Thursday, April 1, 2010

Christiana: A Completely Different World

I had my first encounter with Christiana on Tuesday and it was quite fascinating.

So Tuesday morning Ingeborg, Singe, Magnus and myself woke up bright and early (ya know...around like tenish) and went to Christiana.

Christiana would best be described as a town within Copenhagen; but nothing would really suffice as a really good description and I am going to try and make this a vived place in your mind. I am sad to say that you are not allowed to take pictures in Christiana.

So my first impression was "are we seriously in Copenhagen??"

In case you have absolutely no clue about Copenhagen, it is a very cute city that is rather large; however Christiana is a hippie commune. All of the buildings are mostly made out of recycled materials, there are no washers or dryers, no heat, no vehicles, and everything is peace love and happiness.

There is a 100 year wait list to move in...yes 100 years!! In order to move in you go through a series of interviews to make sure that you cherish the same values as your neighbors and to make sure that they like you.

It used to be an old military base and the government is trying to tear down Christiana so that they can build a museum. Well the people here don't really like that. My host brother told me that the police randomly try to come in and tear down some houses but a day or so later the house is completely restored...

Another thing that I was able to see was the selling of pot just out in public. Now in Denmark it is just as illegal as it is in the states to sell, harvest, or purchase drugs...these people just don't care, but ya know...whatever.

When you see Christiana at first glance it looks run down and kinda like the "ghetto" of Copenhagen...but there are trails through the back through the woods and down by the lake and it's very pretty back there. You have to view the place more on it's values for it to seem pretty :)

All in all it was a good trip with some wonderful family bonding time and I got the chance to go see a hippie commune :)

No comments:

Post a Comment