Did you know that Copenhagen has its own color? It’s called Copenhagen Green, and it’s a dark emerald green, mixed with a fair amount of black. A little like the dark green we see on the leaves of trees here late in August. Pantone 3435C, for you designer types. 

You’ll notice that all Copenhagen benches are this color, an you will see Copenhagen Green on many wooden doors and window frames in the old city, as well as lamp posts, railings, even small bridges in the beautiful Ørestedsparken.

This was a conscious decision by city leaders in the early 1900s. They felt the combination of green and black blended well with both natural and urban settings, and that using it widely would create a sense of harmony.

Plus almost everybody likes green. 

Learn more about the design quirks of Copenhagen in this podcast, and find out how to take my self-guided audio tour of Danish Design in Copenhagen at voicemap.me/DanishDesign.

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Many countries have a fictional character who represents them. Uncle Sam for the USA, Marianne in France, Mother India. Others have a legendary figure, who was real at one point but is now shrouded in myth, like King Arthur in England.

For Denmark, Holger Danske is both. He was probably real, although he didn’t live in Denmark.

He was a Danish knight living in France in 8th century, serving Charlemagne and he appears in several of the epic poems of the time as Ogier the Dane. When those poems were translated into Old Norsk, he became Oddgeir danski, which gradually morphed into Holger Danske.

He has been a hero for centuries. And he is a sleeping hero.

The legend is that when Denmark is in trouble, Holger Danske will rise from his slumber and come to its defense. This is why during World War II, when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, one of the largest resistance groups called itself Holger Danske.

If you’re not Danish, you may have experienced Holger Danske in the form of consumer products.

There is a Holger Danske moving company with trucks all over Denmark, a Holger Danske beer, Holger Danske Aquavit liquor, Holger Danske tobacco. There’s a Holger Danske bar. Holger Danske has appeared on the Danish national football shirt. 

And, very famously, there’s a statue of Holger Danske in the basement of Kronborg Castle, often known as Hamlet’s Castle, in Helsingør, Denmark – which Shakespeare referred to as Elsinore.

I go by the castle in my new audio tour of Helsingør for VoiceMap. Check it out at voicemap.me/hamlet. 

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When I first arrived in Denmark, you could shut down any dispute in Denmark by appealing to equality and the common good. Solidarity - “solidaritet” -  and “fælleskab”, or community, or even “samfundssind”, societal spirit, were magic words.

They still are with the older generation that built Denmark’s welfare state. If you want to convince this generation of anything, just make a reference to solidarity and community and societal spirit. Works like a charm.

I’m often asked if the younger generation is as dedicated to these principles as their elders, and if they still follow the "Jante Law".

Jante Law is not really a law – it’s like a legend, in which people living in Denmark are not supposed to act like they’re better than anyone else, or smarter than anyone else, or know more than anyone else. 

But young people aren’t too keen to put up with that, in particular in an environment where they are competing internationally. For many Danish young people, the idea that all Danes are equal and we must all move together, at the same pace, seems outdated.

And one contemporary example is the rise of the electric bike. 

What has now been accepted in Denmark’s bike lanes is a concept that is used to be very "uDansk", or un-Danish….that some people simply go faster than others. 

This is the 125th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Denmark is a pretty good place to raise children. Working hours are shorter, and it’s perfectly OK to leave work at 3 or 4 o’clock to pick up your kids.  There’s a good system for early childhood health. A nurse visits to your home when your child is a baby, and then there are regular checkups with doctor. If your child has the sniffles, you can take off work and stay home with her – the first two days are paid. 

And, of course, there’s the day care system.  It’s not free, but it’s reasonably priced, and it’s nice to be able to drop off your kid in a safe place with trained people while you go to work.  

In some countries, there’s a lot of controversy about whether very young children should be in day care or at home with their parents.  Not in Denmark.  97% of kids go to day care, even the children of the Royal Family.  Even the future king, currently known as the eight-year-old Prince Christian, went to day care. 

