A short list of things that are different in Denmark

I compiled this short list for my friend Marika’s documentary on young people living abroad. The things are pretty trivial, but what can you expect when you compare Finland to Denmark.

  • Tap water tastes very bad. I’m told it’s because it has so much calcium in it. Judging from the light gray build-up in our water-heater, there certainly seems to be a lot of something in the water.

  • ATMs often have their numbers in the opposite order, so that the top line reads 7-8-9. This is confusing because many people type in their PIN codes using spatial memory. (Quick! Can you remember your PIN code�”without visualizing or wiggling your fingers?)

  • Actually, a lot of things are opposites. Doors open inwards. Keys turn counter-clockwise. Light switches are flipped down, not up.

  • They have more books in Urdu in the library than English ones. First this scared the pants off me�”not that there were a lot of Urdu books, but the thought that I might run out of books to read.

  • The beer’s cheap. The cheapest bottle of beer that I found in the stores (yes, that’s what I drank) was about 0,27 euros (not counting the deposit on the bottle). Oh, and the green beer bottles are much nicer than the clumsy Finnish brown ones.

  • You can smoke everywhere. At least almost. In every bar and every cafe. On local trains (the first compartment of every carriage is a smoking area). The central train station. Apartment building hallways. People even smoked inside at the two schools I’ve visited. And yes, Elexa and I smoke inside at home.

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