Danish Stats & Oddities, Part I

Why bury the headline?  I learned the other day that 70% of Danish people cheat on their partners.  The same source also tells me 1 in 20 children are being raised by someone they think is their biological parent but is not.  Apparently a good portion of this extra-curricular activity takes place during the holidays, which the Danes celebrate with vigor.  Scheduling starts in October and you can expect to have multiple holiday meals with your friends, co-workers, and your family.  Office parties are notorious for a little fun on the side, should one be so inclined.  Supposedly Vegas got their saying from Danish office parties.

The Danes are the second tallest people in the world after the Dutch.  Men in the Netherlands stand an average (yes, average) of 6'2" while men in Denmark stand an average of 6' even.  American men in comparison stand an average of 5'9".  My bed, while a single, is the longest bed I've ever slept in.  And the toilets?  My feet don't touch the floor.  Its hard to be 5'4" in Denmark.  Don't even get me started on buying pants...

Speaking of toilets, many of them are co-ed.  In a small doctor's office where there is a single bathroom, this is, for an American, expected.  I was surprised, though, to find it the case on campus as well.  When you open the bathroom door, you enter a vestibule with sinks and  mirrors and several more doors.  Each inner door closes off its own room with a toilet, mirror, sink, and hand dryer.  Totally fine if you have this knowledge going in.  A little shocking if you think you've walked into the ladies' room only to see two guys primping in front of the mirror.

Men and their hair!  Men here can spend hours and whole bottles of hair product getting ready in the morning.  It must look like they care too much and not one bit, all at the same time.  Some guys wear it short, others a little longer, always neat.  By contrast, there is only one acceptable women's hair style in Denmark - up and sloppy.  Women don't use hair spray or curing irons or even blow driers it would seem.  And after a week of riding my bike through the city, I completely understand why.  Unless you have a short, shellacked do, its never going to stand up to the wind & rain you're likely to experience on your morning bike ride to work.

Ah, the bikes.  This will have to be a post all its own.  Or, more likely, a 12 part series.

Money.  The unit of currency is the Kroner, or crown.  There are 100 ore, or ears, in a kroner.  There are 50 ore coins as well as 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 kroner coins.  There are 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 kroner bills, each a different sized rectangle.  So how do I buy a box of cereal that costs 29.95 kr?  I have two options.  If I pay with coins, the amount is rounded up to 30 kr.  If I pay with a credit or debit card, the amount charged is exactly 29.95.  A little odd, yes, but think about gas signs in the US.  A gallon costs $3.89 and 9/10ths.

And taxes are included with all prices advertised.  If I'm in the supermarket and I see a box of tea for 17 kr, I know that's what I'm paying.  If I only have 100 kr on me, I can add all the items in my basket in my head and know I'm going to have enough cash.  Several of my classmates were stunned to learn this is not how it works in the US.  They all focused on one point - "So, you go to the store and the price on the shelf is not the price you pay?  How do you know they're not cheating you?"  I tried to explain that its all automated, it has to be considering each category of product can have its own tax rate.  But they still thought it was a complete scam.  And then a Canadian brought up paying less for things when you have cash vs. credit card, or negotiating price with smaller shops and that's when the Portuguese accountant's head exploded.

Weekends

I've only been here a little over a month, but I already have a typical weekend.  

Friday

Friday night found a group of us sitting on a classmate's boat chatting and having a few drinks.  Frank is a sailor and, rather than rent an apartment in town, he opted to buy a small boat and live in the harbor for the year.  I won't envy him when winter sets in.  We had burgers at the marina's restaurant.  They only had one burger option - it came with bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and some kind of special sauce.  The thing I found odd was that they didn't ask me how I wanted it done.  When I asked the waiter about this, he said they all come out medium.  His version of medium was pretty close to my version of well done.  My new phone was having navigation issues, so I waited until someone else was leaving so I could follow them back to school.  Biking from the harbor to campus took about 40 minutes.  I think I've spent more time on a bike in this last month than I have in the last 15 years.

Saturday

Saturday morning I made my way to the Forum, a convention center in city center.  For this weekend only it was hosting a sample sale.  Several designers had clothes & shoes at a serious discount.  

Even on sale, clothes are still pretty pricy unless I'm shopping at H&M.  Typical shirt ran about $40 and shoes started around $100.  Some of the stalls were selling used clothes & shoes, which seems to be a popular thing here in Denmark.  I stopped at a flea market last weekend and at least 60% of the booths were just used clothes & shoes.  It just wasn't the same without Mom.

