The differences of Denmark and England
The biggest cultural differences from Denmark and England.
The CIFF tradeshow takes place in Copenhagen in August and the lovely team from Emslie Creative are attending. My boss, Amber, asked me for some advice on what to do and where to eat in Copenhagen and that had me thinking what were the biggest differences from Denmark and Copenhagen. It is no secret that I am from a relatively small town with 25,000 inhabitants, so when I decided to finally move to a bigger city, I would have never dreamed about moving to London. I always thought I would move to a place where my friends where, but when I got the opportunity to move to London, it was just too good to turn down. My first week here definitely had me second questioning my decision. I needed to learn to look to the other side of the road before crossing and I had at least 3 near death experiences, before I fully learned my lesson. Even though I have been driving for around 5 years, I still wouldn’t be comfortable driving a car here in fear of driving in the wrong side of the road.
London is also such a multicultural city with lots of different people and different accents and during my first time here, I sometimes found myself having a hard time understanding what people where actually saying and I cannot even count how many times I have just laughed and nodded and hoped that I was not being asked a question. In time, you learn to understand and quickly adjust to the different accents, which I now really appreciate and I love listening to on the tube and on the streets. In Denmark, it is very uncommon calling people “darling” and “sweetie” and it is actually unheard of and never happened to me before, but here in London I get called these nice words just ordering a cup of coffee and to be honest, I really enjoy this part of the culture here. I definitely think that the Danes can learn a lot from the English culture with this kindness and openness. I was also very shocked the first time I was eating my lunch at Wooleys alone, which we never do in Denmark either, and a complete stranger walked up to me asking if he could join me. We ended up talking for 30 minutes and both him and I had a great lunch discussing random topics that came to both of our minds. The Danes also have this word called “hygge” and the definition is simply a term that we use for enjoying life’s simple pleasures, such as friends, family and graciousness and this is something I believe that especially the London people can learn and benefit from. The Londoner’s are some of the busiest and most stressed people in the world and they could really use some nights to just hygge, relax and breathe with a good movie and a blanket.
The architecture in London is simply beautiful and I enjoy just walking down all the different streets and looking at the buildings. Most of them are old and gorgeous, which gives the city a different vibe than every other city I have been in. The buildings here are, first of all, much taller than in Denmark and there’s so many of them, which is one thing that I miss about Denmark. In Denmark, we have a lot of open space, so it can all be a bit too much for me here. I do miss being able to go to the forest within 10 minutes and just take a long walk with my dog (which I also miss).
Another thing that is extremely cool here, is the different areas that London offers. I can go on the tube and go 15 minutes in two different directions and I will most likely end up in two completely different areas. This really makes me love London in a way that I will never love Denmark, simply because it all looks kind of a like, unless you drive to Copenhagen, which is a bit different from the rest. I love that in one day, I can visit Kensington, which is one of the more expensive areas of London and then travel on the tube and be in Camden within 25 minutes, which is a completely different area that is way more chilled and relaxed, where most of the people are just enjoying life.
