Sames and Differents

I’ve been here in Copenhagen for two-and-a-half weeks now. I have a local cell phone. I’ve climbed two church spires to get nice views of the city. I’ve stolen things while drunk (at the time, I thought I really needed that lantern). In short, I’ve fully assimilated as a local and am now thoroughly qualified to speak on locals, tourists, and the cultural differences between here and home.

Before coming here, the only encounter I’d had with anything that could be called “Danish” involved pastries. Based on that, I had expected Danes to be doughy and flaky, but sweet. They are sweet – just about the nicest people I’ve ever met, besides Scottish – but the doughy and flaky things proved way off. For one thing, there are no fat people here. Well, there are, but they’re tourists (USA! USA! USA!). I’ve never seen so many bicycles in one city before. And yesterday – I’m actually serious about this – I saw three people using unicycles for transportation. And as for flaky, let me just say: all the Danes I’ve met speak at least 2 languages. On the other hand, guess the nationality of the person who thought Los Angeles was the capital of the United States… I’ll give you a hint: she’ll (disturbingly) be able to vote for our next president.

The Danes aren’t entirely superior, though. They smoke. A lot. A whole fuckin’ lot. They drink a lot, too, though the presence of the aforementioned lantern in my room prevents me from criticizing too harshly.

Ever since I got my cell phone, I’ve felt entitled to look down on other tourists. Actually, I only look down on the ones who walk right in front of me while I’m obviously trying to take pictures. Strangely, tourists in Seattle never bother me. Once I get into another country, though, the bile starts spewing forth. I guess it’s because I know they, on some level, represent me (both as “Americans” and as “Jackasses With Cameras”). Honestly, though, if you were this guy:

Wouldn’t you hate these people?
And my concern is that this poor guard’s dislike of the plaid-wearers will translate into a dislike of me.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’d just like to list (with photographic accompaniment) a few things I’ve noticed that are different here than home.

On the surface, it looks like this might be America with the Burger King and 7-11.
But look closer: How much is their “nice price meal?”
That works out to US$7.25. And for everyone who complains about the price of Starbucks: there’s only one Starbucks in Copenhagen (it’s in the airport). I didn’t buy anything, but I did look at the prices. A caramel macchiato here is $7.50. I don’t think I’ll ever complain about coffee prices again once I get home. While I’m on that subject, I’ll never complain about Washington’s 8% sales tax, either. Here? 25%.

Back to fast food: the price isn’t the only difference.
Something else we don’t have in the States: McExpress. Thank God. I’ve always said the problem with McDonald’s is that they’re too slow.

There have been fairly widespread demonstrations across the city because of a recent forced closure of a youth center (would that ever spark weeks of riots in the US?), so the police have been out in full force. I came across a group of them presumably on break. I know resting police officers in the US enjoy snacking on donuts – I know this to be true because all stereotypes I cling to are accurate – so imagine my surprise when I saw:
Danish police don’t eat donuts; they eat ice cream bars. Sorry the photo doesn't demonstrate it well - I don't know if it's legal to photograph police here, so I was trying to be subtle about it - but all five of them had ice cream bars.

And, being me, I need to go out on a sophomoric note which references back to my first post. And let me assure both of the people reading this that this will be my last breast-related humor (unless something else truly hilarious comes up). I thought the topless Little Mermaid was the funny, but I was wrong. May I present to you all: the official Funniest Statue in Denmark:
On that note, I’ll leave. I’ll be writing something else again soon, though. I’ve actually be doing a lot (lots of stuff to write about, very little time to write), so I’ll make my next post – tentatively titled “Culture, History, and, You Know, Whatever” – in the next few days.