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Stories about life in Denmark

What’s it like to live in Denmark as an expatriate? Kay Xander Mellish has lived in Copenhagen since 2000, and her blog about life as a foreigner among the Danes includes a podcast as well as drawings and photographs. If you are moving to Denmark, studying in Denmark, or simply thinking of visiting Denmark, you may enjoy this blog about the experiences of a foreigner in Copenhagen.

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Cheating on Mother Nature: Danes and Environmentalism

It’s been a beautiful autumn here in Denmark. Golden sun and blue skies, red and yellow and orange leaves on the trees. Just gorgeous. And unusually warm for Denmark. It’s always exciting when, instead of wearing your winter coat every day from October to April, you can wear it every day from November to April.

But this unusually pleasant weather can’t help but spark conversation about global warming. So far, the biggest impact climate change has had on Denmark are some severe rainstorms, which end up flooding a lot of basements and overwhelming a lot of sewer systems. It’s intriguing to think that plumbers may become the great heroes of the twenty-first century.

Danes care about climate change, and they’ve made a business specialty of green technology, or what they like to call clean technology. Cleantech. Denmark sells windmills to create wind power, and burns most of its household garbage in an environmentally friendly way to create home heating.

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November 2, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

The 8:00 meeting is not an 8:05 meeting: Faux Pas in Denmark

I did a little crowdsourcing for this week’s podcast. I asked some of our listeners, and some people on Facebook – what were some of the small cultural mistakes – the dos and don’ts, the faux pas – you made when you first arrived in Denmark?

I got a whole selection of answers. Don’t keep your shoes on while entering someone’s home was one thing. Don’t arrive even a few minutes late was another. The 8:00 meeting is not an 8:05 meeting. Trying to bum a cigarette – not done in Denmark. Telephoning a friend after 9:30 in the evening or so – if you’re beyond university age, this is not done in Denmark. Dropping by to see a friend unannounced – not done in Denmark. Danes like to plan in advance – and they are proud of their homes, and don’t want you to see them messy.

One girl mentioned that she had eaten the last piece of cake on a plate. You should never eat the last piece of anything in Denmark, at least without asking every single person present. If you don’t want to do that, the proper etiquette is to slice the piece of cake in half, and take half. And then the next person will slice that half in half. And so on. In the end there will be a little transparent slice left to shrivel up in the middle of the plate.

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September 21, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

‘Friendship in Denmark is a slow-growing plant’

I was in London this week, and did a little fall wardrobe shopping. I got tired after walking for awhile, and it was lunchtime, so I sat down in a pub. I had a beer and a fish and chips and a British guy next to me was also having a beer and fish and chips and so we just chatted through lunch. We talked about politics, the weather, the job market. After lunch, we waved goodbye and I went back to shopping. It was a fun lunch, but I never found out his name.

The reason I mention this is that it never could have happened in Denmark. Danes don’t talk to strangers. They talk to their friends. The idea of a casual lunch with someone you will never see again makes no sense to them.

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August 31, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and English, or “Can I get by in Denmark without speaking Danish?”

I get a lot of mail at the How To Live in Denmark podcast, and some of it is from people who want to move to Denmark, but they’re not sure what to do to make money once they get here. But, I do speak English, they say. Can I make money in Denmark just off of just speaking English?

Generally, no. No you can’t. I mean, I do, but I was an experienced journalist before I got here. But English is not a rare commodity in Denmark.

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August 24, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and Authority: The giant penis on the wall, or how to deal with Danish civil servants

When you think you’re talking to the authorities in Denmark, you’re often not talking to the authorities. If it’s about bus service, train service, unemployment compensation, homeless shelters, even fire protection and ambulance services – you will be talking to a private company hired by the authorities.

Denmark has a really high level of privatization. Of course, these companies get subsidies from the government to provide transport service, or to counsel to the unemployed, or to put out the fire you started while trying to barbecue, but their employees are not civil servants. They can be hired and fired and trained and promoted – they work for private companies.

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August 17, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

What I like about Denmark: More time for kids and less stuff to clean

I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a Danish woman who now lives in Germany. She says that this podcast helps her keep in touch with life back home, but that she doesn’t really like it.  She writes: “I have to tell you, that almost every story has a negative ring to it when you portray your thoughts on Denmark and Danes. I cannot shake the feeling, that you really deep down, do not like Danes or Denmark. I find this sad, as you have been living there now over a decade.”

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June 29, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danish summer: The downside of the ‘light times’

We’re coming up on June 21, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Here in Denmark it starts getting light at 4 in the morning, and the sun doesn’t go down until 10 or so at night, then returns again around at 4 in the morning.

