Day 10 - A Hippie Village Within A City

"Mandag" means Monday in Danish and apparently people get after it on Mandags. We've been told a few times about how life in Scandinavia revolves around pay day. I guess you could say that about most countries, but it's particularly noticeable in the cities where pay day comes once a month such as in Copenhagen (and Stockholm). What happens with this pay schedule is that people tend to run out of the extra income toward the end of the month so they stay in, eat at home, don't go to the bars and take it easy for a week or so. However, when pay day hits such as it did this past Monday, June 30, the locals get out to enjoy themselves. 

We started the day by jumping across the harbor to a borough of Copenhagen called Christianshavn. It's a part of the city that Christian IV created back in the 17th century to look and feel like Amsterdam with the canals, low rise residential buildings, the mom and pop shops and restaurants. It's also the part of town where a very unique area called Christiania is located. The best way to describe Christiania is a hippie village or commune. It's a walled community where people can come and go as they please, and within the walls you can buy, sell and smoke hash, drink beers, hang out along the water, take scenic walks in the woods, and even shop at hippie craft stalls and stores...it's basically like Venice Beach, but with less weirdos. 

The entrance to Christiania. They don't allow photos within the walls so our footage is limited.

The entrance sign on one side says "Welcome to Christiania"...

 ...and when you leave it says "You Are Now Entering the EU (European Union)," so they consider themselves their own little union.

Christiania is about 84 acres and occupies an old military area from the 1970s

The borough raises money through donations as well as making it's own products such as a pale ale beer

After drinking a few beers, walking along the lake and popping in and out of a few stores in Christiania, we ventured over to Noma Restaurant, which is located on the north end of Christianshavn. Noma was recently declared the worlds number one restaurant by Restaurant Magazine, an honor it's received four out of the last five years, so it's a pretty big deal. Unfortunately they don't do walk-ins (surprise surprise), in fact you need to make reservations about three months ahead of time, which we didn't do.

Canals of Christianshavn look really similar to those Amsterdam

Even though we didn't eat at Noma, we still visited the restaurant and popped our heads in to get a look. Perhaps on our next visit we will actually be able to try the cuisine.

The old royal palace in Copenhagen. Now it houses parliament, and the prime minister's cabinet.

Got a new backpack...this one I won't let leave my sight

Although we didn't eat at Noma, we did manage to get a reservation at another popular Copenhagen eatery called Geist, which did not disappoint. Geist is led by chef Bo Bech, who is very much part of the recent Nordic area restaurant surge. Copenhagen and Stockholm (our next city) are the epicenter of this movement and we plan to get in on the variety of local ingredients and dishes these guys and gals are putting on the table.

Geist is located in the Nyhavn part of Copenhagen which is a main restaurant and entertainment area and includes one of the city's main canals

Geist specializes in fresh local ingredients that is put together in simple ways. See examples below. Critics, both local and around Europe have been loving what they're doing, as did we.

Grilled avocado with green almonds and curry

Steamed carrots with coconut and orange zest

Turbot with fennel ravioli on gruyere

Crispy artichokes with suckling pig and black truffle

White asparagus with sorrel and scallops

After a tasty and satisfying meal at Geist - the best of the trip so far - we ventured over to The Dubliner to watch Germany v Algeria

We met a few friends at The Dubliner and then ventured to a spot called LA Bar, seemed appropriate for a couple LA kids

Dance Off! Greg dominated, dah.

The music was right up our alley with mainly hip hop and dance music

We left LA Bar around 4am and the sun was well on its way into the sky

Mandag in Copenhagen was pretty amazing. We're hoping Tirsdag (Tuesday) with the big World Cup showdown between US and Belgium will reach our expectations as well. Let's go USA!