Everyone goes to day care partly because the Danish tax structure means both parents have to go to work. 

But Danish day care is also social engineering.  It’s about creating that equality and community spirit that everyone prizes in Denmark.  Day care is the first step in making your child more Danish than wherever you come from.

No elite education, no competition

The Jante Law is part of all Danish education.  There’s no elite education here, no advanced, or gifted and talented programs.  If you child is better than the others at a certain subject, his job is to help the students who are not as good. 

If you come from a very competitive society – the US, the UK, China, India – that can be a bit of a shock.  There’s no competition in Danish education.  The kids work in groups. There are no competitive schools you have to fight to get into.  There’s no standardized testing until the kids are 15 or 16. And there are relatively few tests within the daily school lessons. 

In Danish school, your child’s social life is considered what’s most important.  Does she have friends?  Can she get along with the other children in the class?  Does he like to go to school?  Does he fit in? 

The idea is that if a child is socially comfortable in school, if he or she wants to go to school, then academic success will follow. 

There was big news this week for foreigners in Denmark.  It looks double citizenship will soon be permitted. 

Previously, if you wanted to be a Danish citizen, you had to give up citizenship in your home country. Meanwhile Danes who had moved abroad, say to the US or Australia, and became citizens there had to give up their Danish citizenship.

There’s now been a proposal to get rid of all that.  It hasn’t been finally approved, but all the Danish parties say they’ll vote for it, with the exception of our anti-foreigner friends in the Danish People’s Party.

Now having been here for 14 years, I will probably apply for Danish citizenship.  I realize I’ll have to do a lot of studying about Danish history, and learn things like the difference between King Christian the Fourth and King Christian the Seventh. 

But that’s true of any country.  I’m sure people wanting to be American citizens have to learn the difference between, say, George Washington and George Bush.

I want to be a Danish citizen for a lot of different reasons.  Right now, my ‘permanent’ residence permit expires if I’m out of the country for more than a year.  That could easily happen if I travel, or have a family crisis back in the US.

Also my daughter has no rights here.  She was born here, and has only lived here, but she has no residence rights here, or right to attend university here.  Under the current law, she’d have to apply for a Danish residence permit when she turns 18, and there’s no guarantee she’d get it.  If I’m a double citizen, she can become a double citizen.  And if she’s a double citizen, it means she can hold the Danish flag in her girls marching band.  Right now she’s not allowed.

Most importantly, I’ve been paying Danish taxes for 14 years, and I want a say in how those taxes are spent.  I want to vote.

There’s a new mosque opening down the street from me this spring, a big one.  It will be the first mosque with minarets in Denmark, although the minarets are legally prohibited from calling to prayer. 

The people behind the mosque are doing everything they can to blend in with the local neighborhood – they even went to observe at a local church service a couple of Sundays ago.  They were probably the only ones there.

There are a lot of Muslims in Denmark, about 250,000 out of a population of 5-and-a-half million, most of who have arrived here in the past 40 years, or their descendants. 

And contrary to what the Danish right-wing parties might say, they’ve brought a a lot of good things to Denmark, and not just Shwarma shops.

As an American in Denmark, I get to experience Danish stereotypes about Americans on a regular basis: we are superficial, too outspoken and direct, and are apparently controlled by a small cabal of right-wing nutcases. 

But the Danes have stereotypes about other nationalities as well.  Spaniards and Italians are seen as fun and sexy and romantic, but unlikely to arrive on time. Eastern Europeans work too hard, at wages that are much too low, at least by Danish standards. Asian immigrants are seen as OK because they work hard at things Danes aren’t interested in, like high-level engineering degrees.

