, and turned around. ... Wait, what? Now, I expected this type of interaction to happen while I'm in France, or maybe some other country. But the people here are warm and friendly, and if anything are excited that someone from the US is interesting in being in Denmark. ("Why come here?" is a question I frequently get.) I told my host parents about it later, and they were just as stunned as I was. All my host mom could say about it was, "Well, I certinaly hope he was just confused!"

I'll probably stick another short update on here later, but right now I need to go watch over dinner. It doesn't matter how long I stay here, I'll never figure out how to use this oven.

A Danish birthday extravaganza

On Monday, it was my host sister's birthday - she was turning 13, and quite excited about it. I have to say, I was pretty excited too, knowing full well that Danish birthdays had to be different from US birthdays, which is something I was actually hoping to experience while I was here. Now, keep in mind that I'm just sort of assuming most birthdays here are celebrated in a similar fashion, which probably isn't really true. Just like in the US, I'm sure different families have different traditions, but since this is the only Danish birthday celebration I've been exposed to, it's all I have to go by.

The birthday celebration actually started on Sunday (which I actually think may not have been intentional) with a visit from the two older siblings, the older sister's friend (and roommate? maybe?) my host dad's parents, an uncle and two young cousins. The night started with a game of pictionary between the "kids" (admittedly, 20-23 year olds aren't really kids anymore, but I'm at a loss for another word.) This isn't the first time I've played Pictionary since I've been here, but that doesn't mean it still wasn't a challenge. All the words are in Danish, obviously, so I always needed someone to translate them for me. Some of the words I was actually able to figure out on my own, which needless to say, made me extremely proud. Others weren't even in the dictionary, and we ended up having to pick new cards. I got crushed pretty badly, but I guess it's only fair, since my team did win the last time we played =) Later on, we all crammed around the dining room table, and somehow, we all managed to fit - an idea which defies science itself. There's actually a picture of Albert Einstein hanging on the wall next to the table, and I was convinced I saw it shake a little, because even the master of physics himself was confused by the number of people who were able to fit around that table. It was a little hard for me to understand what was going on, since everyone was so excited by the family reunion that they didn't really translate all that much for me. But let me tell you, it was pretty satisfing when I understood a word here and there. for some reason, the word "cheese" seemed to be thrown around a lot. I spent a lot of the dinner wracking my brain to try to figure out why on earth they were talking about cheese so much. It didn't occur to me until later that maybe I was simply misunderstanding, and they weren't talking about cheese quite as much as I thought. Still, I like to think they were arguing over the pros and cons of imported cheeses, or something along those lines. As usual, things are probably much more exciting in my head than in real life.

The night wound down after dinner, but the next morning the festivites started up all over again. It's the Danish tradition to wake up the birthday girl/boy in the morning with a song. I can only assume it's the Danish birthday song. Basically, the entire family parades into the bedroom, waving Danish flags and singing. At the end of the Danish birthday song, we started singing the English version, which I doubt was part of the usual tradition. Then, it was time for presents. (When I told my host family that in the US, you get your presents after dinner, they told me that was a cruel thing to do to a child.) She didn't get all of her presents, just a few - and I figured out as she was opening them that they were all the components of an outfit - a pair of shoes, jeans, a shirt, and a belt. Which meant that Josephine got to wear a cute new outfit to school on her birthday, which I think is a very smart idea. I decided to give her my present then, too - I have her a Pandora charm for her bracelet, and she really seemed to like it. She put it on her bracelet right away and wore that too, so my gift seemed to fit right in with the "new outfit" theme. We then went into the dining room for breakfast - and the table was covered in a table cloth with Danish flags all over it. It's a funny concept, because I don't think anyone really celebrates their birthday by waving the American flag around. We had rolls and hot chocolate, and I unfortunately didn't have time to sit for very long, because I needed to catch the 7:35 bus.

By the time I got home at 7 that night, the house was full with family, and once again they all managed to squeeze around the dining room table (although this time, since there were more people, there was an extra table in there.) They had all already started eating, so I just grabbed a seat and joined in. I was introduced to my host mom's brother, his wife and son, and my host dad's sister. The grandparents were still there, as were the older sister, her friend, and boyfriend (who showed up a few minutes after I did, so I didn't feel so bad about having to be late due to class). Dinner was Mexican, and I was the lucky one to take a giant bite of red chili pepper - I think I singed off half my taste buds. Luckily everyone seemed to get a good laugh out of the situation, so hey, at least some good came out of it. We stayed at the table talking for a while, then had a raspberry tart for dessert. After that, the dad started playing the piano and everyone (but me, obviously) joined in to sing the birthday song. Apparently, the Danish birthday song has about a million and one verses. I'm not exaggerating. We got to sing the English version too, and I was able to join in on that one. I was, however, a bit surprised when they continuted on after the traditional song, and sang "How old are you now" to the tune of the regular song, and Josephine responded with a solo, singing "I'm 13 years old now" to the same tune. The brother then asked me what the correct words were, because he thought his sister was doing it wrong. My immediate thought was, "hell if I know!" But I decided that probably wasn't the best answer, and I explained that all we ever sing is the first part. They thought this was very funny. Silly Americans and their silly short songs.

