Christiania!

Hej! This week I explored more areas of Copenhagen. I’ve been here for more than a month, and there are still so many places I want to see.

On Monday, I visited my friend in Vestamager for Rosh Hashanah. The walk over was gorgeous, as you can see in the picture below. I was so jealous of her housing location. She could take a walk along the water whenever she wants. In her apartment, I watched the cyclists pass by her window. I will never get sick of watching all these bicyclists in Copenhagen. It’s kind of soothing. All my friend’s guests brought food. We put together a feast and had a hygge experience.

Visting Vestamager reminds me that different parts of Copenhagen have distinguishing features and atmospheres. It’s good to get out of my comfort zone of the center city and Roskilde.

I had no field studies on Wednesday, so I got lunch with my friend from my home college. She suggested Reffen, an international street food market. We took the bus up through Christianshavn, passing Christiania and Noma. We walked from food stand to food stand, smelling all the wonderful food. I wanted to stop at every stand. We decided on Indian food from Dhaba. The chicken tandoori and the vegetable tandoori were delicious. The chicken was so tender. Reffen is open until October 31st, so I need to return before it closes. I’m going to Baobab if it kills me. 🙂

On the way back, I got off the bus and walked to Freetown Christiania by myself. Christiania was created when hippies squatted in the area in 1971. My host sister said that Christiania was very artsy. She was right; there were murals on almost every surface. People were selling art everywhere. I’m not sure if I ever walked on Pusher Street. I put my phone away so I could just wander. I did not take pictures of any houses because I wanted to respect the privacy of the Christianians. My best advice for people visiting Christiania is to bring hand sanitizer or hand wipes. The restrooms are a little scary and none of the six soap dispensers had soap.

The next time I go to Christiania, I want to try the food there. According to Phil from Somebody Feed Phil, Christiania has the best felafel.

10 or 12 new RoFH (Roskilde Festival Højskole) students came to the school so we’ve had several get-to-know-you events. One evening, we had a “speed dating” event organized by the current RoFH students. On another night, the teachers organized a Great British Bake-Off themed competition where we competed in teams to gather ingredients and make the best Danish cake.

This morning I went to a loppemarked (translates to flea market) with RoFH and DIS students. A RofH student pointed out a racist figurine at one of the stands. That wasn’t the only racist figurine. There was also Nazi paraphernalia at another stand. I don’t understand how anyone could still sell or buy those things. These sightings reminded me of Temi Odumosu’s performance piece “Open Images or Open Wounds?” which I posted in my race post. There are still people who collect these objects out of a sick nostalgia. It doesn’t matter that the figurine came from the U.S., the fact that people own these in Denmark is disturbing.

On that note, vi ses!