The Only Christinia

Today I went with another group of international students in a part of Copenhagen called . I heard it was supposed to be scenic and have a lot of pretty architecture, but what really got my heart pumping were the things my Danish roommates were telling me about it being a place where community members chose to completely disregard Denmark's drug laws.

I met with the group at the Christianhavn train station. There were only six of us students on this outing. It was a small improvement compared to the groups of ten or more that we usually traveled in. I still got caught going to a bakery and a 7-Eleven before getting out of sight of the train station. It wasn't all bad though. The bakery had items I had never seen before in the US, and they were made pretty enough to make the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.

This was the prettiest one I saw. I don't know what it's called (a tart?), but it sure is pretty, right?

The destination of the day was not the pretty, postcard Christianshaven I had heard so much about, but the small anti-establishment community built within it, Christiania. Christiania was only a couple of blocks from the train station where we rendezvoused. It was clear we were getting close to the district as we began to get strong whiffs of marijuana and started seeing people carrying around gigantic joints while casually walking past us on the sidewalks.

Eventually we found ourselves walking over unkept sidewalks and later dirt roads. Grafiti completely covered many of the low buildings. After walking through a winding path covered in ice, we found a huge dump truck covering in spray-painted designs. I man photographed it using an expensive camera with his back turned to a sign depicting an similar camera with a thick red line slashing through the middle of the lens, "NO PHOTOS." This was it.

Past the sign was a scene that could have come out of the Scandinavian sequel to Mad Max. There were flimsy buildings and gravel roads that were dotted with trash can fires surrounded by the most under-dressed people I had yet to see in Copenhagen. Towards the entrance to the area were small head shop stands manned by keepers who were invariably smoking some of the biggest joints I have ever seen. The stands we well stocked and carried everything from grinders and paper to bongs and baja sweatshirts.

There were a couple areas in between the barns that lined the main road that openly sold marijuana and what I thought were expensive mystical rocks that I figured out were blocks of hash. There were around twenty different stands selling weed, hash, pre-rolled splifs, and some very dry, very old looking hash cookies.

I went in on a tobacco-free joint with one friend and finished around a tenth of it before being told by a second Chistianite to move along. We had been standing and talking loudly next to one of the flaming trash cans since it was extremely cold. I could understand why they wouldn't want tourists hanging around. If they didn't tell them to move along there would be more outsiders than Danes in Christiania, which already had a tourist trap vibe even without a bunch of people dawdling around asking Danes to take there pictures in front of stuff.

On the way out we passed an arch that was inscribed in English with "You are now entering the EU." It was a cute protest coming from a community trying to show the world how great anarchy can be, while only achieving fame as a quirky drug-pushing district. They don't even have garbage men! The whole place really just amounted to a city park populated by squatters.

Past the arch I proclaimed loudly that I can take pictures "because I can call the police outside!" A grizzled Dane looked up from his cigarette and yelled at me, "No fucking photos!" I was afraid to cross him. But I wasn't afraid to walk across the street and then cross him.