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Stories about life in Denmark

What’s it like to live in Denmark as an expatriate? Kay Xander Mellish has lived in Copenhagen since 2000, and her blog about life as a foreigner among the Danes includes a podcast as well as drawings and photographs. If you are moving to Denmark, studying in Denmark, or simply thinking of visiting Denmark, you may enjoy this blog about the experiences of a foreigner in Copenhagen.

Stories about life in Denmark

A thatched roof over your head: Finding a place to live in Denmark

Before I moved to Denmark, I didn’t know what a thatcher was.

Of course, I had heard of Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister. But a thatcher – as a job like a carpenter, or a massage therapist – this was something I was not familiar with.

A thatcher, I now know, is a person who makes a thatched roof. A straw roof, basically. There are thousands of thatched roofs in Denmark, and they’re actually very practical for the climate, very environmentally friendly. They keep the heat in and the rain out.

If you want to live in a house with a thatched roof in Denmark, you probably can. A lot of them are vacant, because they tend to be located on farms in the countryside.

You, on the other hand, will probably want to live in a city somewhere – Copenhagen, or Aarhus, or Bilund if you work for Lego.

Beautiful but uncomfortable chairs
The bigger the city, the harder it will be for you to find a place to live. Or at least, a reasonably-priced place to live.

Danes like to buy their homes, because they can deduct the mortgage interest from their taxes.

But if you want to rent, there are two options.

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September 22, 2013 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and Fashion: All the colors of the Danish landscape

I can’t remember exactly what the social occasion was, but when I was fairly new to Copenhagen I met a man who was a refugee from a country in Sub-Saharan Africa. He had escaped his homeland – I also can’t quite remember which country that was – by way of Cairo, Egypt, and ended up in Denmark.

What I do remember is his account of what it was like to come to Copenhagen after living in busy, colorful city like Cairo. He asked another refugee, a guy who’d been here longer, to show him downtown Copenhagen.

The guy drove him to, I don’t know, Gammel Strand on a Tuesday night in February, and there was no one there. All the Danes were home enjoying their hygge, and the streets were dark and empty. My friend got very angry at the other refugee. Said he’d tricked him. Where is the city! This is not the city! he said. But it was.

The same grey sweater
Anyway, I also remember this African refugee’s comments about Danish fashion. He said he had trouble shopping here, because Danish clothes all look alike. He said, Every store you go to, it’s got same grey sweater.

Now, that’s not entirely true. You could also find a navy blue sweater. I’ve even seen green sweaters.

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September 19, 2013 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Two-wheeled Vikings and why I own three bikes: Danes and Cycling

In a country where new cars are taxed at up 150% of their purchase price – that means a $20,000 car will cost you in the neighborhood of $50,000 – bikes are bound to be popular.

Everybody bikes in Denmark. You’ll see executives in grey pinstriped business suits on bikes, and pretty girls pedaling in high heels. You’ll see people toting their kids through heavy traffic in fragile-looking bike trailers.

You’ll see old ladies biking very, very slowly with a lot of people backed up behind them, and you’ll see me, trying to balance my fresh dry cleaning on my bike because I don’t have a car.

The fact that Denmark is relatively flat helps – nobody likes to bike uphill – as does the fact that the climate is temperate. Denmark is as far north as parts of Alaska, but it usually isn’t bitterly cold in the winter.

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September 8, 2013 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

No food, only stuff to make food: Eating in Denmark

Noma, the fancy Copenhagen restaurant, has again been named one the world’s best by the international culinary elite.

Given the general quality of Danish cuisine, this is a little bit like a dwarf winning the Olympic high jump. The truth is, everyday Danish food is inexpensive, filling, and occasionally tasty, but it is anything but fancy.

Like Noma – which proudly serves dishes like ‘shrimp and goose foot’ and ‘beef tartar and ants’ – traditional Danish cuisine relies heavily on local ingredients. Before World War II, Denmark was one of the poorest countries in Europe, and there were usually only local ingredients to be had.

This means fish, potatoes, onions, beets and pork are the bedrock of most Danish dishes. And then there is rugbrød, the traditional Danish dark rye bread.

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August 31, 2013 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Danes and privacy: Why public nudity is OK & public ambition is not

Shortly before I arrived in Denmark in 2000, one of the famous guards outside the queen’s palace at Amalieborg was fired. You’ve seen these guards in pictures, the Royal Life Guards. They’re dressed like the British palace guards, only with dark blue coats, instead of red. They have the same tall, black, bearskin hats. It’s no big secret that being in the Royal Life Guards is an excellent path to a powerful future in corporate Denmark.

Anyway, the guard that was fired was special. She was the first woman to guard the Royal Palace at Amalieborg. There was a lot written about it in the newspapers at the time. Unfortunately, this young lady also had a part-time job. She was a prostitute. She would guard the palace by day and run her business out of the royal barracks in the evening. She found customers via escort ads in the local newspapers.

