Super Superkilen

After a few trips away we finally got a chance to play tourist in our own city again last weekend. Ant needed a haircut, which means heading north-west to Nørrebro. This area is known as ‘one of the most ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighborhoods in Denmark’, although coming from Sydney it’s more tempting to just call it the inner west of København.

Anyway, it’s the only place in the city where you pay less than 500 kronuts for a men’s haircut. As we now know, you can cross to Funen and back for that price, so it’s definitely worth the ride north. As Ant found out on this visit, it’s also worth sticking with one barber if you have found one who (a) understands you and (b) understands what clippers are…

One free-hand haircut of debatable quality later, we rode further north to check out Superkilen, which is a mad community park. It draws on influences from all over the world to reflect the different backgrounds of the people who live in the area. I think people got to nominate their favourite things from their home country and then they built them all into the park. As a result the area is a mish-mash of objects from all kinds of places like Morrocco, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Ghana, Jamaica, India and Russia.

There are three colour coded areas:

• Red – the ‘community hall’ for sports and cultural activities
• Black – the ‘outdoor living room’ for meeting on the different furniture
• Green – for more sports, and green space.

It’s extremely well used by the looks of it, and such a fun place to be. We had a good go on the swing, until we felt we’d been on it a socially unacceptable amount of time. Next time we go we will definitely remember to BYO ping pong equipment.

Having looked more carefully at the above photo, I hope Ant is pleased that I captured the moment just before he set off for home with a whole charcoal chicken strapped to his bike…