Fortuitous Encounters

Last December, I traveled with to Oslo, Norway and Copenhagen, Denmark with two friends I met in Iceland, Jenna and Jillz, from New Jersey and New Zealand respectively.

My first experience in Oslo was an $8 orange juice at the airport, before I learned the exchange rate. Unfortunately, the price was merely a sign of things to come. We spent our next few days trying to get by without breaking the bank. Free accommodations, through Couchsurfing, certainly helped. We stayed with two Norwegians, Rosy and Eirik, who had squatted (lived in without owning) a house. True to Scandinavian welfare state form, the city gave them low rent and sent an electrician to do some basic wiring and a carpenter to help train them in refurbishing the dilapidated place. It was called an “urban ecology” project, and our hosts held down their end through a productive organic garden, fastidious attention to reuse, and had even planned an upcoming trip to Peru to learn clay wall construction techniques.

The girls sleeping in

We thought the idea was cool, but so was our living arrangement in the absence of heating. No matter, Rosy was nice enough to provide blankets and even a sleeping bag for my unprepared self.

The location was beautiful, at the beginning of the islands that extent out from Oslo’s fjord-side locale.

We were met at the train station by Maarten, another Couchsurfer, from Austria, who had moved in to the house—it was quite large, housing multiple families on separate floors. Maarten took us, for our first meal, to a youth hotspot in the city. It was exactly what you’d envision an anarchist place to be, somewhat dirty with graffiti and strange food options. I opted for an open-faced sandwich of hummus and a slide of bell pepper. But it was cheap, so we were happy.

Something about the uniform society in Norway seems to promote radicalism among youth. For example, Norway’s biggest musical exports fall into the genre labeled Death Punk. Our guide told us he had come to Oslo because of the band, TurboNegro, who apparently pay an ironic (?) homage to the Hitler Youth through their extensive fanclub network. He was shocked that we hadn’t heard of the group.

Luckily for our wallets, there were plenty of free activities to occupy us as we wandered around the city. We stopped in to several free museums, and enjoyed some ice skating at a rink in the central square.

No skates? No Problem!

We explored an astoundingly large sculpture garden created by one man over the course of his lifetime. We also checked out Oslo’s iconic opera house, designed so as to allow pedestrian access up large ramps on the building’s sides and up to the roof. Cool from an architectural perspective, the building was nevertheless poorly integrated to the rest of the urban fabric.

Fortuitously, we realized after our arrival in Oslo that we had booked our trip to coincide with Obama’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. From our hosts, we heard that the traditional balcony appearance of the award’s recipient would be heavily protested. We stumbled on the police staging grounds for the event as we were climbing a fortress earlier in the day.

The top offered an impressive view of Oslo’s waterfront.

Returning to the city, we stood in a crowd of Norwegians awaiting Obama’s appearance. It was a comforting experience, as an American nervous about the status of our reputation abroad, to hear chants of “Yes, we can” break out among the crowd as he and Michelle waved charismatically for a few minutes.

Apparently, they didn’t get the memo that the Republicans’ resolute determination not to allow any progress is actually Obama’s fault, and that he’s thus been a complete failure.

Then we checked out the protests, mostly about the network of U.S. military bases abroad, which were pretty large though just a taste of what was to come in Copenhagen. Our host, Rosy, had been planning to make smoke bombs for the protest, but couldn’t find a babysitter for her two year old daughter.

We got to Copenhagen on a high-speed train through Sweden, taking us right into the heart of the city. From there, we planned to meet up with Ryan and Kian who we knew through Kadri, an Estonian friend from Iceland who had previously lived in Copenhagen for a year. Before Ryan got off work, we popped into a local bar near his place full of smoke, cheap beer (which was a pleasant change from Oslo), and old men. One of them took a liking to us, bought us a round, and repeatedly told us not to ruin his city, where he actually had to live after the climate protests were over.

In addition to accidentally seeing Obama in Oslo, we had unintentionally arrived in Copenhagen for a much-anticipated UN Climate Conference, tasked with negotiating a treaty to limit Carbon Dioxide emissions.

I fell in love with Copenhagen’s livable density and use of bicycles as a legitimate form of transportation—55% in central Copenhagen and 37% in Greater Copenhagen bike daily. The subway system was clean and efficient, and the city’s streetscape and public realm were dynamic .

Combined with all the energy about solutions to climate change, in the form of museum exhibits, public art, and peaceful demonstrations, I was just about in my personal paradise. Not to mention that pretty much every Danish girl could be a supermodel.

Sarina, Kian’s sister, showed us around town with a friend the next day, taking us first to Christiania. Christiania is a sort of breakaway neighborhood, taken over by students in 1971. It’s not really subject to the same laws or taxes as the rest of Copenhagen. It’s known especially for the availability of marijuana and political autonomy. A sign on the way out reads “You are now entering the EU.” Very controversial within Denmark, authorities have been threatening more and more to reclaim the area. Our guides explained that efforts by the city to clamp down on the cannabis trade simply spread the activity throughout the city. Other Danes argued that Christiania is no longer the hippie commune it once was, now largely controlled by mob-types. I think the situation illustrates the Scandinavian propensity for homogeneity and strong norms to breed radicalism, similar to the anarchist death-punks in Norway. Sarina and her friend had moved from Jutland in the West of Denmark partially to escape rigid expectations that made long hair on guys, for instance, pretty unacceptable. I see this phenomenon as partially responsible for Denmark’s increasing tensions with its Muslim community, as well as the ongoing decay of the welfare state, which nevertheless still provides too much security and prosperity to compare to anything existing or proposed in the U.S.

The strong state model can be illustrated in part by the response to climate protests while we were there. Before the conference began, the legislature granted the police the power to arrest demonstrators without probable cause as well as to hold them in cages for 72 hours without charge. On our first day in Denmark, 900 peaceful protestors were arrested.

We cautiously approached the Bella Center, where the summit was being held, to check out the action there, although we seemed to have (perhaps luckily) missed any specific demonstration. Amidst shouts of “Shame on the UN,” I snuck in a quick exhortation: “No More Raisins!”

We also witnessed a peaceful march through the streets of the island surrounding Christiania.

And then we witnessed the police reprisal that night. My last night in town, we were wandering when we heard that there was something going on in that renegade community. We hopped on the subway and climbed to street level only to find all the streets into the town blocked off. We tried to pretend that we lived in the apartment buildings beyond the barricade, but they were under strict orders not to let anyone in.

The officer we spoke with speculated that the sound of teargas firings and the helicopters overhead signaled a raid. We proceeded to walk along laterally, looking for some opening to get a better pulse on the action, which we found in the form of a back alley a few streets down. We timidly advanced, stopping to chat with two journalists, armed with badges, fleeing the scene. They told us to turn back, that a French colleague who had approached with badge in hand, announcing his credentials, was taken down and beaten by police. Well, naturally, we decided to press on. We came to an intersection where two plain clothed guards were warning off a much larger crowd. It was sure to be an interesting confrontation, but a column of riot police running toward us from behind prompted me to run like hell with hands in the air. Luckily, they let us pass.

I followed some of the developments on twitter, and it sounds like it was a bad night to be a resident of Christiania. Ostensibly, the police were trying to preempt the area’s function as a staging ground for other protests, and, presumably, demonstrating their force in an effort to ward off other protests.

The visit ended on a magical note, however, at Tivoli, an amusement park in the center of town—in the vein of Disneyland, but more tasteful. A lovely end to my trip.

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