Den Marks The Spot

Denmark is quite different from any other country i have been in so far. First I think that it is worth mentioning that recent reserch data by social psychologist Adrian White at the University of Leicester in England says that Denmark is the "happiest" country in the world. That is, they have the highest satisfaction with life. And from what I have seen so far, it's probably true. People are very nice here and everyone i have seen seem to be a very chipper mood.

But it makes alot of sense that they are happy. There is very little to worry about. They have such a great system. All healthcare is completely free. Everything. All doctors, hospital need. they dont have to pay a dime. However, when Tikki wanted to travel she did have to pay for traveler's insurance. Not everything in life is free. It cost her about 30 dollars. And she said it was only that much because she was planning to go to Croatia and that country is out of network. She actually needed to see a doctor and get medicine when she was there. But she didnt have to pay anymore than the 30 she already paid. And listen to this, not only do students not have to pay for school, they get a stipend from the government when they go to school. In Denmark you get paid to go to school! Back in the states, a perfectly good answer to the question, "What do you do for a living?" can be "I'm a student." But in Denmark that answer is would be alot more accurate.

There are, of course, still homeless people here, but very few. A Dane i met told me that the only homeless people here are ones that choose to be, because as long as you are a citizen of Denmark, you dont have to be homeless. If you want to, you can go to the government and they are required to pay you unemployment and give you an apartment as well.

Minimum wage here is around 20 dollars an hour. On the otherhand, things are very expensive. Very expensive. A beer in some bars can be about 10 dollars (4 dollars at a cheap place) and an average priced meal in a restaurant that isnt something cheap like MacDonalds is about 14 dollars. Thank god you dont have to tip! Also, you can't go to a bar that has live music without paying a cover of at least 10 dollars. America wins on that one. its easy to find free and GOOD live music in the states. Tikki said that the cover is so the musicians get paid so nobody minds to pay it so much. i guess im used to the fact that hardly any musicians get paid anything at all back home.

The taxes that people have to pay are ridiculously high. between 40 and 60% of their salary and there are extra taxes on things like cigarettes and alcohol and even chocolate and coffee because they are things that are not considered healthy. But somehow it works out and these people are satisfied with their lives. i guess its because they dont have to worry too much. They know that they will be taken care of. And they still have democratic freedom and freedom to earn as much money as they want to.

One of my favorite freedoms that they have here, similar to many, if not all the other european countries, is that they are allowed to drink in public. Now i know that it is about 80 years since alcohol was actually totally illegal in the U.S., but seriously folks, what is the harm with drinking in public? It cant be because people are not allowed to be drunk in public because you can get drunk in your house or in an establishment and then go out into public. The night before last we had a barbecue by the river with Tikki's roommates and their friends and the lawn was packed with lots of nice and happy Danish people. All of them and i mean all of them because i was looking, had bottles of wine and cans of beer beside them. What's wrong with that?

Lots of people ride bikes here for transportation. Public transportation and cabs as you might have guessed it are very expensive. Its nice though, alot of the streets have very wide lanes to accomodate all of the bikes. Everyone here waits at traffic lights. Jaywalking is sin. But you are more than welcome to drink a beer with a big smile on your face while you wait for the light to change!

As far as the Danish language goes, it is about as incomprehensible to me as Chinese and Hungarian. And frankly, it's not a pretty language at all, but it does sound nicer than Finnish and Hungarian. A few Danes have asked me if i think it sounds like German because they hear that alot from english speakers. I think i can tell the difference except when they are yelling real loud. These people have 3 extra vowels that i never even heard of, but at least their keyboard is pretty similar to ours. The Z and the Y are finally in the right place! ok so here's the vowels: æ, å, and ø (this is my favorite one because everytime i see it i look at the line through it and think "this is not the letter o," and i laugh). I really haven't been able to learn how to pronounce them yet. It involves sort of a muting of sounds with the back of your throat and positioning of your tongue. Or not that at all because really i can't do it. Accept I did learn how to say Copenhagen the way they say it and they all think it's really funny because when I do it apparently i do it with a specific regional accent. It sounds more like Ko-bin-haun. "Shkol" means cheers. "Tak" is thank you. There is no word for please, and you're welcome is the same like when the spanish say "de nada. - It is nothing. - Like we do, they say hi for hello. But they also say hi for goodbye. Usually they say, "hi hi." Which reminds me of Ilde, my friend from Budapest who says, "hello" when she means goodbye.

But everyone here speaks english. They have to because no one else in the world speaks Danish. And as prosperous as Denmark is, it is not a large or heavily populated country. But they love that and say its great for travelling because you can always have a secret conversation out in the open without whispering. Accept for the story one of Tikki's friends told me about the time they were on a train and commented about how fat and disgusting looking their neighbor was. It was funny to them until she piped up and said, "You know I'm Danish, asshole." Oops.