In between it never gets really dark, just like in December it never gets very light.

The light times can be annoying

During the long, Danish winter, I wait and wait for the light times to come. Sometimes I count – only 3 more months until the light times! Only 6 more weeks until the light times!

When the light times do get here, they’re actually kind of annoying. Sure, it’s great to have some sun, and some long, summer evenings to enjoy the rare good weather. Danish nature is at its best in the early summer: the leaves on trees are plentiful and a deep, dark, green; the grass is thick, and every bit of roadside is speckled with white, yellow, or purple wildflowers.

But with all that light, it’s kind of difficult to sleep.

Light pouring in the windows until 11pm can be exhilarating on a Saturday night, but not so great on a Tuesday when you have a 9am meeting the next day.

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June 15, 2014 by
Stories about life in Denmark

The Little Mermaid is four feet tall: Better options for tourists in Denmark

It’s summer in Denmark. The evenings are brighter, the winds aren’t quite as chilly, and the wild blue anemone flowers are bursting up through the grass. And the tourists are on the way. Understandably, Denmark attracts most of its tourists during the spring and summer, when you don’t need to pack heavy winter clothing. Although maybe you do – it depends on the summer.

Anyway, the tourists will be coming, and some of those tourists in Denmark may be related to you. What do you do with them? They want the Danish experience.

Based on my many years of showing parents, aunts, former colleagues, old college roommates and friends of friends around Denmark, these are my tips. They’re a bit Copenhagen-centric, but I think most of them can be applied throughout Denmark. And at the end, I’ll tell you about an amazing new museum I just found last week.

The Classic Tourist Day
OK, here’s the classic tourist day. First of all, start your tourists in the morning with a trip to the local bakery where they can pick out their own Danish pastry. Or two or three pastries. I know it’s called Wienerbrod – Viennese bread – but Danish pastries really are some of the best in the world. And get some coffee or black tea. Carbs and caffeine will set your tourists up well for the day’s busy program.

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June 11, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and Swedes: The world’s worst haircuts are Swedish

I don’t regret many things in life, but I do regret not going to a party I was invited to almost fourteen years ago.

That was in 2000, when I first arrived in Denmark. It was a party to mark the opening of the Øresund Bridge, which connects Denmark and Sweden. There were no cars on the bridge yet, so you could easily walk or bike between these two countries that had been bitter enemies for hundreds of years. At one point, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden – who were both young and unmarried at time – met and shared a hug and kiss in the center of the bridge, right across the national dividing line.

Now, that’s a party.

I won’t be able to walk or bike across the Øresund Bridge any time soon. Half a million cars per month drive over it now, plus a train every twenty minutes, full of commuters.

There are Danes that live in Sweden, and Swedes that work in Denmark.

Personally, I love the Swedes who work in Denmark.  Most work in restaurants or are shop assistants, and they have revolutionized customer service in Denmark by being cheerful.  They say things like ‘Hello!” and “Can I help you?”

This is in contrast to traditional Danish service personnel, whose default approach is “Are you still here? What do you want?”

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June 8, 2014 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and Technology: The CPR is a national menace

I don’t ordinarily get my technology news from the local newspaper sold by the homeless in Denmark, but I did this week. First of all, I learned that you can pay your homeless newspaper seller by text message. If you don’t have loose change, as I often don’t, you can send a text to the newspaper seller’s registration number, along with the amount you want to give him, and the seller gets paid right away.

Secondly, I learned that some homeless people have iPhones. Not my particular seller, but another reader had written a letter to the editor of the newspaper saying he’d tried to buy a paper the previous week and his seller had been too wrapped up in his iPhone to pay attention to a potential customer. The letter writer was asking if it made sense to spend 20 kroner on a newspaper to help a man who had a phone that was worth at least 2000 kroner.

The newspaper had a good response. They said an iPhone was the perfect device for a homeless person. It allowed him to keep all the information he needed in one place – government documents, health records, family photos. And it was a way for him to get phone calls and emails related to housing or jobs. I thought that was a very sensible approach.

Danes have a very sensible approach to IT in general. As I’ve said on other podcasts, the Danes are very practical people, and they use IT for all manner of practical things. For example, there’s a new app you can get from your kommune that allows you to immediately report things that need repairing around town. You know, you come across a park bench that’s broken, and you just hit the app, send the GPS coordinates, and it’s immediately reported to the right person. How long it will take them to fix it is another question – it is the kommune after all – but at least it’s reported.

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June 1, 2014 by