EUROPE
April 2006 - England, France, Germany, Denmark
Just before I started my (gasp!) full-time job in the USA, Lili and I went to London to visit her old flat-mates. Then Paris for a week. Then Denmark, where we met our friend Allan Petersen, who is Danish and was also there on vacation. We played footbag in the park with the "Hane Danes" who used to travel to Colorado every year to compete in the World Footbag Championships. We had a blast!
The most interesting thing from this trip culturally was the free bicycles in Copenhagen. Yes, free. If you want to travel across town, find a bike and ride it. Lili said if this were Brazil, the scheme would last about ten minutes. Denmark is socialist, and that cooperative attitude permeates the culture. This is a society that works! Yes, taxes are high, and rich people grumble about that, but they also appreciate the low crime and high quality of living. A survey found that Danes are the happiest people on Earth. Everyone we met seemed pretty happy! The Danes are also the world leaders in sustainable wind energy.
Our favorite place in Copenhagen is a neighborhood known as Freetown Christiania, an official social experiment, a self-governing community right next to downtown. This neighborhood is famous for its hashish dealers on "pusher street", and indeed we saw a lot of people smoking a lot of hash, but there is much more happening here. Christiania is littered with artwork and inviting corners to sit and eat delicious vegan food. This place is cool, a kind of liberal utopia, a vibrant community in a socialist welfare state that functions remarkably well.
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