Friday, July 31, 2009

Segways, Hippies and Hawaiian Music - What a day!

After today I think we have covered every corner of Copenhagen.  We even saw two segways , one licensed in Colorado and the other licensed in Alaska.  I bet they had a long drive on those suckers.

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We spotted these segways out near the statue of the mermaid today.  We didn’t see any of the drivers but I think you can rent them some place in the city and use them for sightseeing.

The second part of our tour this morning took us over to the big hippie settlement called Christiania.  Forty years ago it was an abandoned Army base.  Some mothers wanted to make it a park for their children, so they knocked down the fences and started using the area.  Well lo and behold guess who else moved into the old barracks and other abandoned buildings, the Woodstock generation.  The hippies took over the old base and have been there ever since.  We strolled through the settlement and looked at all the run down places and all the items they had for sale (such as marijuana in any form you wanted along with any type of marijuana paraphernalia) along with hippie clothes and jewelry.  Cindy picked up a great water pipe (just kidding).   We do have some bad news.  We also took the Flat Ones with us this morning and we haven’t seen them since we were in the hippie camp!

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Our next stop was at the famous Tivoli Gardens an amusement park built in 1843.  This is located in the heart of Copenhagen.  Below is a photo of the main entrance.  Everyone who has been to Copenhagen says you have to go to Tivoli and now I can say that we did but as they say once is enough.

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Oh yes I bet you are wondering what I meant with the title of this blog entry, Hawaiian? I thought they were in Denmark?  Well where else can you go and visit an amusement park and hear Hawaiian songs sung in German at a Chinese pavilion?  Well Denmark of course!  Made me feel homesick for Kauai.  So we went to the Hawaiian Luau for dinner.  Not really but we did have Japanese food for dinner at the park.  Isn’t that why we came to Denmark?

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Above you can see the group (if you close one eye and hold your hand over the other they do look a little like Hawaiians).  I think I spent too much time at Christiania breathing in all that smoky air.

Besides the entertainment, Tivoli also had beautiful gardens, many with fountains

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as well as plenty of amusement park rides. This one is a freefall-type ride and costs the equivalent of $16 for one ride that lasts all of 1 minute and 15 seconds!

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I couldn’t resist taking this photo of the Nautilus: a kids’ ride that Maile, Mason, Nikos & Kira would love (and Olive when she’s older) because it reminded us of the Dumbo ride at Disney!

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That brings us to the end of another great day in Copenhagen!

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