After a romantic weekend in Copenhagen, Annie and I sat at the airport sipping wine and chatting. She asked me what I thought was the best thing about the weekend.

Aside from all the time in bed with her?

The flames of Christiania.

We had walked around the little hippy community and sat by a bonfire for a while. After a while it began to shift and people realized it wasn't stable, benches were vacated and people moved to watch from a safe distance. Soon after it collapsed and fell over, landing in a shower of sparks on one of the empty benches. Annie and I almost missed it because we were busy kissing.

As we walked hand in hand out of Christiania, we saw more smoke and flames up ahead. Someone had pushed one of the little booths from which they usually peddle bongs and pipes out into the middle of the street and set it ablaze.

Inappropriate, destructive, pointless... but so pretty.

The flames merrily consumed the little booth right there in the middle of the road, drunks cheering it on, tourists taking pictures, a bus waiting for the road to clear so it could pass. In the distance we could here the sirens approaching.

We watched as the fire brigade drove up and began to put out the little blaze, and then wandered off to find a cab back to our hotel and our bed.