Danes also have stereotypes about other Nordic people. Norwegians are seen as happy, friendly people with a humorous language.  Everything sounds funny in Norwegian because everything sounds like singing.  Swedes are seen as kind of stiff, humorless types who can’t dance, and can’t hold their liquour.  Finns are silent, angry drunks that carry knives. Oddly, given their history, Danes really like Germans.  Really, really like the Germans.  Many Danes will say that Berlin is their favorite town.

Danes also have stereotypes about each other, something that amazed me when I first arrived here.  You have 5 million people, and you’re dividing yourselves into groups!  But Danes themselves see a big difference between people from Sjelland, the island with Copenhagen on it, and Jylland, the bigger part of Denmark that is connected to Germany.

As the stereotype goes, people from Jylland are seen as quiet, reliable, trustworthy, and likely to marry young and start families. They are also sometimes seen as stubborn, and very tight with money. They want to drive a hard bargain. People from Copenhagen are seen as slick. Smart-ass, fast-talking, prone to exaggeration- everything’s the biggest and the best.  The men wear expensive business suits, and everyone wears overpriced eyeglasses. They have jobs that are non-jobs, like Senior Communications Consultant or SEO specialist.  People from Jylland have real jobs, like pig farmer, or Lego designer. 

Danish names are very strongly stratified by age. Ole and Finn and Knud and Kaj and Jørn and Jørgen and to some extent Poul and Per, are over 50. Their wives and sisters and secret lovers are Inger and Karin and Kirsten and Ulla. Or Bente. Another guaranteed old ladies’ name is Bente. Bent is the male version.  Being named Bent is a problem for Danes who travel, because in many English-speaking countries, ‘bent’ is old-fashioned slang for ‘gay.’ In those countries, if you hold out your hand and say, ‘Hi, I’m Bent,’ you may get an unexpected reaction.

Finding a job anywhere is a headache, and Denmark is no different.  And let's be frank, if the employer has a choice between a foreigner and a Dane, they're probably going to hire the Danish person.  The Danish person knows the language, the Danish person knows the culture, the Danish person knows what type of cheese to bring for the Friday morning shared breakfast.  Nevertheless, it is possible for a foreigner to find work in Denmark. Here are my tips for a successful job search in Denmark. 

If you are a romance novelist, the Danish man is not your dream man. He will not write poetry and pursue his beloved to the ends of the Earth. He won't send flowers, he won't buy chocolates. He won't even help carry packages. 

That said, if you’re a feminist, a Danish man IS your dream man. He will cook and help with the housework, and spend time with the kids.  He'll respect your opinion, and he won't force himself on you. In fact, you may have to force yourself on him.  But if you do, he’ll usually be really grateful.

 A lot of the mail I get at howtoliveindenmark.com get is from men, wanting to know how they can meet women in Denmark.

I can understand this.  Danish women are very beautiful.  And I can tell you now, most of them will not immediately exclude you because you have a different skin color.  I know of several babies of mixed heritage here in Denmark.

 That said, dating in Denmark is hard, even for the Danes, and it will probably be hard for you too.   

That’s because the process that works in much of the rest of the Western world doesn’t work in Denmark.  In most parts of the world, a man will see a woman he likes, and he’ll approach her.  He’ll try to start a conversation.  Maybe he’ll ask if he can buy her a coffee, or some other type of drink.  If they’re in a nightclub, he might ask her if she’d like to dance, or maybe go outside and get some fresh air.

These tactics will get you nowhere in Denmark.  

I’m looking out the window as I record, and it’s snowing again. It’s pretty, but it’s not a novelty any more. It’s been like this for the past couple of weeks, Danish winter weather. Nearly every day there’s fresh snow and ice.

When I wake up on winter mornings, it’s still dark, and cold, and I can hear the wind whistling outside my window.  Every day I think, ahhhh, I don’t want to get up.  But I do.

Of course everyone in Denmark suffers a little bit during the winter.  But I feel particularly bad for people I can see come from warmer climates, and are experiencing one of their first winters here. 

