Now is the time!!! I had an overwhelmingly high demand for this post to appear here., over one person wanted me to write about this topic. Today i'll share my thoughts on Denmark - the good, the bad and whatever is on my mind.
The holiday spirit is still here with me even tho i'm back to my mundane living in chilly Denmark and again having to do work for uni. So where do i start from .... First of all i should mention that i come from a more warm blooded country , so the first and most evident gripe i have about this country is it's weather. For mid-May having the temperature stay at 10-15 degrees for me is way out of the ordinary. This is something you get used to , but you don't get used to all the rain. Rain, rain , rain and then some. It was especially bad during the autumn where it was raining all day. If i remember correctly we had a sunny day once or twice for all of November.
Another thing i don't like is the people here. I don't know if it's the culture, the way of thinking , but Danes are very, very cold people. Don't get me wrong here, if you ask them something or need something they'll most probably go out of their way to help you. So they are polite , but even when you have to work with them they keep to themselves, stay in their own danish groups and are generally not very communicative. In shops you'll see the cashiers smiling and on the street if you meet somebodies glance they could smile at you. Tho they are almost scared of foreigners, they don't like us and it shows. Also after 8 pm especially on a work day you cannot see almost anyone on the streets, it's deserted. I have been told tho that this is more like a central, northern European thing and not exclusive to Denmark. If they're not students they also rarely go out on weekend nights. Biggest problem i have tho is that it's extremely expensive. It's probably 2 times, or more, more expensive then from my country. It's ridiculous, in the UK it was cheaper for me if i should make a comparison.Also a person from Germany who came here also confirmed it's way more expensive.
On the other side of things is that in Denmark people pay very high taxes which go to good use. Like my university is free for me as an EU resident. Also very good thing is that they have free medical care and everything seems to be quite clean and organized. Another thing i enjoy, most of the times, is the very relaxed way of living. People here are never in a hurry and this makes for an almost sleepy environment. A big thumbs up also from me is that Denmark is one of the most accepting countries in the world for gay rights. Here you can legally have a same sec marriage, if you want to adopt you have the same rights as a straight couple. Also there are lots and lots of beautiful blond people here, tho it's sad they are very nationalistic and from what i've heard they seldom date people from other countries. Also i like the fashion of saggers here and how they sag low :P .I give them high praise also for their dedication to a green future. I also like that most people speak English and a lot of them have a good level of it.
I find weird their closed off market. No i don't say there is anything bad in selling danish goods for cheaper than the comparable foreign goods- they boost their own economy. What strikes me weird is that many brands that i was accustomed to see are missing from the danish supermarket. For example you cannot find Becks (beer), or Milka (chocolate), or Head & Shoulders (shampoo) , or Blend-a-med (toothpaste) and many more little examples like this. It's also funny how they can easily pay for overpriced goods , but if they bring the price of coffee at uni by 1 or 2 krone you'll be hearing about it a lot :P.
Ok this is all i can think of now cuz this post took me around an hour and a half and i don't want to think any longer. I'd love to hear your input. Would be really interesting to hear from Daniel , as a fellow also living in Scandinavia, and Lunario, to see if there are that big differences in culture between 2 neighboring countries. Everyone else's point of view would also be really interesting for me aswell.
See ya. Until we meet again. :)
