But...I'm going to do it anyway. :) I kept some quick notes as I was exploring, so this will just be in list fashion.
- Despite being right on the sea, being a collection of islands, and having docks all around Copenhagen does not smell fishy or beachy. Is that because it's so far north the water is so cold? I have no idea, but I was expecting a dock smell. This is neutral for me, as I actually quite miss wandering around and smelling the ocean (when I went to the Normandy beaches the first thing I did on getting off the bus was marvel about the great beach air). At the same time it gets annoying if it's too much, so eh.
- The people are SO NICE. Weird nice, and not the faux kind of Southern US nice. Genuinely nice. They're helpful, and every time I asked a random person if they knew English they got this huge grin and said, "Oh yes!" and were very enthusiastic. They were always very forthcoming with recommendations and information.
- I was expecting lots and lots of natural blonds, but there weren't as many. Silly of me, I think, but you have the Scandinavian stereotypes you know? One thing that surprised me, though, were that a lot of the men DID completely fit that stereotype: tall, longish blond hair, blue eyes, strong jawlines - you could put them on a surfboard in California and they'd fit in fine. It's the most generic versions of handsome, and I was struck by how frequently I saw them
- Danes love ice cream it seems. There are ice cream shops everywhere and I saw tons of people eating cones despite it being chilly and rainy.
- Copenhagen is a very green city, and probably the most bike-friendly one I've ever seen. They not only have "bike lanes" but there is actually a separate kind of bike sidewalk. Like, a street will consist of the car-driving area, then, slightly raised from the pavement, a bike-riding area, then, raised again, the pedestrian sidewalk. At the main train stations there are just seas of bike parking, and in squares this is a normal sight:
- The city is very expensive, but costs are strange. Food costs a LOT but my 75 minute long guided canal tour was only the equivalent of $13-$14 and the hotel I stayed in was cheap but good. In the same vein, it's well known that Scandinavian countries have very high tax rates (Denmark's is the world's highest), but I can see that they really are a model of how to use that money well. Their education system is very good, and pretty much everyone, even in the countryside, speaks at least English fluently, and many people also speak German. Obviously there is universal health care as well, and other public works that make it - horror of horrors for Americans - a very socialist nation. Denmark's national debt is 41.6% of its gross domestic product, while the USA's is 52.9%; Denmark's unemployment in 2010 was 6%, and the USA's was above 9%. It has one of the highest standards of living in the world. (Note: not to say I think this would all work out in the US, as Denmark is a tiny nation, comparatively speaking, and with a very different history - it's just exasperating to experience proof of the benefits of this type of system when so many people in the US constantly demonize it.)
Also of note, Denmark, along with the rest of Scandinavia, is way ahead of the rest of the world in gender equality. With no gender quotas, it ranked 7th in the 2008 Global Gender Gap Report (USA was #31). Some statistics: Danish men are paid on average 13-14% more than Danish women (in the US it's 21.6%); women make up 39% of the national representative body (in the US it's 16.8% in Congress) and 7 out of 19 national ministers are women. It's the only place in the world I've been, besides somewhat Germany, where women do not get openly harassed on the street on a regular basis, and where I did not have a single concern about going places on my own at night. Let's just say - that is a major difference in feeling secure, as opposed to the US, where 31 Senators just voted "no" on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (which, despite its name, is not promoting violence against women!). For the record, France's stats on gender equality are as spotty as the US's, if not more.
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So I LOVED Copenhagen, and I would love to visit there again in the summer. Denmark seems like a fantastic place to live, overall - my only qualm would be that I'm not sure I could survive during the winter! Despite it not being a very big city there is a lot to do and lots of interesting things to see - I certainly didn't get everything done that I wanted.
I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures and such, and this concludes my Copenhagen series!
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