Kate goes some places: Christiania

And now for a blog entry about one of the strangest places I have ever visited...

Last week, I was fortunate enough to visit one of the strangest places in Copenhagen, if not the world, twice. As I said in a previous blog entry I went with a friend over the weekend and then went with my Danish class the f0llowing Wednesday, so that we could see a very specific part of Danish culture. Basically Christiania is a hippie commune in one of the nicest parts of Copenhagen. It's a beautiful area and our Danish teacher tells us there is some controversy over its existence. The land used to be military land was taken over by a group of squatting hippies in the early 1970's and some people feel as though it is not right that people just live there without paying rent and openly selling hash in the streets. (They sell hash at stands like you'd see stolen jewelry and DVDs in a regular American city). The government used to look the other way on the hash trade, but since 2004 they starting raiding it several times a week. Interestingly, hard drugs of all kinds are forbidden in the commune, and from my understanding they really are not nearly as common there as you might expect. Indeed, all over Christiania, there are signs and grafitti saying things like "say no to HARD drugs." There are around 850 residents in Christiania, many of whom are children. I think Christiania is an odd place to raise children, what with all the drugs (even if they aren't hard drugs). But on the other hand, there are playgrounds, bright colors, no cars in the streets, and what actually seems like a pretty nice community, so I can see it working for some families.
Walking around Christiania is an experience. There is colorful grafitti, bizarre buildings, beaches, hash stands, and plenty more interesting things that you can look at pictures of below. Note, there won't be any pictures of the hash stands because they're quite clear that you are not to take pictures of Pusher Street (the real name).