Since I was gone at class all day, I missed out on the rest of the birthday tradition - which apparently included all the girls in Josephine's class coming over after school for cake and cocoa, and her opening the rest of her presents. There were a few small differences from the birthday celebrations I'm used to, but overall they were essentially the same. The most striking difference was probably the prominant role of the Danish flag (apparently a very large one was hung up outside the house - I didn't get to see it because it was dark when I came home), which you would never see at home (and not just because it's the Danish flag. Ha.)

Christiana - The city within a city

There are just some things that you can't even imagine happening in the US. The formation of a city like Christiana is one of them. I'm sure I'll butcher the history behind it, but I promise you, I've got the basic gist of it, and as crazy as it may sound, it is true.

Since Copenhagen is on the water, military ramparts were built as protection. Eventually, they were no longer needed and were abandoned. In 1971, a group of people decided to take over the area, and declared it a free town. And basically, the government let them. The citizens don't pay regular taxes, and are mostly self-governing. There are signs throughout the city stating the laws, some of which being: No stealing, no biker colors, no hard drugs, no bullet proof clothing, no littering and no personal cars. And yes, the citizens of Christiana do make a specification between hard drugs and hash - and hash is completely legal. In fact, the most famous "attraction" in the city is a street called Pusher Street, and it's exactly what it sounds like. There are numerous stands where you can choose from a wide variety of hash products. Not being up on my drug culture, I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking at, but I can honestly say I didn't realize there were so many varieties out there. In addition to the hash stands, there are stands which sell marijuana paraphernalia, which are grouped in a small cluster at the end of Pusher Street. My favorite part of the system, I think, is the fact that the paraphernalia stores sell small Ziploc bags to hold the pot in - and the dealers can be seen running back and forth between their hash stands and the vendors whenever they feel they're running low. On more than a few occasions there have been police raids on the city due to the open selling of drugs, but because hard drugs are outlawed even in Christiana, the police generally leave them alone. 

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the city of Christiana is essentially a hippie town. Every building is covered in graffiti - but unlike in the US, the graffiti is pretty and peaceful. There are pictures of trees and animals, sayings like "free love" and other creative drawings. There are no curse words or typical tagging that you would see back at home. They have their own flag (red, with three yellow circles in a horizontal line) and their own postal system. There are stands all around the city called "give and take," which are essentially the clothing equivalent of "take a penny leave a penny." There are dogs running free everywhere - they all are clean and healthy, and have tags and collars, but none of them are kept on leashes (This is why my host dad refuses to visit Christiana. He's terrified of dogs, but will never admit it. He just "doesn't like them."). And I think these were some of the largest dogs I have ever seen in my life. Some of the best vegetarian restaurants in all of Denmark are located in Christiana - my friend and I actually went into one of them and got an amazing bowl of soup. Really, it was delicious. If I lived in Christiana and was a vegetarian, I'd probably end up being very fat. There are trashcan fires almost everywhere you look, which means that I ended up coming home smelling like campfire and pot (Oh, did I mention people would use the fires to light blunts, right there in the street?). The place is very family-friendly, believe it or not, and there are children's playgrounds everywhere. There are rainbow slides, tire swings, play houses, and zip lines, all homemade but apparently very safe. (It was a gorgeous day today, and there were children climbing all over everything, so they must have been sturdy at the very least.) The entire city is painted in one way or another, and there's not a single "normal" colored building to be found. They're all covered in murals, or drawings, or tile mosaics, or tapestries. All the city maps which are placed around the area for use by tourists are home-made - we saw one which was done in crayon, and another which was painted on a plank of wood, with the outline of the city shaped from wire, and the major attractions represented by nails. Many of the houses were built by the people who live in them, and are extremely modern looking. The buildings throughout the city are considered "architecture without architects," and many famous architects spend time in Christiana to get inspiration.

Unfortunately, there is a strict "no camera" policy in Christiana (probably because there has been more pressure from the government for the city to dissolve itself as of late), and despite the fact that the people who live there are extremely friendly, there have been stories of the residents taking cameras and breaking them on the stop without a thought. So, I don't have any pictures to share, only my stories. I fully plan on going back as soon as it gets a little warmer out - there are open air concerts every day during the summer, and I'm sure it would be an entirely different place!