I play a little game sometime when I look at Danish people. I imagine them as Vikings. It’s easy now that big beards are in fashion on young men. Sometimes on the metro I’ll look up at the hipster guy playing with his iPhone next to me and imagine him wearing a big fur cloak. Maybe a rope belt, with a sword dangling from it. I imagine him stepping off the boat in Newfoundland in the year 1000, freaking out the local American Indians.

Many people who visit Denmark are fans of the Vikings, the colloquial name for Scandinavians before the medieval era, although technically speaking the Viking raiders were at their peak in the years 800-1100. 

There are plenty of opportunities, especially now during tourist season, to see modern-day Danes dressed up as Vikings, building wooden ships, cooking over open fires, and fighting with swords and shields. Exhibitions like this are very popular with visitors from overseas. 

What they might not know is that you can see actual Vikings in Denmark, or what’s left of their bodies. It was common in the Viking era and before to toss sacrificial items and people into peat bogs, which, it turns, out preserves bodies and clothing and hair very well.

So there are several places in Denmark where you can see actual humans from the Viking age, more than a thousand years old, and sometimes their clothes and hairstyles, sometimes even the last food they ate, reclaimed from their stomachs. 

Some bodies are so well-preserved that they still have fingerprints. 

The top spot for this is near Aarhus, the Moesgaard Museum. It’s a huge museum that’s interactive, immersive, almost overpowering. 

You will see hundreds of Viking objects and and weapons and skeletons, amid multimedia exhibits. For example, there’s a room that lets you experience of what it was like to be in the middle of a Viking battle, with armed warriors shouting and screaming and running at you from all directions. 

It’s overwhelming, because the people it celebrates lived such brutal lives. Sacrificing people, sacrificing animals, killing each other with clubs and daggers and axes to the head in violent raids. 

It’s a lot. After a while I found myself cowering in the gift shop.

(Read more at howtoliveindenmark.com)

This is the 124th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

A few years ago, during the peak July vacation season, SAS had to cancel a large number of flights out of Denmark. This is because too many SAS pilots had taken vacation...during the vacation season. In Denmark, the needs of the employee are often more important than the needs of the customer.

The post Danes and Work: My vacation flight was cancelled, because the pilot was on vacation appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

While French or American politicians have sex scandals, Danish politicians have tax scandals. Only the Royal Family is permitted to be the subject of really juicy gossip and scandal in Denmark.

The post Gossip and Scandal in Denmark - Podcast #22 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Even though Denmark is very open about sex, it isn’t very…sexy. Everything’s so accepted, out in the open, so practical, that sex in Denmark is a bit dull.

The post Sex and Denmark - Podcast #21 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Sitting at my desk in grey, November Copenhagen, I received an email from sunny Portugal. Eighteen-year-old Bárbara asks: Should I move to Denmark?

Wearing an elf hat at Christmas time is a way to show you’ve got a sense of humor about yourself. You’re likely to see an elf hat on your boss, your professor or somebody else you’re supposed to respect.

The post Christmas in Denmark Part 2: Get Yourself an Elf Hat - Podcast #19 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

I still get confused about Danish place names. A lot of names sound so similar that I am constantly getting lost in Denmark. People's names are tricky, too.

The post Ørestad, Ørested and Øresund: Why I still get lost in Denmark - Podcast #18 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Last week, political posters went up all over Copenhagen, on streetlights, on bridges, and on train platforms. The posters are for the local elections this autumn, and even though the candidates are supposed to take them down afterwards, they usually don’t. So, the candidates will keep smiling and making promises through Christmas, and through the winter snow and ice. Come spring, you’ll see a faded, battered photo of somebody who failed to win anything at all hanging from a light pole near you.

The post Voting at McDonald's: Danish politics, and the posters that will last until spring - Podcast #17 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

The 12 days of Christmas is an old French Christmas song. But those 12 days have nothing on the Danes, who have more than two months of Christmas, and would probably have it last all the way to spring if they could get away with it.

