Winter arrived in Copenhagen at last

Today, we had our first snow for this year. To be quite honest I didn’t believe that Copenhagen will see snow this year and I guess that the concept of “snow� here is as far from the Swiss concept of “snow� as good Italian ice-cream from a strawberry slush. Anyways, we have snow for this half an hour and it is nice to see buildings and streets snow glazed.

Update:

Winter stayed for more than half an hour this year. The snow is still here and we have nice cold temperatures so that it stays. Snow glazed Copenhagen in the sun is really beautiful!

Living in Copenhagen

After having lived in Denmark for quite a while now, I figure it is time to come up with some general comments on life here in Copenhagen.

Generally speaking life here is very good. Denmark is very convenient in practical terms – meaning you don’t necessarily have to speak the langue to get around – and people are nice, friendly and very helpful.

The country is beautiful and Copenhagen is gorgeous, as long as you travel here in summer (during the winter months it can be a bit tough to deal with the darkness and the intense rain). What I really love about Copenhagen is the fact that, as “Europe’s biggest village�, it offers a unique mix of metropolitan like cultural events, museums and lifestyle combined with short distances (you can reach everything by foot or bike), nice neighborhoods and general “small town flair�. Not easy to describe, best to experience in person.

But once you made it here, where to start? Well, the main attractions from the Little Mermaid to the old city center of Copenhagen have been described in hundreds of guide books. In more practical terms, a very good resource for finding your way around is the “Moron Abroadâ€? and especially his introduction page for US citizens (even if you are not from the US). I recommend that you do take his advice serious. I can confirm that especially the bikers can be dangerous and quite aggressive. Two days ago I observed a biker getting mad at a car being in his way on a bike path. The biker braked, started shouting at the car, took his foot up and gave the car several hard kicks in the trunk before continuing his ride. This might be an extreme example, but consider yourself warned 🙂

Also worth a look is the Copenhagen Post, an English weekly newspaper and then, for professionals, the ExpatNet which helps expats with offerings from jobs to housing and networking.

No smoking in Danish trains anymore – German government loves big tobacco?

Finally it is forbidden to smoke in Danish trains. After having lived in the nearly smoking free New York for quite some time, coming back to Europe was a bit of a shock in terms of non-smoker protection policies.

Even though the situation has gotten a bit better over the last years, many Europeans still can’t imagine to live without smoking. Especially bad is Germany: Even though an anti-smoking law was in discussion for a long time ,the government bailed out at the last moment, claiming that it isn’t empowered to pass effective anti-smoking legislation. At least smoking in trains will be forbidden at some point in the future in Germany, too. I think this kind of weak legislation will keep Germany where it currently is: in the shameful third place on the list of European countries with the most number of smokers in the population.