Denmark

                       

I've recently got back from a short work trip to Denmark, which is the first of my new countries to visit. I was sent out there by the company to train the new employees in the Copenhagen office we've just bought on using our systems and generally to be charming and make them feel welcome. They, of course, were the ones who ended up making me feel welcome. And really so did all of the Danes.

Now I'm not terribly used to going to places where I don't speak the language. Having been brought up by a Spanish mother and having learnt French and German at school, it feels like it's not often I don't get to use those - that or I'm in an English speaking country anyway. Even visiting Italy I understand the majority of basic conversation through speaking Spanish, it's only when I open my mouth that I'm found out (although I think we can all agree that the phrase "un gelato fragola per favore" which was the first Italian I ever learnt aged 5 will pretty much see you through).

Danish is a funny old language. When I asked my colleagues there they told me it's a Germanic language that shares a lot in common with Swedish and Norwegian. It makes sense, and also explains why I can guess the meaning of a few words that look a bit German when written down, but can't make head or tail of spoken conversation. Even that's not terribly helpful as the bulk of written Danish I see is the instructions on the tax authorities' website or on invoices, and my favourite of those is still the name of the energy provider 'Dong Energy' which makes me laugh like a 12 year old every single time. In the hurried preparation for this trip I'd only managed to make time for learning the words hi (hej), yes (ja), no (nej), and thank you (tak), so I spent the trip being extra polite and smiley to make up for my ignorance. 

I needn't have worried. The Danes I interacted with were lovely, reserved but welcoming and with a dry sense of humour. Though I was mainly there on business, I found myself some time to go exploring on Friday evening, which involved a walk into town to see some of the area around the city hall (including some geeking-out over the city hall building itself after far too much time spent watching The Killing). I then wandered over to Tivoli Gardens for the rest of the evening to explore it in all its Halloween-decorated splendour. I fell a little bit in love...

The gardens house a large number of stalls, restaurants, fairground games and rides, as well as an aquarium and various other attractions. At the moment they're covered in pumpkins, giant spiders and cobwebs for Halloween (I assume it wasn't just a lack of cleaners) and they have performances on the main open air stage in the evenings, with a light show at the end of the night. I spent a wonderfully relaxed evening exploring all the areas of the gardens with a cup of Gluhwein in one hand and my camera phone in the other and marvelled at the world's tallest carousel as it spun its riders around and around, 80 metres above the night-lit city. 

By about 10pm it had started to rain and I decided that I'd prefer to walk the 20 minutes back to my hotel than wait in the rain for the light show. When I got back I thought I'd treat myself to a Cosmopolitan at the lobby bar while I dried off, and while sat flicking through my photos of the evening I got chatting to a couple of guys from Norway. It transpired that they'd both been en route to Norway and their connecting flight at Copenhagen had been cancelled, so they'd had to stay at the hotel. One was a student on his way back from holiday in Madrid and the other a helicopter pilot heading home from working for several months in Greenland. A number of hours and several stories of travel, DIY house building and polar bear attacks later, we eventually headed to our separate rooms at 2am, setting our respective alarms for 7am taxis to the airport - though only once I was satisfied I'd persuaded the pilot that his British TV references of 'Mr Bean', 'Keeping up Appearances' and 'Embarrassing Bodies' were not giving him a representative view of the Brits as a population.

30 Things Stats:

Number: 18 - Visit 30 countries before 30

Completion Status: 23/30 countries completed

Summary: Copenhagen's gorgeous. I will definitely be going back to eat some smorrebrod and go on the carousel. Now excuse me while I go and find the first series of Borgen to watch and reminisce.