Traditionally, there has been little crime in Denmark, which is a society based on trust. But when that trust is broken, Danes get confused about what to do. They don't like the idea of punishment.

The post Just buy more insurance: Crime and Punishment in Denmark - Podcast #15 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

More than a decade after moving to Denmark, there are still a few things I won't do to fit in. I won't cook fried fish balls, or watch Danish talent shows on TV. And I won't plan my hangovers in advance.

In Denmark, the right to a long summer vacation is enshrined into law - the national vacation law, which states that all employees have a right to three weeks’ vacation between May and September.

Shops close, too. An ice cream shop in my neighborhood closed down for the entire month of July last year. You would think this would be peak time for ice cream, but for the owners of the ice cream shop, their own vacation was more important.

This year, I noticed that the bicycle store up the street is closed for three weeks – hope you didn’t want a new bike to enjoy the summer. So is the local "smørrebrød" sandwich shop. Too bad about your picnic.

Danes believe that if you take a good, long, Danish vacation, you’ll come back refreshed, with new perspectives.

Free time is precious in Denmark – certainly more important than prestige, since people don’t generally use their job titles, and far ahead of money, since whatever you have the government will be taking a big bite out of. Free time is cherished, free time is wealth, and that’s one of the reasons the summer vacation is so prized. 

You’ll often hear Danes ask each other how many weeks they’re taking for summer vacation. “So, this year, are you taking 3 or 4?”

This is the 123th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Danes are passionate about design, and they really believe in making everything that is useful also beautiful, even a toilet. After living here a while, you just come to expect it.

The dark days of winter in Denmark last from October to March. The sky is dark when you get up in the morning, and it’s dark when you leave work. If you are moving to Denmark and want your friends and relatives to visit you, don’t invite them to come during the dark times. They’ll get a bad impression of the place.

The post Here come the dark times: Winter in Denmark - Podcast #12 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

If you want to live in a thatched cottage in rural Denmark, you'll find a lot to choose from. Finding an apartment in downtown Copenhagen is harder.

The post A thatched roof over your head: How to find a place to live in Denmark - Podcast #11 appeared first on How to Live in Denmark.

Danes dress to match the Danish landscape. This is why most Danish fashion comes in grey, green, blue and brown - plus beige for the adventurous. 

For Danes, bicycle lanes are the Vikings' last stand. These gentle blond people - these people who will wait two minutes at a 'Don’t Walk' sign instead of crossing an empty street - armed with a bike, turn vicious and brutal. 

At every Danish dinner party, I'm asked a standard set of questions: How did you come to Denmark? Why did you come to Denmark? What type of culture shock did you experience once you got here? In part 1 of what is sure to become a multi-part series, I discuss one major cultural difference: In Denmark, people make their own food.

This is the seventh episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

They may appear nude on public beaches and in daily newspapers, but the Danes have a passion for privacy. And they may be respecting YOUR privacy by not talking to you.

This is the sixth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

It's a common mistake to confuse the Danish and the Dutch - all those healthy blond people on bicycles! - but if you really want to understand Denmark, look at Germany instead.

This is the fifth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Danish words and English words can look similar, but some of the similarities are deceiving. A Danish hug is not comforting. And slut is not a slut.

This is the fifth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Denmark is a small country. It needs sports it can win. Team handball, team badminton, and team ping-pong are where Danish sports men and women shine.

This is the fourth episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Denmark is a rich country, but does it have rich people? It does, but Denmark’s wealthy tend to keep a low profile, due to the informal Jante Law in Denmark that prohibits too much showing off. 

That said, spring and summer is great time to see Danish rich people in their natural habitat. That’s when they put the roof down on their expensive German cars and drive through the medieval old towns, drink rosé chilled in silver buckets at fancy outdoor cafés, or sail through the harbor on their personal boats of various sizes. In the summer, Denmark’s rich come out to play. 

