I’ve been in Copenhagen since last Friday (This is day 5).  The first few days were spent out in the suburbs where the CrossFit European Regional was being held then Tim and I moved into the absolute center of Copenhagen to the Radisson Blu hotel overlooking the Central Train Station and Tivoli Gardens (a 100 year old amusement park).  This is a fantastic walking city so we’ve spent the past couple of days exploring the city insofar as we could reach it on foot.

One obvious feature that both Tim and I noticed almost immediately is the amount of energy that has gone into making this a bicycle and pedestrian friendly city.  Walk two blocks from the hotel and you enter a massive pedestrian only zone with shops and restaurants of all kinds.  Busy during the day, thronging with people in the afternoons and evenings, the abundance of social interaction that takes place here dwarfs anything we have in America.

villavinoYesterday afternoon we needed something to eat.  We didn’t want to do a full-on meal so we ducked off of the main shopping street down one of the alluring little side streets; many of which are lined with cafes, outdoor table and umbrellas for the climatically acculturated  Danes, and indoor tables for the rest of us.  Because EVERYONE here speaks fluent English we were able to negotiate a plate of cheeses and meats along with a glass of wine and a beer and sat inside this perfectly delightful little restaurant for the better part of an hour just chatting and enjoying our snack.  Looking around there were dozens of other people, mostly couples or groups no bigger than 4, all socializing.  Quietly socializing.  No tables of screeching women (sorry girls but you can be really loud), no screaming babies, just a polite hum with soft background music. It was so obviously pleasant and relaxing that we both noticed and commented about it. I can’t remember when I sat in a similar place in America where there wasn’t at least one table of “I want everyone in the restaurant to hear what I’m saying because I am so important” group ruining the ambiance for everybody.  It would appear that the Danes just know how to be polite.

Everywhere we went; shops and open air markets, restaurants, here in our hotel, I can’t think of a single person that hasn’t been polite and gracious to us.  Don’t get me wrong; it’s freezing outside and threatening to rain, right now sunrise is around 4:30am and sunset is around 9:30pm so the days are horrendously long but that is deceptive because it’s still heavy jacket weather, and in the winter I know the days are inversely short and far colder.  I remember many years ago walking the streets of Copenhagen and came across a group of people drinking beer and just hanging out.  When they urinated in the gutter it froze on the spot so there were miniature glaciers of frozen urine surrounding them.  As nice as everything else is here that is simply too cold for my tastes, but even the street people were polite.  Climatically speaking this is far from ideal, especially for somebody born and rained in California.  But the Danes have their act together big time.

If you want to go to College in Denmark the Government pays you to go.  That includes Medical and Graduate School.  Health Care is free and highly rated and far less expensive than in America (11% of the GDP vs 18%). The Youth unemployment rate in Denmark is the lowest in Europe and nobody, NOBODY is allowed to be poor.

Looking out of our 10th floor window there are cranes everywhere which suggests a city with booming growth; there are a lot of positives about a country like this.  Yes they pay high taxes but the gap between the rich and the poor is far smaller than ours, it is still possible to get wealthy here which has been proven countless times by the wealthy Danish people, and what you spend in taxes you get back in services and quality of life.  It doesn’t hurt that there’s only 5 million people in this country, they have enormous oil reserves in the North Sea, but they are smart enough to have a plan to produce 50% of their electricity with wind by 2020 and by 2050 they will be 100% off of oil and gas for energy.

I could complain about the $50 cocktails that I have had.  Yes, that’s what I said.  $50.  First I order a Vodka & Orange Juice and then when they pull out the thimble that they call a measured shot I just keep telling them to keep adding thimble-full after thimble full until it resembles a normal cocktail.  That ends up costing $50.  Suffice it say that it would be very expensive to become an alcoholic here, at least if you tried to do it in a hotel bar.  I have run into this phenomenon in Europe before so it didn’t really shock me.  It was almost impossible to find a decent hotel in Central Copenhagen and I also know how big a scandinavian hotel room can be so unless you want to run into yourself when you turn around, you pretty much need something resembling a Suite.  I won’t even say how much that costs but if you can spend $50 on a drink, you can imagine what a decent hotel room costs.

Fortunately the Danes use their own currency, the Kroner.  It sounds like monopoly money and it looks like monopoly money so the secret is to just get a lot of it out of an ATM and then absolutely do not attempt to do the conversion when you buy anything.  If you do it will just depress you and diminish the experience.  Just accept that a quality of life this high requires a great deal of money to fund it and move on from there.  We’re only here for a few days so it’s not going to break the bank.

But beyond the extremely high standard of living, the clean but bustling city, high speed internet that is actually high speed, the ability to walk to just about anything you could possibly need and if not, a quick cab ride, there was one other discovery we made somewhat by accident that pretty much proves that the Danes are an advanced culture far beyond anything we have in the USA and it’s in the photo below.

We saw these posters everywhere we walked yesterday and we were all over the center of the City.  In fact, there were other posters everywhere because apparently there is an election coming up. Since we don’t understand the language we just assumed this was an ad for some gay leather party or bar or upcoming event of some kind.  Even though you can clearly see part of his penis, it’s common knowledge that most europeans don’t pretend to be shocked when they discover that men have penises and women have vaginas.  Back home this would be porn, over here it could be a soap commercial.  But this poster is a political advertisement.  danepol

Yes, this 52 year old Danish Politician figured that he would outgun his competition by not only wearing a gun, but by showing just how big of a weapon he was naturally equipped with. This would suggest that here in Denmark people live in a culture where they are not obsessed with somebody’s clothing or lack thereof and they might even possibly vote for somebody based on his body and how well he’s endowed.  Initially you might think that this is shallow and could only lead to disaster but then think about what criteria we use to vote for our politicians.  They pretend to be religious, they pretend to be monogamous, they pretend to be honest, and we sure as hell wouldn’t want to see them naked although that politician from New York who was unfortunately named Weiner did actually have a decent body, he just shouldn’t have been texting it to his female aides.  Maybe he should move his weiner to Denmark where he/it could be appreciated.

We’re headed to Holland shortly to spend a week with some friends of ours that live in one of those beautiful old Canal homes.  I’ll post some pics once we get settled in.  I believe the Dutch to also have their shit together in so many ways superior our culture but, again, they are dealing with a fraction of the people we have. I think it’s sate to say that we  have more morons in our Country than their entire population.

Greetings from Europe.

June 2, 2015

Joe Jeter