Ten Things I Loved About Denmark: Number Nine... Roskilde Festival

My adventurous sister convinced me to buy tickets to the biggest rock festival in Europe which was taking place at the tail end of our trip.  We spent the last two days of our visit (along with about 85,000 other adventurous people) at the festival and saw some amazing sights.

There were three large venues for music, and each had its own "artwork".  There was a sustainable stage with a "green living" theme.  An artist from Copenhagen was commissioned to make a sculpture out of soda cans.

Underneath the sculpture was a line of stationary bikes which were rigged to provide charging stations for cell phones, all with pedal power.

Finding your friends in a crowd this big is always a problem.  Hundreds of home made flags did the trick.  They were usually atop the poles of dismantled tents, and had fun (or foul) slogans.  I liked this Norwegian's nod to Obama...

Vendors were everywhere, and we had our fill of great food (no kidding).  Sausage, sushi, fruits, coffee houses, pizza, ethnic delights, beer, beer, beer...  everything was available.  Here's a photo of a roaming "cosmo girl" who would fill your cups with cosmopolitans for a mere $12.

And if after all of that beer you wanted to get a new tattoo or body piercing, that was available, too.  No, I didn't try it first hand!

Even though the people watching was fun, we were there mostly for the music.  We chose not to camp (thank God for my insisting on that one!) and just attended for the groups we really wanted to see...  Patti Smith, Jack Johnson and Prince.  I followed the rules and didn't crowd surf...

Now I can say that I've "done Roskilde" and survived unscathed...