So the young lady was fired. But she was NOT fired because she was a prostitute. She was fired because she’d been ordered by her commander to stop moonlighting after her side-job was first discovered, and she did not stop. In fact, she’d been asking her soldier colleagues to drive her to her various nighttime appointments. She was fired for not following orders.

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August 24, 2013 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Painful hugs and Poison Gifts: When the same words mean different things in Danish and English


When you’re just starting to learn Danish, some people may tell you that Danish and English are very much alike.

In some ways, they are. The Vikings invaded England several times and left behind their language as well as their genes.

The Danish word sky, meaning cloud, became the English word ‘sky.’ Øl – Danish beer – is ‘ale’ in English.

But in some ways, English and Danish are not alike, and that can cause problems. Back in the days when I was learning French, they called them ‘false friends’ – words that look identical but mean entirely different things.

The one I noticed first when I arrived in Denmark was slut. Slut means ‘finished’ in Danish, all done, but the same four letters in English spell ‘slut,’ which is a not very nice name for someone, usually a woman, who is very friendly in a naked sort of way.

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August 9, 2013 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Traditional Danish sports: Big handballs and lonely ping-pong players

I just dropped my daughter off at handball practice today. Like many parents, I want my child to have a sport she can enjoy for a lifetime, and since we live in Denmark, her choices are Danish sports. Sports that a small country can excel in.

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m making fun of traditional Danish sports. The fact is,   Danish people make fun of my favorite sport, baseball.

This is because it’s similar to a Danish playground game, rundbold, which translates to ‘round ball.’ Round ball is a simple game and it’s played by very small children.

So, for Danes, a professional baseball game is like watching grown men play tag . . . or duck-duck-goose . . . wearing uniforms, in front of a stadium full of people. Danish people just can’t take that seriously.

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August 2, 2013 by
Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danish names: Why it’s bad to be Brian

Danish names strongly indicate the owner’s age group. Peter, or its variant Peder, used to be the most popular boy’s name in Denmark. To Danish children, Winnie-the-Pooh is “Peter Plys,” and Curious George is “Peder Pedal.”

But in 11 years living in Denmark, I have met precisely two “Peter”s under age 50, and none in my small daughter’s generation.

The trend for boys in her class is “M” names – Magnus, Marius, Mathias, Markus, Mikkel, or Malvin. And with globalization and the Disney Channel, no one bothers to rename cartoon characters any more. There is no Magnus Mouse.

Guess who you’ll be meeting

Danish first names are extremely generational, and cracking the code means you can pretty much guess who will be across the table from you in a business meeting or blind date without knowing anything else about them.

Ole/Finn

Ole/Finn

If the man you are meeting is named Flemming, Preben, Henning, or Bent, he is at retirement age or near it.

His wife, sisters or the lady-next-door-he-is-running-away-with will be named Bente or Birthe. His buddies are Ole or Finn.

Nobody involved knows what TikTok is.

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July 25, 2013 by
Danish summer
Stories about life in Denmark

Danish summer: Why you should run outside, now

When I first arrived in Denmark during the summer – summer 2000, for those who are counting – one of the things I immediately liked about it was that there was no air conditioning. I had spent the past ten years working in tower blocks in Manhattan, where you are hit by an icy blast of air as you enter on a sunny June day, and with an oven-like blanket of heat when you exit.

In Copenhagen, the summer air is the same inside as it is outside, except perhaps a bit stuffier, what with Danish ventilation technology being somewhat less advanced than Danish heating technology.

That summer of 2000 was a good education in Danish summers, since the sunny weather never actually turned up. In June, it was rainy and cold, and people told me it would probably get better in July.

In July, the weather was also poor, but the Danes told me you could generally count on August.

August came, grey and drizzling, and people started extolling the general glory of September.

And so on. I believe there was some sunshine around Christmas of that year.

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June 24, 2013 by
Stories about life in Denmark

Danish manners: Why everyone is laughing at you

This essay is from a series I wrote shortly after I arrived in Denmark. The line drawings are my own.

Danes like to see themselves as a relaxed, casual society that doesn’t put too much emphasis on formal manners.

That said, there are powerful unwritten rules about Danish manners that will earn you sullen, silent disapproval if you do not follow them.

For example, when sharing food with the Danes, you may not take the last item on any given plate.

You may take half of it, and it is quite entertaining to watch the last of a plate of delicious cookies be halved, and halved again, and then halved one last time, so there is only a tiny crumb left – which no one will take because it is the last item on the plate. Someone will gobble it guiltily later in the kitchen during clean-up.

Bring your own birthday cake
If it is your birthday, your friends or colleagues will congratulate you heartily, and celebrate by putting a Danish flag on your desk, regardless of what your actual nationality may be. They will not, however, be providing any sweets.

That’s your job, and it is considered good form to bring a cake or fruit tart for the after-lunch period. If your workplace is particularly busy, you can just announce by group email that the cake is in the kitchen for whenever anybody has time. There, each colleague can cut his or her own piece, carefully slicing the last bit into tinier and tinier halves so you will have a small, nearly transparent sliver to take home with you at the end of the day.

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May 13, 2013 by