There are two types of wealth in Denmark, old wealth and new wealth. Old wealth is the leftovers of Denmark’s nobility, Dukes and Counts and Barons, even though noble privileges were officially abolished in 1849. Many of these families still own their old castles and country houses, some of which have been turned into hotels or fancy restaurants. You can stay there for a weekend with your sweetheart, very romantic.

And then there’s new wealth. Denmark’s richest man owns Bestseller, a fast fashion chain that owns names like Vero Moda and Jack & Jones. The heirs to LEGO, which is less than 100 years old, are also quite well off, and so are the heirs to the Ecco shoe fortune.

Finance types and entrepreneurs also figure on the list of richest people in Denmark. Every year, one of the local newspapers publishes a list of Denmark’s top taxpayers – the people and companies who have paid the most taxes. In 2020, the top individual was a successful hedge fund guy who somehow ended up paying more taxes than Danske Bank, Denmark's largest bank.  In 2021, the list featured a man who got rich selling COVID quick tests. 

While there are small wealthy neighborhoods in Odense and Aarhus, most of Denmark’s rich live in the Whisky Belt, which is the area along the coast north of Copenhagen. It’s called the whisky belt because back in the day, whisky was the most expensive alcoholic drink. Poor people drank beer and schnapps.

This is the 122th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

The price of white cotton socks in Denmark is about five times as high as in the USA. I explain how the price of socks has a lot to say about the Danish economic system.

This is the third episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. 

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Hear about the role of significant cultural role of pigs - and we mean real pigs, not just people with bad manners - in Danish public life.

This is the second episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. 

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

Hear about summer in Denmark (or what there is of it) and why 'summer herring' sometimes wears a bikini, and sometimes nothing at all.

This is the first episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2013. 

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

When you’ve been an international in Denmark for a while, as I have, you sometimes forget what it was like to arrive here for the first time and know nothing.

I remember arriving just about this time of year and being astonished by all the public holidays in spring. I’d arrived to work, but the office kept shutting down.

Now one of my various gigs is cultural training for newcomers, paid for by the big corporations that bring them here. The questions they ask bring me back to the time when I first arrived.

One of the most popular questions is pretty basic: How do I send a letter in Denmark? What does a postbox look like? Where do I buy a stamp?

I also get a lot of questions about Danish bicycle culture, which the Danish government promotes so heavily in its tourist campaigns.

A nice man newly-arrived from Russia asked me: Will it be possible for me to get a bicycle in Denmark? I said yes, it would.

But hey, there are no dumb questions. (Would it be possible for me, Kay, to get a bicycle in Moscow? I have no idea.)

Bicycle culture is often exaggerated in Denmark – the truth is, the number of kilometers cycled each year keeps falling, and the number of cars keeps increasing, even thought it is very expensive.

You can still get by with only a bike in Copenhagen and Aarhus, but in the less urban parts of Denmark, life will be uncomfortable without a car.

This is the 122th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

The hottest competitive sport in Denmark over the past year hasn’t been handball, or football, or badminton. It’s been chasing cheap butter in the supermarket.

Recent inflation has doubled the price of butter – in some places, up to 30 kroner – but if you rush, you can get…a package of butter for 10 kroner at one supermarket…wait, only three packages per customer…hey, this competing supermarket has matched the price…look, this other one has it for only 5 kroner…ohhhhhh, it’s sold out for today. Better come earlier tomorrow.

Butter chasing is how even high-achieving, high-earning Danes have been spending their time. Nobody wants to pay 30 kroner for butter.

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Butter is a part of the Danish soul. The Danish word for butter is smør…you might be familiar with smørrebrød, the famous open-faced Danish sandwiches. Smørrebrød means buttered bread.

So even though inflation has hit Denmark recently just like everyplace else in the world, supermarkets use low, low butter prices to bring in customers who will buy their other goods.

