My journey began in a rush as I frantically cycled my housemates heavy bike up Ashley road in the rain on the way back from Cafe Midnimo where some friends and I had taken our turn to cook the community meal for that Sunday. I always worry about missing connections when I travel and I thought I had left it too late. After basically running to Templemeads I arrived with enough time to buy the Guardian and a bottle of water (staple stuff for any good journey). The next spanner in the works came when arriving at reading station, 5 people on board were to be arrested and we would have to wait for the police to arrive, I began fretting. To add to this on arrival at London Paddington it was announced that basically the whole tube was shut for works. Not being a Londoner I spent the next 20 minutes running around at 10 o clock on a Sunday trying to find someone willing to point me in the right direction. Fortunately I made my connection and with some relief arrived at Stansted an hour or so later. I couldn't help but wonder what the people from 'Plane Stupid' would think of me flying from the very airport they shut down just a few months ago even if it was to attend 'The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change'. This may well be a meaningless observation but at Stansted it was hard not to notice and unusually high density of Daily Mail readers lurking about the place much like darlics, intolerant of other races and usually foiled by taking the high ground. I put this down to the high volume of low cost flights to delightful places such as Malaga and Falaraqui.

My arrival in Denmark was highly appropriate, as we descended through the clouds to land, the north sea emerged below and in front of me was a row of offshore wind turbines hugging the coast as if to say welcome to Denmark. It was of course then ironic that almost 2 minutes after boarding the train to Copenhagen Central Station I could see the smoke stacks of several coal power plants in the distance going to show that even in one of the reputedly most environmentally aware countries in the world still has a very long way to go towards sustainability.

The first thing I noticed as I glided up to ground level from Østerport Station was a sea of bikes. There were probably more than 300 bikes parked outside of all shapes and sizes and more than a few heavily customized numbers aswell. To add to this many of them were completely unlocked - totally unthinkable back home in Bristol. I stood outside the station nervously waiting for my couch host Tilde to arrive. For those of you not yet in the know, couch surfing is just another part of the web 2.0 development of the internet whereby services eventually become free through the use of the web in novel and revolutionary ways. Couchsurfing.org  is essentially a  website for travelers based around the common decency and trust of people and enables you to stay in any city for free as long as your friendly and outgoing. As in other social networking sites you generate a profile for yourself which is meant to convey your character to readers, your address and name are then verified through your credit card details so that surfers can be sure that you are who you say you are.  You don't have to host people in order to stay with others but it helps you build up positive feedback on your profile through which people can tell that your not a loony or a freeloader. I have both hosted and stayed with couch surfers several times now and have only had great experiences. No more expensive hotel bills for me!

Tilde was no exception, in fact she's great. It was a 5 minute walk back to her apartment on the fifth floor of a somewhat typical Copenhagen block and from there we sat, drank coffee and discussed our interests and respective lives. Fortunately she studies Climate Change and International Development so we had an awful lot in common. It was still Monday and the conference didn't begin until the Tuesday morning, I therefore made it my mission to go see as much of the City as possible before dark. Tilde lent me here fathers spare bike, gave me a set of house keys and sent me out with a tourist map highlighted with good places to check out. Half way down the road I had an epiphany and shouted back "So which side of the road do you guys drive on" to which Tilde responded "the right of course, only you strange British people drive on the left!", I would of course proceed to forget this numerous times and narrowly avoid several collisions with other cyclists in my epic pedal around town.

I began by following the series of four man made lakes that skirt the edge of the city centre, if anyone reading this happens to be from Bristol City Council and has a hand in the cycling city bid please note that I was in fact cycling on a large 2m wide dedicated cycling lane that even had its own traffic lights! 5 minutes later I was in town passing an H&M, a Netto and many local Danish Shops including more than a few windows full of tasty looking pastries (cliche I know!). I didn't stop, I was on my way to the University first to take a look then to find out how to get to the central station where I was to meet my good friend Alice who was traveling a whopping 4hours from Karlskroner in Sweden to come hang out in Copenhagen with me that afternoon. That afternoon I visited the Royal Library, The Historic Port, several parks including the King's park as well as a few museums. A stand out feature of Copenhagen is the luxurious spaceousnes of the streets, parks and waterways. You can just tell it is a city designed for summer and chilling with a beer (Most probably Carlsberg if the Danes believe their own sales pitch). I even cycled all the way along the docks to visit the reputed statue of the 'Little Mermaid' ( Hans Christian Anderson published 'The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen in 1837), people always slate it and from what I heard I thought it was going to be 2ft high but infact it was a quite tasteful human sized bronze mermaid on a rock looking wistfully out to sea . For unapparent reasons I heard it's being send to China soon on a tour which lead me to think is mermaid a constituent in Chinease herbal medicine?

I met Alice and one of her couch surfing friend Thiery (not Henry sadly) at the station around 4.30 that afternoon. They then took me to one of the most interesting, controversial and also touristy parts of Copenhagen, Christiania. Christiania is located on an abandoned navel base, the base was squatted in the 1970's by young and homeless people as a result of lack of affordable housing. It is now a semi-autonomous community outside the common law of Denmark and is very much like a throwback to the seventies era that created it. Bearded old school hippies are commonplace here and hash is openly sold on the street aptly named 'Pusher Street'. Christiania is a haven for radical thinking and art in Copenhagen and immediately reminded me of stokes croft taken to its logical conclusion although admittedly slightly more scenic. It is run as an autonomous democratic community where everyone is involved in the decision making processes. Because of its unique legal status all sorts of amazing and innovative building styles can be seen on the island along with many large scale works of art. We just wandered around soaking up the atmosphere and stopped for a a quick beer in a bar, hazy with fragrant smoke and heavily populated with clientel of the bearded variety.

Before Alice and Thiery had to head off back to Sweden we all went out for a meal with my host Tilde. She took us to this really quirky restaurant in Norreport. The inside was dimly lit with warm orange lighting and all surfaces and floors were dark stained wood. The walls were tiled with bits of broken mirror and also orange and dark green broken tiles which scattered the light and gave the room a hazy feel. It was only after a few minute of being sat in this dim place that I realised that in the corner there was a stuffed Osterich with a fox dressed in a waistcoat and pinstripe trowsers riding it! I later realised that the lights hanging from the ceiling were shaded by dolls heads, the list of quirky features just got bigger the more you looked. Even the urinals in the loos glowed red! Needless to say this isn't your typical Danish dining experience (at least I hope not) but  I will certainly not forget it.

After that jam packed day I was exhausted and struggled in vain to stay up and talk politely before giving in and crashing out on the sofa that was to be my bed for the week. I felt like I had seen so much and the main event, the conference wasn't event until the next day.

Part 2 of this blog is to follow...      http://www.ecojam.org/interact/blogs/bust/thoughts-from-copenhagen-part-2