Smashing Bottles

The Danish appear to be embroiled in some kind of war. There's broken glass everywhere on the streets, which is kind of counter-productive to nicely inflated tyres. The older folk of Copenhagen are taking a stand against the youth - the små gangsters who abuse the welfare state with their nose rings, mohawks, tattoos, chains; living in communal houses like Ungdoms Huset (the youth house just round the corner from me) and Christiania, the hippy commune which has meant free (in every sense) living since 1968. As the older folk complain that their 70% income tax rate is being spent on the wrong people, the små gangsters smash more bottles. And so it happens that my hands are greasy and my tube replaced.

In between the glass dodging, there may or may not have been some quality partying. The law faculty organised a camp to north Zealand (Zealand is the island which Copenhagen is on). It was by the beach so the aussies and americans donned the boardies and went swimming to 'recover' on Saturday. The meditteraneans would have none of it. There are so many french studying law here that it looks like I will be learning french too. The Catalan spanish have already taught me the first verse of an old-school Catalan rock song (lets just say they are very proud of being Catalan!) After our first night of free-flowing Carlsberg, we woke up to 5 danish girls leading an aerobics class... and went back to bed. They did however organise a treasure hunt for a more reasonable hour which resulted in my team winning, and us drinking more beer. Those were the rules. Saturday night was a pirate themed party; I thought should mention that to prepare you for the photos. Sunday was a well-earned sleep.

Danish folk dancing is funny, and I'll try anything once. In fact, I'd do it again - its a great laugh. It basically involves a whole lot of holding hands in a huge circle and walking or running around. Not in a greek wedding kind of way, more of a 'let's see how silly we can make them look' kind of way. And there was a dizzying amount of swinging your partner around. As with all dances, it was however a great way to meet new people. And to watch Anna and Estel try to turn it into a spanish dance was priceless.

Australian law students have a bit of a reputation for being a bit too classy and a bit too snobby. They like to dress like Paris Hilton, yeah? Friday night was the law faculty semester StartFest. The only difference between the bulk of aussie law students and danish law students is that the danish ones actually look like Paris. It matters not - we have an awesome group of international students - and we all survived til the music stopped at 5am. Although I have to point out that English Chris (aka Little Chris or Le Petit Christopher) has some serious leadership issues when it comes to organising a group of Spanish and Italians from the nightclub to McDonalds. Chris failed to satisfy his McHangover craving as it closed upon his arrival and then he made absolutely the wrong choice at 7-11. I swear that thing was alive.

The Danish AFL league hosted its Grand Final on Saturday. It was a one-sided match like most GF's, but it was good to sit in the sun with øl and pølser (beer and hot dogs). Here they have the smallest hot dog buns. The sausages are really tasty, but they serve deep fried onion instead of barbequed onion. And the sauce is so sweet that its actually a different colour to tomato sauce as we know it. Thankfully, beer is beer. Al and I were invited to the Copenhagen Barracudas Best and Fairest Count. At the start, the coach announced that he was going to try to get a few extra rounds done early so that we could all drink more beer even quicker. At random moments, someone would begin a Danish drinking song which meant that it was obligatory to skol (cheers) and drink. Al and I ate more meat than we have eaten since arriving, which was quite a hard task for Al who couldn't cut having broken his collarbone. We're still trying to work out the best story for him, but it essentially involves being hit by a car while riding his bike in the morning peak hour traffic. On the way home.... hmm. Actually, the incident almost won Al a special award at the football night. The Barras have an award - a golden cane with a bottle holder (for øl only) which goes to the person with the most spectacular or most soft injury. Anyway, the night left us all a little worse for wear today.

I will be escaping this land of beer for close to a week... I'm going to Germany and will be enjoying home cooked dinners and white Franken wines with Lib and Lili. I leave on Tuesday morning and from memory, the small towns of Karbach and Marktheidenfeld are a little behind with internet so "Vi ses næste uge" - see you next week.