copenhagen i love you

My last two days in Reykjavik involved drinking way too much beer (trying to keep up with Frenchmen), finding a whole brand new still sealed 1 litre bottle of vodka in my room (nobody knew where it came from so it´s mine now! that´s worth about 70 bucks in iceland), and not sleeping at all the last night.

I also got to sample the delights of the Nordica Hotel, courtesy of Monique, which after the Salvation Army dive was like nirvana....spas and massages and big clean bathrooms.

Then Monique and I flew to Copenhagen and into yet another fabulous hotel, the Hotel Skt. Petri which has the BEST beds and extra-nabbable products. Monique was here for about five days during which we changed hotels a couple times (including the D'Angleterre which has a sort of faded grandeur thing going on), drank a lot of beer, were treated to Mexican food by some random guys (just when I was craving Mexican too), did a tour of various castles, walked past Pink on the street (I swear it was her, she was playing a show here that night) and saw Sweden. We didn´t go to Sweden but we saw it from across the water at the castle at Helsingør (aka Shakespeare´s Elsinore from Hamlet).

Now she's gone and I'm back at a youth hostel where I belong...sleeping in and walking around this gorgeous city and buying hot new Camper boots because my running shoes were so busted they were making one of my toes go numb. It would be stupid to let one of my toes fall off just for the sake of economy.

Copenhagen is not really what I expected...I am not sure what I expected but it's much more beautiful; filled with spires and canals and bridges.

I have to say I am not as enamored of Christiania as I had thought I would be. I went there twice - once in the evening with Monique and once during the day by myself. In the evening it was fine and we hung out and had a beer and wandered around. That is it was fine till it got dark. We were mostly on and around Pusher Street where there were no streetlights and a lot of dudes hanging around fires in barrels. At one point we just both looked at each other and said "I think we should leave now."
I went back a few days later in the middle of the afternoon. Again I was mostly on Pusher Street so maybe other areas are less creepy but I have a serious problem with any place that has a 30:1 male to female ratio. I especially hate looking around and realizing I am the only female person in eyeshot. There was a big squad of police roaming around but that really didn't help the atmosphere. Lots of dogs too. Big aggressive dogs off leash.
I don´t know - maybe if I knew my way around a bit more I would like the place better, but it all just felt really furtive and sad, for all the bright paintings and murals. It's no Kensington Market.