Expeditions / Trips Cape 2 Cape Diary / Updates Into Denmark
Friday, 16 April 2010 12:37 Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 May 2010 10:22
We took the Roddby-Puttgarden ferry into Denmark from Germany and while browsing the ferry's shops we already got our first glimpse of Scandinavian prices. We knew Denmark, Sweden and Norway would be really expensive, so we planned to couchsurf wherever we could. For us, we always pictured these countries as similar to Switzerland, but with an even higher standard of perfectionism, high quality and cleanliness. Much to our surprise, however, Denmark felt less well kept than Germany and more "normal", you could even see garbage lying around here and there. It was still super expensive, as we found out when the cheapest bread we could buy at the supermarket came to R25! We had read in the Lonely Planet Copenhagen before that the city's architecture was renowned for its clean lines and cutting edge design. This was not our impression when we entered the city, all we could see were rows upon rows of face brick buildings, every building identical to the other. Our couchsurfing host, Tune, lived in one of these and he let us park the bike in the apartment's courtyard. Tune lives up to his name, as he is a piano-playing prodigy and loves music (on our last morning there, he played the piano for us and I've never heard anyone that's not on TV play like that). He was studying and working in the evenings, but gave us the key and made us feel at home.
The next day, we walked into the center of Copenhagen, where the architecture started to live up to its description. One thing that impressed us was how many cyclists there were and how good the cycling lanes was. Also, despite Denmark's bad reputation for being xenophobic, thanks to a Danish cartoonist's depiction of Mohammad that was published in newspapers all over Europe, there was no shortage of immigrants from the Middle East in Copenhagen. On every street you could find shops named "Jerusalem Fruit & Veg" or "Amman Kebab". When we arrived in the city center, the streets were crowded with people waving little Denmark flags and policemen. Something was going on and we soon found out that the occasion was their Queen's 70th birthday. We joined the crowd waiting next to the road towards the palace, got handed our own Denmark flags and waited for the arrival of Her Majesty. Proceeded by horse riders playing trumpets, she finally arrived in a carriage and waved at everyone. We didn't enter any of Copenhagen's museums, but I think seeing the Queen is definitely a sight not many tourists ever get to see! All in all we walked about 15km and arrived home tired and hungry.
There were a couple of facts about Denmark we found interesting. According to Wikipedia, the Danish is rated as the world's happiest people. They certainly seemed very friendly and laid-back. Their government also takes very good care of its citizens, they get free, high quality health care, free university education and many other benefits, but that off course against the price of paying very high income taxes. The mentality of the people here are also much different from what we are used to. They seem to be happy in their jobs and trusting one another and the system. For the first time in our lives, we used a self service supermarket! Imagine this working in South Africa - you collect your groceries, then walk to the (unmanned) till, scan every item yourself, then swipe your card or insert money into the machine and walk off. It works in Denmark...
We were looking forward to eating the famous Danish ice cream - Häagen-Dazs, but when we asked Tune about it, he told us that Häagen-Dazs is not Danish, the name sounds Dutch to him. After googling it, we found out that Häagen-Dazs is actually American in origin, but uses foreign branding so that its name looks Danish to the non-Scandinavian eye! They apparently even used to print the names of the capitals - Oslo; Stockholm; Copenhagen on the label to give people the impression that that this is Scandinavian quality ice cream. It definitely fooled us!
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