COPENHAGUE

In the strait of Örensud, between Denmark and Sweden, 16 km exists that until May of 2000 could only be crossed by water. Since then they communicate with a combination of bridges and tunnels, making of this great engineering work the most robust hanging bridge in their species in the world, because it must support the combined weight of a highway and of a railroad of double via. But it is not allowed to cycle through the bridge, so I arrived to Copenhagen from Mälmo by ship.

copenhague

The capital city of Denmark was founded in the XII century as a fort in the island of Slotsholmen and it grew quickly thanks to the trade in the Baltic Sea. Today their population reaches 1,4 million hab. And it is the main domestic tourist focus.

On the city I visited the cosmopolitan commercial area of Stroget, the longest pedestrian street in Europe, where some hours I stayed selling my pictures and my dolls. Then at night I camped in a park, in a calm area; it was a splendid night, although very cold too.

When I got up in the morning I had a terrible pain on my back, for the first time in the trip I felt an old man, in spite of I knew that the culprit of everything was the cold. At that moment I remembered my father’s questions; “Until when you will be travelling? Will you stop some day? And without finding answer, I started to move a little and making myself some massages.

In my second day I had more luck, I sold more and some people invited me to stay in their houses. For a question of convenience I chose the one of those who lived nearest the centre, the house of Pier and Hans, two very educated Danishes and with many kilometres of trips.

Canales de la ciudad

Hans was sociologist and with a lot of enthusiasm he told me about the origins of his people. According to Hans, the Vikings were always distinguished to be big diplomatic and not to be warriors. They were always open mind, much more than other tribes in the time; living on the sea were big sailors and manufacturers of ships; and their main activity were the trade.

From the century IV B.C., they negotiated the secrets to build the most sophisticated ships. The dexterity of the Vikings in this activity were based on a long and solid experience. Today these traditions still stay active; the Danish shipyards and their ships are quoted in the whole world.

Christiana, a jipi town – Km 35,410

In my days in Copenhagen I also visited Christiania, a town located to a couple of kilometres of the centre that was occupied by jipis for many years. According people, until only one year ago it was normal to walk among the streets of the town and to select among different kiosks, the different hash qualities or of marijuana.

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Today although these sale positions have disappeared, the town still enjoys a freedom different to the rest of the country, it would seem that all the inhabitants of Christiania and their visitors live in a great fraternity, a community in which all smoke and where each one controls their limits.

And I had luck, because I could share the day that Christiania celebrated its 33 years of existence that commemorated in a great party. There were thousands of people of all the ages, smoking marijuana with a lot of naturalness as if it was a tobacco.

There I met Marc, an immigrant that had chosen Christiania like his new house and their new family and who defended the consumption of the marijuana, considering it like a less harmful drug than the alcohol and whose effects cause a singular relaxation grade. “I believe that if more people in the world smoke, less hate, less envy would exist and maybe more respect”, he said to me.

Too, I met some Chileans there, who received me as a true sibling. Of course, they were Latinos and we were to far from home.

I left Copenhagen after some days, after I worked to get the money to pay the cruise toward Oslo, although the summer had already ended up, I was very near to other Scandinavian capital and I wanted to know it.

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