Christiania Fristadan

Our first and only stop out of the EU was to Christiania Fristadan (Freetown). There are two ways to get there 1) walk ten minutes from your Christianshavn apartment or 2) get really high and just like wake up there man. I know tome of you think that option 2 looks similar to my career path at the moment, but we use Google maps and it only had route one. Bummer.

Here's the welcome sign. The other side says "you are now entering the EU." 

I forgot to have my passport stamped. 

We didn't see any leashes in Christiania.

Christiania was an unused military base until the hippies moved in. They still don't own the land so I'm not sure how it's decided who gets to live and work where. But it seems pretty utopian when you think there is a nice big free home for you.

But not so much when you learn the truth. 

Damn kids! 

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is home to the first theme park. Disney was inspired by the Tivoli theme park to build a new Tivoli... in Anaheim on steroids and named after himself. God bless America. The Matterhorn clearly was "inspired" by Tivoli's original roller coaster. Tivoli also has The Flying Trunk.

This Hans Christian Anderson themed ride corresponds to the gut wrenching It's a Small World but 

less intense. Our AirBnB digs were great. There are always surprises, we had lots of space (except when showering over the toilet) and a great view. Not pictured: 0 cm clearance between bathroom door and knee.

Loiterers in the neighborhood. 

I guess this scene is in every Scandinavian city.

The King's Garden was temporarily annexed by a princess. 

 Our host recommended potato Smørrebrød, an open faced sandwich. He was raised by hippies from Christiania, Denmark's way of making Berkeley look like a city of suits. He had dark hair, my height, my weight, preferred a plant based whole food diet, but his light brown mock neck sweater had a zipper and mine had buttons. Otherwise we could have been friends. 

Turns out one of the best things to do in Copenhagen is get sick. It seemed pretty crazy that tourists get free health care. Then I remembered that my plan was to show up to the hospital with no idea about costs, to be treated by someone with no clue about cost. 

Stockholm

Sweden: trolls, windmills, belfries, and a massive old ship.

Ali and her new boyfriend on the old town island of Gamla Stan. I didn't know Sweden is a city of islands.

Trolls aren't all bad dudes.

Ali at the folk museum waiting for her new boyfriend. 

Can you give me directions and speak better English than me? Ya well so can everyone else here, so don't go thinking your special.

The Vasa lasted for 22 minutes. I always thought lasting for 22 minutes was a really long time, but the Swedes didnt think so. It sank in frigid, semi fresh water that preserved it for 333 years before being raised in the mid 20th century. 

After many pastries and chokladbollar, we had to have something fresh. 

They have good people here.

Oslo

I still haven't mastered pronouncing Grunerløkka, but we loved our temporary neighborhood. We lived above a freakin chocolate factory for four days. Thank goodness I could only smell the chocolate being made from outside, otherwise there may have been a feeding frenzy... A bigger feeding frenzy. 

It seemed like half the city dwellers we saw were pushing a stroller and the other half were in them. Ali made a friend, Anna from Skien where Grandma Barbara's family came from. We weren't able to meet up with her for brown cheese so we dodged a few strollers to try it at this great local bakery.

It seems like the Norwegians excel at craftsmanship. From sweaters to beer, really high quality local products are abundant. So I went looking for coffee and found Tim Wendelboe's. I was the only paying customer in the place for my whole coffee. That's normally not a good sign, but then there were these guys, a film crew from South Africa.

There's three seats in the place and a some South Africans are traveling to the top of the world to document it. The next day it was a photographer from the Monocle for their story. 

I think I've spoiled the ending. It was great coffee, or lightly roasted coffee berry juice. 

Our time in Oslo wasn't just about coffee, it was also learning about Norway before they had coffee. Things weren't too bad back then because they had beer and secret hiding places for their beer.

They have built a few things since discovering oil in the North Sea too.

Oslo has a lot of parks with a lot of statues, including a famous statue of me as a baby... Having a tantrum.

and another statue of how adults felt about baby me.

 

After wandering around and eating through the city one day I decided to try and work out. I found a water polo team was staring practice about a mile away, so I headed over. They let me play, but only after they made me put condoms on my shoes for the walk by the pool.

The team would be good competition for TOTEX in Austin. They playin tournaments with teams across Scandinavia and the Baltics. Maybe TOTEX could fly over next year...

Bergen and Norway in a Nutshell

As far as I'm concerned, Norway is the land of beauty. Beautiful people surrounded by beautiful landscapes. And Bergen is a beautiful town. 

We found a little fair near these iconic buildings. I think it may have been a pancake festival. Pancakes were the most popular food at the fair. At about $3 this may be how the Bergeners deal financially and emotionally with sky high cost of living. 

They also had little fish (pan)cakes that cram into your face real easy.

We also found a book store cafe, Krog og Kringel Bokcafe. There are a lot of great pastries in Norway but these had the best I've tasted.

A chocolate hazelnut cake that tasted like it had some really soft brittle in it. Goddam! Food costs range from 2-3x anywhere I've ever lived. Luckily a really nice girl from Madrid mistook me for Spanish at first (first of two people to make that mistake this day) and convinced her grillmaster to throw an extra piece of fish on our fresh lunch.

This is the most expensive city I've ever been to, which makes for a very sad little $10 half pint with dinner.

We left Bergen for Oslo but the day was really about the journey. There is a direct train from Bergen to Oslo but our "Norway in a Nutshell" journey took a train to a bus to a ferry to a train to another train. This public transportation tour took us through the Norwegian countryside and the Sognefjord, a series of steep mountains and cliffs along an inlet. All of it was carved out by glaciers a few years ago.

My Viking:

We stopped in Flam for lunch.

All that boat time was really good for the old Anglo fro.

Now for your daily dose of dorky Dave:

Ta-da!!!