NSFW warning! Contains images from the Erotic Museum in Copenhagen. What is suitable for a museum in Europe may not be suitable for where you are right now.

We took the train to Denmark, and spent a few days there. Eric greets one of the locals, a rather small draft horse.

There is a sort of town square in the middle, with this fountain in the center. It was too cold for the fountain to run, but it was pretty cool anyway. It took me a long time to figure out what's going on in the statue, but it is a statue of a bull goring a sea monster. I'm sure there's a story here somewhere.

Four winged lizards gaze placidly on the scene.

We were able to ascertain that they are girl lizards, though.

The sea monster has lots of baby sea monsters perched on it. The whole thing has a lot of pigeons perched on it, but I don't think they were part of the original design.

There is also a large government building on the same square. It might be a church, actually, it's hard to tell. But it definitely has a rather bishop-looking figure inlaid with gold on the front, with some pigeons swinging in for a closer look.

Denmark had the first Europeon erotic art museum. It costs about four times as much to get in as the one in Amsterdam, but the displays are slightly better and often more educational. Here they have a life-size model of a "Dixi Bar." As the text explains: "Dixi Bar in the 50'ties was the head-quarters for american soldiers on leave from their bases in Germany. The girls that were hanging out in Dixi Bar, were known as 'the american girls', a girl bringing joy after the war. They haven's excisted neither before nor after. When a G.I. was on leave in Copenhagen, he usually stayed with one lady - and she stayed with him. The girls were the soldiers guides round the night-life of the city, to places like Jomfrulmret, City Bar, Evergreen, Silver Dollar and Maxim Bar. The girls didn't charge money, but the soldiers paid for food, drinks, and cigaretts, gave them presents and paid for hotels, taxis and other 'necessaties'." (spelling and grammar copied, too.)

Some of the displays were less educational, but still interesting. This sculpture, on a rotating pedastal, seemed like the perfect piece for an erotic art museum.

It is technically interesting (interweaving the bodies to create a face), undeniably pornographic, and also implies some deeper meaning - after all, what's really on any guy's mind most of the time?

The other interesting sculpture in the museum was this one. It is entitled "Terminator" and suggests a better use for cybernetic technology.

This is a Danish coin circa 1771. The images on either side were re-configured to be suggestive, and the text referred to a political scandal taking place at the time. The circulation of such coins helped to popularize the scandal and poke fun at the royalty involved.

"What are you doing in the kitchen, Honey?"
"Oh, just whipping something up."
This was a "sexual aid" prior to electricity.

Somehow, we learned about Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato in school, but they never mentioned these guys...

Perhaps part of the justification for the admission price is the 12-TV theater of porn. Each TV displays a different porn movie, so odds are good you can find one that you actually want to watch. The six screens across the top display advertisements.

A giant gold penis marks the way out, in case you should lose your way.

Another strange animal on the streets of Copenhagen.

One definitely got the impression that Denmark was against the war, even though the Danish government was one of the first to throw in their support for the US effort in Iraq. If you look carefully, the graffiti in the middle of the kiosk says "Fuck Bush."

A group is handing out leaflets and soup in front of the giant spider.

A full-scale protest is forming in front of the Tivoli. Note the flag with skulls instead of stars.

The march leaves from the square to demonstrate in the streets of Copenhagen.

Further down the street, the Women in Black hold signs protesting the war. Once translated, the slogans are familiar - "No blood for oil" and "War is not the answer."


Protest is, appearently, nothing new to Denmark. This metal rendition of the statue of "liberty" is full of symbolism - the star of David around the bottom, the missiles in her crown, holding chains in one hand and a staff in the other with a cross on one end and the sickle (as in hammer and sickle) on the other. This sculpture stands outside of Christiana.

Pictures aren't allowed inside Christiana, which is really too bad, because there's plenty to see. Christiana is a hippie commune that took over a disused military base on the edge of Copenhagen in the 1960's. They declared themselves separate from the rest of Denmark, refusing the social services and laws of the rest of the country in favor of self-sufficiency. There are around 1000 residents of Christiana, and despite some problems they seem to have done fairly well overall. There are few cars in Christiana, people generally walk wherever they need to go. Most residents have jobs outside of Christiana, but some work inside to maintain the gardens and run the local shops. The original residents took over the old military buildings as residences, but over the years many people have built their own houses. Not surprisingly, the houses rarely follow any traditional design. One has the top floor about twice as large as the bottom, held up by pillars. One has six or seven different levels of roofs, all sloped at different angles. One had a huge semicicular solarium jutting off of it, whose roof sloped gently from house-height in the middle to ground level at the points.

The current conservative government of Denmark despises Christiana, a problem which is complicated by the fact that the disused military base that was on the edge of Copenhagen in the 60's is now in the middle of town, and has become very valuable real estate. Christiana's situation is further complicated by the fact that its population is growing older - most of them are in their 50's and 60's now - and they are beginning to eye the socialized medical care and other benefits of living in Denmark. I don't know if Christiana has the will to fight, but it is common to see signs saying "Bevar Christiana" - Save Christiana - throughout Copenhagen.

I must admit to having cheated and taken a couple of pictures inside Christiana - but these small boats seemed to sail about the lake without any guidance or reason, accompanied only by a swan. Neither the boats nor the swan seemed to object to having their picture taken.

Drowned bicycles were actually a more common sight in the canals of Amsterdam, but this one had the lighting such that I could actually photograph it. You know there's got to be a story behind something like this...

Even the clocktower outside of Christiana seems cooler than average.

It is strange where one finds poetic symbolism. The mermaid with a GREAT BIG diamond ring, luring sailors to their death.

Before we left Copenhagen, I found this unusually decorative sink in the women's room at a pub.

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