Denmark and Sweden (and West Germany kinda)

Denmark and Sweden (aka Scandinavia south) – oh and a snippet of (West) Germany

In this episode, Ryan…

-Rides a crappy bike through a hippie commune in Copenhagen

-Lays on a beach on Sweden’s Baltic coast

-Has a cocktail in a bar made of ice

Hiking up the Viking

Denmark

Here’s a trick question for ya. What’s the largest Scandinavian country? Well if you include Greenland, its definitely Denmark (who technically still governs the island)

So after spending a few days in Berlin, I needed to head over to Amsterdam to meet up with my friend Phoenix there. Now, I was already in northern Germany, and it just so happened there was a country called Denmark not far away. That was interesting enough, but then I also figured out that the capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen, was connected by bridge to another city, Malmö, in another country called Sweden.

Generally speaking these are places I never thought I’d set foot on, but seeing as how they were so close, temptation got the better of me, so I ventured off to Copenhagen and Malmö for a couple of days, before continuing on to Amsterdam. The hostel I was staying at first seemed nice; it was in a large building, overlooking the harbour, with a shiny, stream-lined design which could have been ripped right out of an IKEA catalogue. As I soon would discover to be a common trend in Scandinavia, however, they make you pay for everything and nothing comes cheap, and when there was a miscommunication as to how long I was staying (I thought I had booked 3 nights, but they had only booked me for 2, and had promptly booked my bed, and every other damn bed, in the freaking building). What this all meant was that at 1 am I was off searching for accommodation in city where everything was booked solid, and let’s just say I ended up paying too much for a hotel room, not having a good sleep, and screwing up on a train ticket which cost me more yet. In other words, the end of my time in Scandinavia was quite hellish, and I’d rather not talk about it.

But before all that chaos began, I was having a good time. Copenhagen might mean “Merchant’s haven” but it might as well also be called “Cyclist’s haven”—and Malmö too for that matter—as I have never seen such well developed bike lanes, separate from both the road and sidewalks although running alongside both, complete with their own traffic lights (for bikes) and people who actually do things like hold out their left arm in a right-angle salute when they turn to the right. This is the type of place Andrew Bieler, my ballistic-for-bicycles buddy from Toronto, would drool like Pavlov’s dog over.

I hadn’t done any cycling yet on the trip, and my feet were getting tired of pounding pavement. I heard a rumour that for a 20 crown deposit (about $4) you get a Citybike, a cheap bicycle that are hooked up like shopping carts from Superstore at various stations around the city. The only problem is these bikes are so cheap and popular that they have a tendency of disappearing early in the day (it took me about an hour to track one down, and I basically bummed it off of a guy at the train station). Actually that’s not the only problem. They do also generally speaking, in terms of mechanics, kinda suck, but then what do you expect for free? People also tend to abuse them (for example, I saw a number of bicycle frames lying at the bottom of the canal). Basically the problems were no gears, pedals tough to push, and they were a tad small and hard to steer, but they got me from point A to point B and all the sights around the city fairly quickly. Granted for the first half of the day I had no idea the thing even had brakes (there’re no handlebar brakes, only backpedaling—which also often jammed). So basically I was barrel-assing my way through Copenhagen’s cobble-stone streets on a shaky little red bike that I had to break with my feet. Needless to say I was kind of awkard, slightly out of control, but still relatively slow like a tractor going down the highway. There are thousands of other regular cyclists in Copenhagen (here its mainstream transportation) and I soon learned that road rage does indeed translate into more eco-friendly forms of transportation, though instead of a horn its verbalized more with a gentle but angry “ting ting”

I also got myself good and lost and somehow ended up—I’m not exactly sure how, as it basically meant I biked over the main harbour—on an island called Christianhavn where they have a famous hippie commune called “Free Christiania.” Now I’d never seen a hippie commune before, and I don’t really count Kensington Market, and I wondered how authentic this place still was (it had apparently been here since the 70s), but it was getting in trouble with the authorities and was apparently in danger of being forcibly shutdown any day now, so there sounded like there was a degree of legitimacy here. Also it had cheap food.

Photography was strictly prohibited here by the hippies (I still find it odd to think of hippies strictly prohibiting anything, I could swear I saw a 10 year-old smoking up like it wasn’t no thang)—a shame because it was such a colourful marketplace with a carnival junkyard feel to it. Free Christiania claimed some degree of sovereignty from the EU (or even Denmark for that matter)—though I doubt its recognized—and red flags with 3 yellow circles dominated the square, along with adages like Free Tibet or Free Greenland. The food unfortunately wasn’t that free (and I’m pretty sure capitalism and the exchange of money is still rather important here, especially with so many tourists plowing through). Nevertheless, I will say some elements of its hippie origins still reside.

Later that night, my hostel had a special with a Pool/Spa place (which translated into $8 Canadian, a bargain by Scandinavian standards), and thinking I didn’t have much else to do anyway, I thought why not check it out. My back was killing me from hauling around that big backpack anyway, and I heard Swedish massages were relatively reknowned.