I had taken the metro two stops East to the Forum because I was afraid I would buy more than would fit on my bike.  So when I stepped out of the metro after shopping with only one bag, I stopped into the Fotex, my favorite supermarket.  Stores are open in Copenhagen M-F 9-4 or, if you're lucky, 9-5 or 6.  They're open Saturday from roughly 10-2 or 4.  They're also open the last Sunday of the month and, as we approach the holidays, more and more Sundays in the month.  I was hosting brunch the next day, so I knew I needed to get my supplies on Saturday.

Sunday morning I cleaned & rearranged furniture so I could host our weekly brunch for the MBA students on the graduate floor of the building.  I made french toast, though I couldn't find maple syrup to save my life.  Turns out agave syrup works in a pinch.  Tetyana, from Russia, contributed cheeses - mozzarella and feta.  Gomathi, from India, made curry and home-made roti.  Clara, from Portugal brought a fruit salad she had made the day before.  Kris, from the UK, made bacon in his flat.  Iryna, from Canada, contributed the coffee, and Hrafn from Iceland brought the OJ.  Frank (of Frank's boat fame), from the Netherlands, was invited since he had been nice enough to host us on his boat.  He brought himself.

After brunch, a few of us biked to the football pitch (soccer field) where there has been a weekly pick-up game between current MBA students and a handful of alumni.  Iryna doesn't have a bike yet so she caught a ride on the back of Frank's.  She's heard a rumor there's a police auction where you can buy a bike for as little as $35.  She's going to check that out on Tuesday.

The football pitch is in the shadow of a stadium where the pros play.  I went in the hopes that someone would explain the rules to me, but it turns out they don't really play with rules, so those of us not playing served as the cheering section.

When the football match ended, most of us went back home to read for Monday's Management Accounting class.

Lost in Translation

I killed my US phone, so I am without a notepad, alarm clock, or camera for a while.  I thought I had a new phone on order, but it turns out Google Translate isn't as good as I thought it was and my Danish is....well, its not.  A Danish classmate was kind enough to hold my hand as I ordered it again on Saturday and it should arrive this week.  I think.  Danish classes begin in October, at which point I hope to finally figure out what I bought at the supermarket that I thought was milk but did not taste like milk.  And why everything labeled Appelsin tastes of orange.

Meanwhile we've had some really interesting classes.  Our year is divided into 6 terms of 2 months each.  Each term has 2 real classes.  We can have a class anywhere from 2 to 8 hours a day, depending upon the day.  No two weeks are the same.  The first four terms contain required classes and the last two are for our electives.  We have two additional classes span the whole year.  We may have two 8-hour days in a row of the same class and then not have it again for 4, 6, or 8 weeks.  Its...interesting.

One of the year-long classes is titled "Leadership Discovery Process", wherein we are supposed to discover our leadership style and how to inspire a generation.  Or something.  Its very Zen - "You lead people by first leading yourself" and not unlike a Tony Robbins seminar - "It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.".  This is what one classmate calls "The Fluffy Stuff", which I think is quite apt.  Most MBA programs teach hard skills like accounting and HR management, but at CBS its supplemented by soft skills like Cognitive Coaching and Crisis Psychology.  Last week we met in the park behind campus at the wee hours of the morning to work out as a group and this week we ran social experiments on the unsuspecting public.  Here's an embarassing little video we made yesterday.  I apologize, the sound is not synced to the video and disappears at times.  I think watching their faces is the best part anyway.

CBS social experiment

Crash Course

The school offers an optional "Crash Course" for those of us without a finance background.  Two 8-hour days of accounting and 2 days of microeconomics.  I won't lie, they were scary.  By the end of day 1, we all looked at eachother and silently asked "What have we done?".  One of my classmates asked me if it was worthwhile.  Truthfully, I won't really be able to tell until I've gotten far enough into the program to have a little perspective.  I can tell you that an Annual Report makes a lot more sense now.

An immediate pay off, however, was the camaraderie.  Thanks to Facebook, we all knew a little bit about eachother before we arrived in Denmark, but the crash courses served as the common enemy we united against.  And it didn't hurt that we had not one but two "Welcome to Denmark" parties before real classes started.

The class is incredibly diverse.  Out of 44 students, we have 23 different nations represented and over 40% of us are women, which is their largest percentage since the program started.  We have two lawyers, two MDs, a PhD, and most of us have one Master's degree already.  We even have one former ballet dancer and he's not shy about turning a pirouette.  The average age of the class is 34, but we have a couple as young as 26 and a few in their 40s.  The one thing we all have in common is a genuine interest in becoming not just better business people, but better leaders.  I'll talk more about the Leadership Discovery Process in another post, but its what sets our program apart and is the most cited reason for joining.  Its also cited by the companies that hire our alumni, so I guess they know what they're doing when they tell us we'll be spending 3 days camping in the Swedish woods but won't tell us why....

Won't you be my neighbor?

