Christmas lights, burning barricades

We live in a safe place. I honestly mean that. Copenhagen is such a safe city that there is really nowhere that is unsafe to live. Having established that, I can tell you about the anarchist riot that happened around the corner from us last Saturday night. Apparently upset about the threats to evict them, they set up burning barricades across a main street (but all was quiet on our street). I didn't take any pictures the night this was happening... what you see above is the anarchists cleaning up after themselves on Sunday morning.

Here's the huge banner that now hangs from their building (69 is the street address, and the Danish text is about something worth fighting for).

They don't like banks, especially banks with security cameras.

And they don't like American corporations. McDonald's menu board got hit, and the windows of this 7 Eleven were shattered.

Shifting gears now... on Monday we took advantage of some rare sunlight to see the Round Tower downtown (an observatory that dates back to the 17^th century).

View from the top of the tower, showing Købmagergade (a pedestrian shopping street) on the lower left, faint outline of the Øresund Bridge to the upper left, and various interesting rooftop spires.

We biked on from downtown to a curious place called Christiania. In the 1970's some counterculture types took over an abandoned military base. They're still living there, and consider themselves separate from Denmark and the E.U. Until recently they sold pot openly here, but lately they've had to diversify their offerings.

Waterfront house in Christiania with vegetation on the roof.

Some interesting people seem to have landed here. Here's a flying saucer on stilts amongst the reeds.

If you don't have a backyard for doghouses, just put together some floating duckhouses.

Like something out of a fairytale... this is the back side of the second floor of a house that backs up against a hill. The back is concave, but from the front it looks round. Also note the dragon chimney.

At dusk (close to 4PM), we came back downtown to see Tivoli, a summer amusement park that redecorates and reopens for Christmas.

They had a large snow globe with fake snow inside and around it, in front of a brightly lit palace.

Amanda and the rarely glimpsed photographer.

We didn't get the pass that included rides... it looked like too much spinning and too much freezing.

An Eastern pagoda and gateway, with a rollercoaster silhouette beyond.