Glastonbury and Copenhagen

9 July 2003

Disclaimer: really long. Go get a coffee, a tim tam, and relax for a good read ;-p

Well, haven't had an email out for a while, but that's because we haven't been travelling much, more staying around London and doing normal stuff.

...until two weeks ago anyway...

Which was GLASTONBURY! The festival which attracts 120,000 hippies, music lovers, wastrels, mothers and me. With 900 acres and around 40,000 tents, it is a site to wander. I went for the music, having been to music festivals before, but it was OH so much more! With that many people in one place it's more like a crowded little town! With market streets, bars and cafes popping up everywhere, a 10 metre climbing wall, fast food stalls, capoeira demonstrations, street theatre and of course, music, it was an EXPERIENCE. I did however get to see REM (great!), Radiohead (shrieking off-key), Macy Gray (rusty vocal cords), Seb Fontaine (REALLY GOOD!) and a few others that are less famous. One of the more humorous lines I heard while there was winding through the crowd of 40,000 people listening to REM hearing a guy on the phone saying "YES! I'M HERE! WHERE AM I? I'M IN THE CROWD, I'M FACING THE STAGE." as if that was going to help anyone find him! *grin*

Glastonbury lasts 3 days, Friday to Sunday, and though it was cool, I headed home early sunday evening, taking Monday as recovery. Slept all of 10 hours from thursday morning till then, so I was shattered. Being so big, and with events on all over the place, I got *very* sore feet, I could hardly walk.

Anyways, after recovering from that, I went on to a four day week ending in flying to Copenhagen on friday night. First impressions were a very modern airport, impeccably clean and incredibly friendly people. Coming from negative service Ireland to zero service UK, it was fantastic! The ease of arriving, getting the train 3 stops to the center of town and then having a less than 10 minute walk to our hotel where we just happened to get the biggest room was great! That evening we went and saw Tivoli gardens - think of a manicured public garden, with beautiful water features (were were mesmerised by a 'fountain' with glowing glass tubes coming out of the water with bubbles rising in them) and throw in a bunch of trendy restaurants, cafes, icecream stores and a few amusement rides, and you might have an OK picture of it. And it was open until 1am, lit by over 110,000 lamps so we could wander it at our leisure after our plane trip.

Saturday morning we headed out to try and find the little mermaid from the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. HC Anderson haled from Copenhagen, so it's a main attraction. We ended up trying to negotiate the bus system, got off in the wrong place, but happened across a place where canal tours started, so jumped on one of those. Copenhagen gives a great feeling of space, as all the buildings are quite low (3 stories) and the roads and canals are wide, so we got good views of the areas we passed, which included some amazing house boats and canal-side apartments. We saw the little mermaid from the boat, which was a little disappointing as the distance made her seem tiny - she's only lifesized after all, on a boulder all alone off the shoreline, but completely surrounded by tourists.

After the canal trip we made our way down towards the little mermaid, passing a palace changing of the guards (much like the british one) got some nice pics (hopefully without all the tourists in them) and then headed back to another palace for a look around the grounds and a castle with a *real moat*. The grounds had a statue of HC Anderson, so we got a quick pic with him then went inside the castle. Very interesting, and supposed to be one of the few medieval castles that has been maintained in its ancient state rather than being reconstructed. The crown jewels in the treasuring were fantastic, absolutely beautiful.

We then made our way down to the biggest pedestrian shopping street in Europe, picking up a recommended food on the one - HOTDOGS. Hotdog stands all over the place (and icecream stands....and waffle stands....and fruit stands...). You don't get one choice, you can mix and match something like 5 different types of sausage with long-cut or end-cut bread with 5 different sauces.... yeah, yummy ;-p

A Jazz festival happened to be on at the time of our being there, so we passed many a jazz band playing in the odd cafe or on the street. After making our way down this long shopping street, being passed by a wheeled 'train' full of people, we got to the main square to sit, have another hotdog, a smirnoff ice and sun ourselves while listening to another band and watching the people go by. A beautiful race teh Danes, definitely no exaggeration to say they were all beautiful people!

We then decided to find another recommended destination, Christiana. Christiana, named I think from it's surrounding suburb 'Christianhavn' (from King Christian), anexed itself from Denmark years ago and became it's own 'country', with it's own laws. It must have been in the 60's/70's because it's a hippy commune where they condone mar1juana and have a street for shopping for the stuff. Nice place for us to sit in the sun again, drinking more smirnoff, watching everyone else smoking, listening to yet more jazz.

After a relazing while, and Kristin shopping the local markets there, we headed back to our hotel, then back to Tivoli gardens for dinner. Eye steak, flame cooked (and I mean 2 meter flames!) on your table by the waiter..... ahhhh heaven. Then out for a walk again in the gardens, more jazz, and finally watching a *great* fireworks show. Magic!

But... just like me, I then went to bed feeling really under the weather, to wake up sick. I ended up spending my sunday sleeping and feeling miserable while sending Kristin out to shop. Oh well.

So due to my unwellness, we missed out on doing any of the *many* museums around the city, but we did fit in ice cream, waffles and hotdogs. I can't be an email from me without talking about food huh? *grin*

That's all for now, no trips planned as yet, will let you know when I'm back from them.

James

Photos to come soon...