Podcasts

How to survive the dark times, plus: Should I move to Denmark?

I’m sitting at my desk in Copenhagen right now, and it’s noon, but it’s not really very light. Outside the sky is grey, and the air is kind of thick, and soupy. And it’s cold. I’m indoors, and the heat’s on to the max, but I’m wearing a thick woolen scarf and a knit hat.

These are the dark times in Denmark. November, December, January, February. Dark and cold. You can only get through it with a lot of tea or coffee, and maybe some chocolate.

It’s hard to even move during the dark times. I’ve been told there’s an evolutionary reason for this. That, before modern times, there wasn’t all that much food to eat during the dark times, so people were biologically programmed not move around or burn too many calories. I hear that. I find that on a lot of mornings, it’s hard to even get out of bed.

I got a letter this week. I get a lot of letters from foreigners who hear the podcast and go to the website, HowToLiveInDenmark.com. The letter I got was from Bárbara in Portugal. I won’t use her last name. Bárbara is 18 years old and wants to know if she should move to Denmark.

I took the liberty of looking at what the weather is like in Portugal today. It’s sunny, and it’s 10 degrees celsius warmer than it is here. That’s the difference between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 60 degrees Fahrenheit, for my American listeners.

Should Bárbara move to Denmark?