Butter is big business in Denmark – it is one of the world’s top 10 butter exporters – and dairy in general is a big part of the traditional Danish diet.

There used to be corner shops called mejeri, dairy shops, that only sold dairy goods and eggs.

Evolutionists would tell you that Scandinavians evolved to get more Vitamin D from food, since they don’t get much from the sun for most of the year.

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If you’re learning Danish, look up all the expressions that begin with the word “smør.” I counted about 30 in Den Danske Ordbog, Denmark’s official online dictionary.

One well-known expression is smørgris – butter pig. That’s someone who loves butter so much that they eat great amounts of it, with gusto.

Or smørhul, butter hole. A butter hole takes its name from the hole in the middle of a bowl of oatmeal. You make a hole so you can put the butter inside.

But smørhul has a bigger meaning.

A ”butter hole” or smørhul, is a way to describe a very nice place, safe from the tumultuous world around it.

A “butter hole” is the way many Danes see Denmark itself.

This is the 121th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

It seems as if every country has a city or region that it is the butt of jokes. The rest of the country makes fun of the locals’ unattractive accents and supposedly low-end behavior. In Denmark, that city is Randers.

Randers is a city in Northern Jutland, about a half hour away from Aarhus. It used to be bigger than Aarhus, and bigger than Aalborg too, but it was a manufacturing town, and when manufacturing fell apart in Denmark after the Second World War, so did Randers.

The stereotype of Randers today is...muscle meatheads, possibly criminal... possibly in some sort of motorcycle gang... with a rough, gravelly accent... lots of tattoos and leather.

And that’s just the women. The men are the same but with shorter haircuts.

Listen to hear more about Randers and how Danish urban planners ruined what was once a very nice medieval town into a paradise for very fast cars and Mokaï, a canned alcoholic fruit cider sometimes called "Randers champagne."

Find out how you can spend more than DK1000 on a pair of gloves in Randers, and how you can visit a full replica of Elvis Presley's mansion Graceland nearby. 

This is the 120th episode of the "How to Live in Denmark podcast", and originally ran in 2023.

Get all of Kay Xander Mellish's books about Denmark at http://books.howtoliveindenmark.com. Book Kay for a talk to your group or organization at http://events.howtoliveindenmark.com.

A country like Denmark, with so much coastline and water, needs a lot of bridges - and there have been 5 new colorful, stylish bridges built in Copenhagen alone in the past decade.

And because this is Denmark, and people love design, each bridge has its own special look. You can’t just put up a few bridge supports and a deck on top for traffic. You need style, and you need a colorful name.

Consider, for example, the multicolored Kissing Bridge in Copenhagen. It’s not named that because you’re supposed to kiss on the bridge, although you can if you like. It’s named that because it breaks in half on a regular basis to let ships through, and then it’s supposed to come together again like a kiss.

The Kissing Bridge has needed to visit a relationship counselor, however, because there have been constant problems getting it to kiss. It wasn’t quite aligned the way it was supposed to be.

It seems to work now, although it’s rather steep and a difficult ride for bicyclists, which is rather a shame, because it is a bicycle and pedestrian bridge only. There are no cars on it.

The Bicycle Snake and the Brewing Bridge a little further down the harbor are also just for cyclists and walkers, and so is the Little Langebro bridge.

After some time out of Denmark, Kay returns and finds a whole new list of things to love.

Swimming in Copenhagen harbour is a delight - the once-industrial waterway has been cleaned up enough to become a giant swimming zone. 

The wild blackberry bushes are ready for harvest, and there are plenty in public spaces - like near the railway and S-train tracks - where the blackberries are totally free, first come, first serve. Wash them well and they make for a wonderful blackberry pie,  a blackberry crumble, or even a blackberry smoothie.

And Kay even finds something to admire about the Danish cops, who are more likely to approach miscreants with sarcasm than with guns drawn.

