Getting Comfy

Dear Friends and Family,

In my last post, I told you all about starting out in a new country (yes, I did it again). Setting up one’s life is an exhausting activity. Not only did I have to run after my legal status in Denmark. I also had to furnish an empty flat, find places and people to pursue my hobbies with, and – not to forget – start working on a new job.

The culmination of my internship: Christmas lights made from my company’s products.

As you’d expect, there wasn’t much time to just lie back and enjoy the wonderful things happening to me. But this changed drastically after the Christmas Break. Following a lot of exploration, it was not time for some exploitation. For the second leg of my internship in Copenhagen, I made sure to live every moment to the fullest. A quality that’s widely popular in Denmark.

Hygge

You might have heard of it. The buzzword Hygge is every lifestyle magazine’s way of telling you that your life is too stressful while the Danes have figured it out. But what exactly does it mean? I find the literal translation as “coziness” does not quite live up to the many aspects of a hyggelig life. Instead of a simple definition, I’d rather provide you with a bunch of examples. So, Hygge to me is…

… trying to replicate my favorite cookie recipe from mommy.

… playing board games with my gf’s parents on Sundays.

… or cooking a nice meal for my friends and family.

Maybe it simply means to take the time to really enjoy something.

So, next time your favorite magazine tries to sell you the Danish lifestyle in the form of a product, don’t buy into it. Hygge is not for sale, but actually free to everyone everywhere.

Danish

Now that you already got me started on Danish words, let me dwell on this wonderful language for a bit. Depending on your stylistic preferences, Danish is either the ugly sister of Swedish or – as I see it – its sober brother. While the Swedes intone their melodic language as if they were singing (think of ABBA), the Danes keep to mumbling their atonal phrases (think of trying to argue after too many beers). My girlfriend refers to this as “speaking with a hot potato in your mouth”. Unsurprisingly, steaming hot potatoes have a long tradition on Danish dinner plates…

An advertisment in Danish: How much can you understand?

After having my mouth burned a bunch of times, I decided to sign up for language school. There, I learned about fascinating peculiarities like the Glottal Stop and how to pronounce Danish words when food is out of reach.

To keep it brief: it’s hard. Equipped with an aggressive German tongue, words like snegl (say ‘snayl’, “snail”) and kærlighed (say ‘kerlihel’, “love”) require unfamiliar finesse with “g” and “d”. Danish is just like a French kiss: you gotta have a skilled tongue.

To make matters worse, some of the words don’t mean what you’d think. A time is simply an ‘hour’, brygge doesn’t translate to “bridge” but “quay”, and ost isn’t the eastern direction on your compass but the word for “cheese”.

Life during lockdown

While I was able to enjoy some physical classes at first, Denmark pulled the plug on public life at some point in winter. This meant home-schooling, home-office, and suddenly having a lot of time at hand.

Can’t think of a better symbol for the lockdown than the frozen canal through the city.

Luckily, I didn’t have to move my beloved hobbies to the digital world. Tennis was still possible – thanks to the creativity of my buddy Enrico. With the clay courts in hibernation and the indoor facilities closed due to Corona, we sought refuge with the neighboring football club. All we needed was a calm corner on their huge field and one of their goals abused as a tennis net. Who says tennis is a materialistic sport only for the rich?

For my other passion of surfing, this second lockdown came in quite handy. When you have to work remotely, why not just work from very far away (as in: next to the best waves of Denmark)? And that’s exactly what Sofie and I did. We borrowed her dad’s (super sleek) car, threw our work gear in the trunk, and drove the 4.5 hours to the west coast. In Cold Hawaii, we spent a wonderful week of productive working, daily surfing, and occasional bubble bathing. Thanks to my Danish friend and surf forecasting guru, Anders, we were always sure to find the best peaks.

No wind, no waves. That’s the bitter reality in Denmark. And the wind blows strongest during winter. So, good surf is typically served cold. For our week in Cold Hawaii, this translated to air temperatures as low as -8°C. Occasionally multiplied by the chill factor of a snowstorm.

Cold-water surfing is a materialistic sport.

Well, luckily the water temperature can’t drop that low, right? At least, that’s what I was taught in school. Turns out my physics teacher didn’t tell me the whole truth. Adding salt to the water can lower its freezing point down to -21°C! No wonder, my feet were frozen stiff after every session…

Bitterly cold, but crazy beautiful: Hanstholm in the early morning.

Even when we surfed under the setting sun until darkness, it would still be as early as 4 pm. Being locked down during a Danish winter means you are in for looooong evenings. Our favorite way to spend them was TV dinner with some nice series. My recommendations to get you hooked on Nordic shows: the crime series Bron (“The Bridge”) and Borgen about Danish politics.

My favorite Danish snack: rugbrød with a slice of cheese and a drop of jam.

And that was more or less it. My year of 2021 began with a daily repetition work, tennis/surf, and TV series. Only when March came around did this merry loop come to a halt, as my internship was about to end.

6 wonderful months had passed in what felt like a matter of weeks. No way, I could just pack my bags and go back to my old life in Switzerland. This has to continue! And I am most happy to tell you that it will. As of May 2021, I will be writing my Master’s thesis in Copenhagen. Another adventure you will surely hear more about…

PS: Denmark was very successful in their vaccination campaign and has lifted most restrictions. It is now very easy to enter the country and come visit me :)

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