Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ah, the sweet smell of anarchy in the morning

Copenhagen has a HUGE active anarchist scene, as does Berlin. I spent my last week or so exploring some of the infoshops, social centers, and autonomous spaces that cover the city streets. Here are a few:

Goodbye EU, Hello Christiania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

Christiania is a completely autonomous town in the center of Copenhagen, basically a small self-governing community which, for lack of better terms, seceded from the rest of Denmark.

I spent my last couple of nights in Copenhagen at Umgdomshuset (translates literally to "youth house"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset

Mention Umgdomshuset to anyone in copenhagen and expect extreme mixed reactions; love them or hate them, this place has one hell of a history and is worth checking out. Personally, I found the people here to be some of the nicest, most helpful, and most politically educated that I had found durring my stay in Denmark. This is a badass place, and an awseome resource for the youth culture here.

Folkets Hus is a great place in Copenhagen to have a cup of coffee or beer, have a Vegan dinner priced on sliding-scale/donation, play some kicker ("fuseball," extremely popular in denmark and germany. Every person here has mad skills at this game), and discover the local radical community: http://www.spottedbylocals.com/copenhagen/area/norrebro/art-culture-norrebro/folkets-hus

I made a friend from Finland in Umgdomshuset my last morning there. We discovered we were each hitchhiking in the same direction and so decided to make the trip together. Her name is Laura and she is good people. We made it to Berlin and spent a few nights there with some friends of hers. I was able to borrow a bike (mine is still in Brussels), ride around to different design studios and art galleries, and just check out the city in general. I love Berlin, it is like a mini New york, but more colorful. The people we stayed with were all kinds of incredible, some of them even took me to the local climbing gym one evening.

Some other things we did in Berlin included attending an anti-fascist film documentary and an anti-fascist march (Nazism is still very prevelent in certain parts of the EU, and they frequently target activists, hence the massive backlash). We went to a gender-queer bar one night after climbing, and also a gender-queer disco preceded by a vegan dinner.

After Berlin, we Hitchhiked to Utrecht, A town in the Netherlands just south of Amsterdam. We have been staying in the oldest squat in Utrecht. The building was originally constructed in 1878, and has been squatted, I believe, for several decades. The people here are fantasic and are doing everything they can to preserve the building and maintain the original structure.

So yes, that is it for now. I am volunteering some of my time and design skills to the climate activist group based in Copenhagen, they have asked for any help they can get in regards to the design of their website. They have set me up with a place to stay and work in Amsterdam so I should be there for a little while and probably have more frequent access to the internet.

I promise, pictures are coming. Thanks for being patient, and thanks for reading. I miss you all!

(and sorry for typos, I will have to edit those when I am on a machine with English spell-check).

5 comments:

  1. not reading your blog any more....
    too many typos!!!!!! just kidding

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  2. Sorry its taken me so long to catch up. Jesus Efing Christ! Your adventures are unbelievable. I'm glad you're having so much fun!

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  3. congrats on the job with the activists. i'm sure that will be rewarding!

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  4. Thanks guys, would anyone be up for skyping soon? I wont have a computer of my own for a little while, but I might be able to find one in the mean time. I hope all is well and I would love to hear about what is going on in your part of the world as well. Cheers!

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