It’s hard to be a teenager no matter who you are or where you live, but spare a thought for the two teenagers of the Danish Royal Family. 16-year-old Christian - the future King Christian XI - and 15-year-old Isabella have to deal with family photo calls and media events, leaked Tik Tok videos, and a TV documentary this week accusing their boarding school of being a toxic environment.

In June of each year, the streets of Denmark are suddenly full of young people wearing stiff white caps with bands of various colors - burgundy, midnight blue, light blue. These teenagers have just graduated from gymnasium, the Danish equivalent of high school, and the white hat is a sign of that accomplishment. 

They wear the white hat everywhere they go for the two or three weeks after final exams, and it awakens a deep sentimentality in the usually practical and private Danes. It has a sort of magic. 

When my daughter received her white cap last year, total strangers stopped her in the street to say “Congratulations on the hat” – tillykke med huen. Bus drivers congratulated her as she boarded, and so did supermarket clerks at the checkout counter. 

Getting the hat is seen as a very happy occasion on the road from childhood to the big wide world. The white cap holds a special place in the Danish national consciousness.

The open-backed truck tour

If you visit in Denmark in June, you’ll see teenagers celebrating their graduation, riding through town on the back of open-backed trucks, wearing their fresh white caps and cheering or blowing whistles. Using there’s some pop music pumping at a very high volume. 

The sides of the truck are covered with white banners, traditionally bedsheets, on which are painted slogans that are more or less obscene.

Everybody on the truck except the driver is several beers in and shouting at passerby on the sidewalk, who shout back. 

Denmark has several amusement parks, including the original Legoland, but the ones I know best are the ones in Copenhagen - Tivoli Gardens and Bakken.

Tivoli and Bakken show two different sides of the Danish character.  

Tivoli is the sleek, confident, high-end image that Denmark likes to present to the world: it has exquisite flower gardens, fancy shops and restaurants, and a theater that hosts world-class performers. Bakken is more homey, more quirky, a little shabby, and a bit more hyggelig, under my own definition of hygge as “unambitious enjoyment”. 

The differences between the two parks also illustrates the class differences in Denmark – even though Danes like to pretend there are no class differences in egalitarian Denmark.

It’s springtime, and the cherry trees are about to bloom in Copenhagen Northwest, which is usually the only time people who live outside Northwest bother to go there.

Northwest is a working class neighborhood, so much so that the streets are named after working-class occupations.

While other Copenhagen neighborhoods have streets named after kings and queens and generals, Northwest has brick-maker street, and book-binder street, and rope-maker street, and a barrel-maker street.  

But there are other things to see in Northwest besides the cherry trees, which have become a bit of a crowd scene since they were reported on by a national news network.

Danes over 75, or even 70 or 65, often live alone, and they are often eager for conversation.

Some don't speak much English, which means that spending time with them is an ideal opportunity for practicing your spoken Danish. 

Danish municipalities, sensing a match, have even set up special programs to bring internationals and the elderly together.

No matter how they feel about the institution of royalty, almost everyone likes Denmark’s Queen Margrethe, who is celebrating 50 years on the throne this week.

Every New Year’s Eve, the streets of Denmark go quiet as the Queen makes her annual televised speech to her subjects. I find the speeches pretty much the same every year, they’re about being kind to each other, taking care of the environment, and such.

The real entertainment is in the Queen’s wardrobe - she designs her own clothes, and often chooses rather un-Danishly bright colors -  and whether she’ll get her carefully written note cards mixed up. 

Every year she thanks the Danish military for its work, and every year she makes sure to shout out to the Faroe Islands and Greenland, the farthest flung parts of her kingdom. And she ends every annual speech with “GUD BEVARE DANMARK” – God Save Denmark. 

The Queen is the head of the Danish state church, and the Danish state – she still signs all the laws, including the specific law that made me a citizen.  But the Queen is also an artist. She paints, and draws, and has designed stage sets for the Royal Ballet.