I Predict a Riot

My Greek roommate turned 25 yesterday and him and his friends invited me to go out to The Jazz Bar inside Christiania. I had never been to any of the bars inside the "freetown" since I first visited and wandered into a
dive bar made of unvarnished wood filled with thick smoke and wrinkled alcoholics. This time was different.

As we walked toward the main entrance of Christiania, an unseasonably warmly dress man grumbled, "Watch out for the gas." I ignored him and, with a coaxing tone, he yelled after me, "Take it easy man."

"He's probably tripping out of his mind right now," Jack said convincingly. It seemed like the only logical conclusion to be gained from such a nonsensical statement. The whole place was built by hippies and what better to do on a warm Spring night than take a couple hits of acid? We found out what the man meant soon enough.

What we found inside was a post apocalyptic scene I was happy to get a peak at. A police riot squad marched amidst flaming trash barrels and a miasma of teargas. Onlookers lined the street and dispersed as the line of cops crossed them. Bottles crashed in the distance as sparks flew through the grey air. The sound of the teargas grenades exploding like artillery was actually more frightening than the flaming Molotov cocktails, which appeared to be duds on impact.

We only stood around until the cops began marching down the street attempting to disperse the crowd. The only violence occurring was coming from disembodied arms throwing fireworks and bottles at the police from behind fences and shrubbery. The bar we went to had a nautical vibe and was right next a canal that used to be frequented by scurvy-ridden, conditional homosexuals known as sailors. There were ropes on the walls, wooden floors and no regulations on smoking. It felt like how I imagine Seattle to be. For around eight dollars I drank a beer that was brewed in my area of Copenhagen, Amager. A couple rounds were drunken, four poorly-received cigarettes smoked, and we left again to check out the progress of the conflict in Christiania.

This is what was left in the morning from the fires. 

I didn't have my camera with at the time so the news

story has a better photo.

The battle had spilled onto the street, where there were two roadblocks made by the rioters from wood, furniture, street signs, and plenty of gasoline. People threw anything they could pick up into the ten-foot flames. A few minutes of that and five armored vans whose windows were protected by metal grates plowed through the puny barrier. A crowd of police left from the back of the vans an threw some teargas around as a giant plow mowed down more of the fire-moat. I would have stayed until the tear gas started to make me drool and cry uncontrollably, but the cops began shooing people away once they started putting out the fires. They wore water-tank backpacks and sprayed the piles of garbage like they were fertilizing plants.