Day 236, on which John reminisces about Denmark [24.8.10]

Dag to hundrede seksogtredive. Welcome to episode 236 of John's life. Coming up in this thrilling installment of John's never-ending (until roughly 2070) story: John looks at some glasses in an optician's, he then proceeds to do little else for the rest of the episode. Don't forget to check out this exciting chapter in John's equally-exciting life! Coming to a cinema near you... sometime soon... around now... should be soon...

Oh, here it is. Screw the optician's, this post is about Denmark. Which automatically makes it more awesome than any other post. Ever. In the whole history of the world. And the universe. Full stop. Overall. Totally. No exceptions. At all. Ever. Stay tuned for sheep, as well.

Rememberez-vous, all photos are from John Too.

First up are a few pics of Billund. Billund, you should know, is the home of the Lego Group and is pretty much a town built around a factory. As a result, it's very small and very desolate. In this picture you can see the town hall, which also doubles as the church, which triples as the library, and which quadruples as the Billund archives. It's like a 'town essentials pack', all in one building. And it's quite snazzy architecture, too. Like, Danish 50's retro architecture. Very interesting, but very, very empty!

Now we move further into Billund town centre (though that's basically just a few steps, considering how small it is). One of the quirky details about Billund is its photo club (fotoklub), which has only six members and three notices! I took this shot to show just how empty Billund town centre is on a Thursday evening, and the photo club is a fitting metaphor for small-town Denmark. The lighting was very harsh, as well. Reminded me of Portugal in that respect.

Here we have an idyllic shot from Copenhagen. I visited Billund in the middle of my trip, but to make things neater I'm doing all Copenhagen pics in one go. This photo was taken from Tivoli Gardens, which are totally unique to CPH. It's actually crazy, if you think about it objectively. Imagine a Victorian 'pleasure park', with licorice stalls, shooting galleries where you can win big fluffy animals, and a lake where you can go on a boat ride (pictured here, bottom). That's Tivoli Gardens. It's been kept pretty much the same for the past hundred years, though there are some more modern rides for the kiddies who can't respect Tivoli's history. There's even live jazz music which Danes come along in the evenings to dance to. It's fantastically unique.

This building here may look like your everyday office building, but it most certainly is not. It's Den Kongelige Bibliotek - the Royal Library, which I mentioned briefly as it was inspiration for the Ishøj House. It's the only building that gives you vertigo when you look up at it; it's seriously scary. If you go to the corners in particular, it can really make you feel dizzy. It's a black slab with crazy angles, named The Black Diamond for good reason!

Here's the corner. This photo hasn't been rotated or anything; that's actually what the building looks like when you look up at it. Argh!

This final shot should give you a good idea of what the Rådhuspladsen in Copenhagen looks like. Rådhus (like German Rathaus) is the town hall, and pladsen means 'the square', so Rådhuspladsen means 'town hall square'. It's not as picturesque as Nyhavn and Christiansborg, but it's still Copenhagen - just a little more urban. Note here the street lamps in Zealand, which are hung from poles on either side of the streets to hang in the middle of the CPH roads. This is so much better than normal lampposts, which only light up the side of the road.

I conclude, Denmark is awesome.

~John

ps. A sheep, for those of you who remembered I promised one at the start of this post.