They didn’t offer massages at this time, but they did offer a sauna, steam room, and køltväder bath (I think I spelt that right)—the idea being you sit in the sauna or the steam room, warm yourself up, and then dunk yourself Polar Bear style into the frigidly cold køltväder bath Scandinavian style (something akin to the Canadian combination of hot tubs and rolling in the snow). With the soothing music and the warm sauna and steam room I was getting all relaxed almost to the point of sleeping, but dunking in the køltväder bath fixed me up good. Suddenly I was alert, somewhat chilly, but alert—like a

caffeine shot on ice.

The pool itself, which I presumed to be a rather large rectangle filled with water as per traditional swimming pools back home, was not the case. Like I said earlier, Scandinavia is the land from whence came IKEA, and its quite obvious that the people are absolutely wild for minimalist modern interior design. Minimalist might be a misnomer however, as I figure a rectangular pool requires minimal design input, and this thing was like a Stockholm nightclub on water. Swedish electronica music blared over the speakers, while accent lighting made the water glow crystal blue. There was a small square pool, but it was few metres above a much larger swimming oval with people in colourful scuba costumes walking around. They also had a Jacuzzi, a warm pool, a rocking climbing wall, a plethora of diving boards (including a trampoline one) and even a rain shower every 10 minutes in one part of the pool. Intense.

The next day I went to Malmö, but more on that in the Sweden section.

In terms of what else I did when I got back to Copenhagen—other than the hostel/train disaster—well I saw the Danish National Museum, which had interesting relics from the once-extinct medieval Viking colony in Greenland (including an arrowhead from the Mik’maq of Labrador found in a Viking graveyard in Greenland—one of the few physical proofs of contact between the Vikings and Aboriginals, and possibly a good indicator of why the Vikings didn’t stay). On the exhibit on the Inuit, just how much our “modern” spring jackets are exact rip-offs of Inuit design (just replace the seal leather with synthetic materials). I hope someone paid them some royalties.

Having just got back from Sweden I had a few leftover Swedish krones which I couldn’t get rid of easily (and thinking I needed a drink), I checked out the Ice Bar (which was run by Absolut a Swedish company, who accepted Swedish money) as one last Scandinavian thing to do (Granted its probably more of a tourist think to do, but whatever). The bar was made entirely of ice, except the floor (which I was disappointed about, but then, I suppose it would be a hazard to walk on) and kept in a big freezer (basically, its an offshoot of the famed Swedish ice hotel). The ice structure of the bar was interesting enough, and we all had to wear blue parkas for –5 degrees (a bit excessive in terms of clothing I thought, but the Californians were talking as though their fingers were going to fall off due to frostbite). What really struck me was that the mugs they served the drink—basically a cocktail using Absolut vodka, surprise surprise, and various other mixes—in were actually just huge ice cubes from a river in Northern Sweden (so if you held your glass too long it would melt, but then again you didn’t need any ice). Needless to say, I couldn’t take the mug back home, but it gave me a cool idea for a party this winter.

Sweden

I only really spent a day here, in Sweden’s most major southern city Malmö—aka, at least by me, as Sweden’s California. Malmö is one of the most major cities in Sweden, its gateway to continental Europe, and the home of Sweden’s tallest building, the Twisting Torso, a stylistic of “just cause we can” architecture where by the top of the building twists a full 90 degrees from the bottom to the top (my spine aches just looking at this place). This is as tropical as Sweden gets, and while the Baltic Sea is no Mediterranean its just as salty and I’d say in August, in the shallow waters off of Malmö is something akin to a dip into a large lake in the Canadian shield country this time of year (kudos to the kooks though that do the køltväder thing here in winter.

Now I know Swedish beaches are famous for things like bikini squads and well liberal Scandinavians, and while there were many bikinis, the beach was more populated by families than anything else. Besides, I was more a person for swimming anyway than lying on the beach, so I walked out to the end of the pier and swam out to the floating docks. Of course, I’m used to swimming in freshwater lakes, not salty seas, and while the weeds here was equally unpleasant to deal with, I was more concerned by the large grayish fish-shaped objects that seemed to be moving beneath the waves (granted these were probably more or less just reflections of the bottom in the clear water, or at the very least dolphins).

Before the beach, I checked out an old replica of a Danish medieval vessel (a step up from a Viking raiding vessel) which seemed rather cramped, likely would have made me feel seasick, but had a nice wooden finish and I was rather tempted just to sail off on her (it might have been a better way to get to Amsterdam)

(West) Germany

Okay, I feel kinda silly even mentioning this one. Originally I was supposed to spend a night in Hamburg, but since I ended up spending more money than I wanted to in Copenhagen, I decided to drop Hamburg from the agenda, but my friend Lindsey Vodarek from Windsor really was excited by the Rhineland and would be disappointed with me if I didn’t visit the region. So I am visiting it, sorta. I’m taking a train across it, and granted I don’t plan to leave it until I reach Amsterdam, I can at least see it out my window. So Lindsey Vodarek, this entry is just for you. Western Germany seems nice…