blonde hair, blue eyes.

it really does describe the people in copenhagen quite well. i arrived here thursday evening and got slightly lost trying to find the hostel, which is 15 mins from the train station, and it took me about an hour to find my way. then i waited for rachel and co in the hostel, which is very nice, with comfortable beds and three of us to a room. i have much to report--probably most of which i won't get to in this post. we've done a ton of walking around this city and seen not too many of the sights (botanical gardens, round tower with great view of the city, walked by but not in tivoli gardens, big squares, will go to ny carlsberg gyptotek--modern art museum-- tomorrow), but have also had an interesting time for many other reasons. let us see shall we.

thursday evening we had beers with the owner of this place along with some other staff who were hanging out in the lobby after hours. i got in this really intense debate with the owner about american politics and how americans are stupid and stuff, and the dude totally started attacking me which got rather unpleasant. it became sort of clear just how anti-israel the guy was, and he kept basically yelling at me about what america's problems were and using me as a prototype, in a way, for what was wrong with america, bc of our ignorance. every time i'd argue with him he'd take my points the extreme and say ridiculous things like "so you don't believe in darwin then, or evolution?" which had absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing or anything. rach was really uncomfortable and was basically pissed at me for not stopping the thing earlier. it must've gone on for about an hour.

we walked around the city a lot today and yesterday, which is quite beautiful. it actually looks a lot like amsterdam, and has a similar feel in that everyone speaks english with very minimal accents. we went on a boatride yesterday around the canals and saw a lot of the big stuff, including the little mermaid statue for the man of this city, hans christian andersen. funnily enough, yesterday when we were hanging out in the big square by the stork fountain, a newscaster came over to ask us some questions, and i seemed to be the only one into it, as rachel and all of her friends started inching away as i spoke into the camera to tell the nice lady what i knew of andersen. i probably came off like a real asshole. i wonder whether i was on tv...

we were tired pretty early from walking around (especially this one street strøget--which is one of the main ones with lots of shops and TONS of h+m's, which started in sweden) and napped and stuff last night, drinking in the room. later there was a funny cuddle session with interesting moments and good times had by all. rach's friends are really fun and i get along well with all of them which is very good. her guy friends keep eating sausage all the time, because there are stands everywhere.

there are some cool buildings here, lots look just like amsterdam, and tons of steeples and other buildings with clocks on them. the view from the top of the round tower which was great, and you could see the other really cool view of the city, in this crazy steeple that's curvy and rounded in a small area called christiana.

we haven't yet visited the "free town" of christiana (we shall go out there tonight), but what i've read about it is really interesting. it's basically this part of the city that was very drug-ridden with an intense "hash culture" that had so many issues with the government but finally came to an agreement in which they pay their own utilities and have their own political structure. it sounds really strange and i can't wait to visit it tonight.

anyway i know this post isn't all that perceptive or interesting, but i wanted to at least record some of the small adventures that've taken place before i forget everything.