How to Live in Denmark

A story I’ve heard over and over again when I talk to internationals working in Denmark is this: They thought they were going to get fired. They’d been working for a year or so at professional-level job in Denmark, often one they’d been recruited for, but they’d never heard any positive comments from their manager. They started to worry. They were doing their best, but mayb

Denmark’s doing a big recruitment campaign now, trying to get young professionals to bring their skills to Denmark, and a lot of them are single when they arrive. If they want to meet someone and don’t meet someone, and if they want a serious relationship and a family but can’t get started, they often go home again. So, in the name of economic development, here are my tips on

Many internationals newly arrived in Denmark struggle with the long Danish winter. The darkness that starts to fall in the early afternoon means that 5pm looks just like 8pm, which looks just like midnight, which looks just like 5am. Dense, inky black sky. During the daytime there’s a dim grey light, sometimes accompanied by a soupy fog of tiny raindrops. It’s tough to handle

It’s almost Week 1, in the weekly numbering system that’s widely used in Northern Europe, where the year starts with week 1 and runs through to Week 52 or 53, depending on the calendar. It’s very efficient for planning, so you don’t have to say something messy like “What about that week that starts Monday June 3…” Week 1 starts on January 1, and everything follows tha

If you are an international who lives in Denmark, or someone who wants to, you have to learn the Danish way of dealing with conflict. This might be with a colleague, or your upstairs neighbors, or the authorities at the commune. In these cases, it’s very important not to lose your temper or raise your voice. And this can be tricky if the culture you come from, your culture of ori

Denmark is getting rich selling pharmaceuticals to other countries, but within Denmark itself, the approach is inconsistent. Getting illegal drugs doesn't seem to be too difficult, but getting legal drugs from your doctor can be.

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

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 fi

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 th

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 me