A muscle in my right thigh is aching a bit, so I realize that I need to accomplish less than I have been doing. Oh, for the days that I could keep this pace up for weeks! My first sabbatical, which I spent most of moving from hotel to hotel, exploring city after city, getting tired, certainly but ready to leap again into the traffic of Rome, the vaporetti in Venice, the trams in Vienna. My second sabbatical in which I spent a full month traveling through italy, in search of cities I'd not yet seen and, in my own small way, conquered...it has begun to dawn on me with each trip I take this semester that my very best travel days may have past, and that while I am sure there are many more fine travels to come, I, like Miss Prism in the Importance of Being Earnest, long for "younger, happier days..."
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| Christianshavn Canal |
Viewed from across the city or from the ground, it looks too dainty to be climbed, but climb travelers do, and even though the good doctor just wanted to have a look, he decided to make climb along with many others. There are 400 steps to the top. It's a bit tricky in two ways -- and this is not counting the obvious aerobic difficulty for a man my years and fitness level: the spiral narrows significantly after the first few hundred steps, until stairs and passage grow increasingly tight and steep. More problematic is the flow up and down the stairs of the many tourists who want to squeeze onto the outdoor tower from which magnificent views of the city can be obtained. Undaunted, I attained the summit, snapped some photos to prove it -- the view IS breathtaking (especially in light of the climb, which took most of my breath anyway), and then was content, unlike others who lingered on the crowded platform, to head quickly back down and push onward to my next chosen spot.
Christiania!
The Free State within the City of Copenhagen. Begun by hippies in the Sixties, this counter-culture hub is a lure for an aging child of the Sixties.
Back then I leaned strongly to the left, but never felt really comfortable with the most radical aspects of love generation. Perhaps this was because I was still in the U.S. Air Force when the movement was at its strongest. I was stationed at the National Security Agency at Ft Meade, Maryland as a Russian linguist with a top secret clearance, and two buddies of mine and I decided to live off base for the end of our Air Force (brief) careers. We found an acceptable spot just on the border of Silver Spring Md and Washington DC, thanks to my sister Judy and her first husband, who were moving to larger digs.
T-2 was the apartment number -- it was a large basement one-bedroom and the three of us squeezed in, two of us on the double bed in the bedroom, the other on the pull-out bed on the sofa in the living room. Later a fourth joined us. He could live just about anywhere, and just about anywhere is what he got. We had a large walk-in closet. That was the price he paid for a "room" of his own. He was very into TM at the time and really did seem happy with his place. The price was certainly right. $100 a month split three ways was good enough, but when our fourth arrived the split was even nicer. Oh, to be spending $25 a month on an apartment today!
But I digress, slightly, as usual. I point to T-2 because it was here that we threw party after party, and in 1969 a large party meant drugs! I don't think any hard stuff was indulged in, certainly not by me, but marijuana and hashish were de rigeur for frolics ath this time. There were some hallucinogens available as well, but I was pretty much a "pot" smoker only -- I was once talked into mescaline, and once fooled into LSD -- the first experience was surprisingly wonderful, the second a classic "bad trip." Digressing slightly again -- this post is taking on a real "oh. for the happy days, the golden age..." tone. The point is that while we had a great time we were constantly worried -- paranoia was the catchword of the day -- that we would be caught smoking dope -- with our top secret clearances especially we had been threatened time and again with losing the clearances, dishonorable discharges -- and with that last a more frightening promise -- that we'd never get good work (what a laugh -- has anyone EVER asked about my clearance? But while I smile in hindsight. our good times were tinged with that catchword "paranoia."
As I walked through Christiania, with its sellers of tie-dyed shirts and peace symbols, and farther in blocks of hash and other drugs I'm certain, the familiar scent of marijuana surrounding all, I was immediately flung back into the Sixties, and to me at least this free state which insisted on no photographs -- buying and selling drugs is illegal in Denmark, seemed first like a dreamworld; the backlash after the Sixties woke me up and made a cynic out of me -- we thought we could change the world, and well...look at it. "It was a bad dream..." sang Bob Dylan. So a dreamworld that these people were still living, but with a sense of paranoia constant in the air.
OK! whew! After Christiania I headed back across the canal.
Sunday was now bustling, many more people on the streets than when I'd started out. I was on my way back to Nyhavn, where I decided I would make lunch my main meal of the day. I was there early enough (about 12:30 pm) that I easily found a seat at a reasonably priced place, and had plaice, fried, with boiled potatoes and a salad -- all washed down by a pint of Tuborg.
It was another gorgeous day and I was completely content. A somewhat surreal scene occurred as two horsewomen rode through the restaurant area, stopping for photos, but asking no money. The one was dressed in a sort of Robin Hood get-up, though I don't think that was the point, the other could have been the Virgin Mary -- I was immediately attracted to Robin Hood and snapped a photo to remember her by, though why I was attracted, why they were there on horseback, I cannot say.
A stroll back along a much less crowded Stroget -- half the shops are closed on Sundays, and then, around 2 pm to my hotel, to write my blog re Saturday. After that I popped out just long enough to buy a polser from a street vendor, and back in the hotel worked on photos to be posted, later this week I hope.
Before I finish, I want to share a photo or two that somehow did not get included in earlier postings. First, while on the boat tour Friday morning, we passed one of the neatest buildings I've ever seen: The Black Diamond!
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| At first I didn't know what was going on... |
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| Then I realized the trick: different reflections from every angle! |
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| Our own boat was reflected at one point... |
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| As you pass the Black Diamond begins to look normal, but it's an amazing sight - wonder what Hans Christian Andersen would have thought! |
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| Polser! Yum! |
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