By the time I moved into my apartment, I felt like I had been through a Strong Man competition.  You want me to carry these suitcases up how many flights of stairs?  By the end I was actually grateful that the airlines had weight limits on luggage.  None of the places I stayed in Iceland or on my first night in Denmark had elevators and all were several floors up.  And in Europe they number their floors differently.  The first floor is the first one you have to climb stairs to reach.  So when my host said "I'm on the 4th floor", she really meant 5 flights up.  Oy.

Despite the jet lag, the long flights, and the exhaustion, I just had to explore Copenhagen as soon as I dropped off my luggage.  My first task was finding food.  Schwarma is king in Copenhagen and nearly every hole-in-the-wall restaurant sells them.  Being very fond of Mexican, I stopped at the first place I found that advertised tacos.  It happened to be a Lebanese restaurant that also sold pizza, schwarma, and traditional Lebanese food.  It could have been the jet lag, but that was one of the tastiest tacos I've ever had.

I wandered through the cemetery near the apartment I was staying in and found Niels Bohr, Soren Kirkegaard, and this guy, famous for his mermaid:

While wandering through the cemetery/park, I heard loud cheering so walked around until I found the source:

 World Cup of street soccer (or so they told me).

Whenever the crowd grew quiet, I could hear music, so I headed towards it and found this:

 And this:

 And this guy rocking an accordian:

 Street fair!

I ate my way through the street fair and when it ended I found myself on the canals, or the "lakes" as they call them here.

Seriously?  I live here?  Yeah, I can do this.

Iceland Part 2

I had originally planned to visit the Blue Lagoon on my second day in Iceland, but since it was dreary in the morning and the lagoon is outdoors, I opted to head into town first and hop a bus to the lagoon in the afternoon.  My first stop was the tallest building in Iceland - this church.  For $2 you can take an elevator to the top and peer out the slits in the steeple.

 A statue of Leifer Eiriksson stands in front. He discovered America roughly 600 years before Columbus. The U.S. gave them this statue in 1930 as a thank you.

Views of Reykjavik and the harbor beyond:

I did some shopping around town.  I noticed two items local shop owners were particularly proud of: silver jewelry made with lava rocks from the volcanos and leather made from fish skin.  I really, really wanted a fish leather purse, but the technology is fairly new and the items were out of my price range.

I walked around town quite a bit and really enjoyed the Nordic design aesthetic, both in the buildings and in the items for sale. Unfortunately I somehow lost the pictures of the flea market I ran into.  Also much to my chagrin, I missed the last bus to the Blue Lagoon.  Apparently I haven't really been to Iceland because I haven't been to the lagoon.  I'll make sure to get there on my next layover.

 View from the plane as we left Iceland.  You can see a glacier in the bottom right-hand corner and the black sand beaches along the top:

Reykjavik was funky and amazing and I would definitely go back for a visit.

Iceland Part I

A 14-hour excursion may not have been the best idea the day after a long flight, while battling jet lag.  Fortunately I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to take in some really amazing sights in Iceland.

Friday was an all-day "Golden Circle" bus tour.  Our tour guide rocked, which always helps.  This was our view on the way to our first stop:

First stop was a set of hot springs.  No, we didn't take a dip.  There are natural hot springs all over the country and the Icelanders harness the energy and use it to power their towns as well as to provide hot water for showers and kitchens.  

This is a pipeline that carries hot spring water several miles to a town so people can use it for showers, etc.  I asked the guide (who spoke English quite well) to confirm several times.  I just couldn't believe that the water could travel such a long distance and retain enough heat to be useful.

Next stop was a national park.  Beautiful waterfalls, both large and small.  In this particular location, the water just seemed to stream out of the rocks.

Our next stop was the glacier.  It took quite a long time to get there, so I got to take a nap.  The pic below is of a glacier, not our glacier.  But our glacier was not so picturesque, so you get this one.

 The landscape changed drastically as we climbed.  The guide told us it was unusual to see so much run-off from the glacier that it created streams.  Global warming at work.

Watching out the window, I could have sworn I was on Mars.  Nothing grew except some particularly tenacious patches of moss.  

 We finally made it to the edge of the glacier:

This was the tiny outpost at the edge of the glacier.  Occasionally its used as a research base for teams that travel out onto the glacier to collect data.

 This was the beast we climbed into to drive out onto the ice.  Our guide and his father had bought a missle-carrier and spent 18 months converting it into a passenger vehicle that they use to deliver us to the top of the glacier.  The tubing connected to the tires allows them to change tire pressure on the fly.

The ice.

 The black rocks were remnants of the volcano explosion that happened 2 years ago - the one that disrupted air traffic across Europe for several days.

We were told that the snow that fell at the end of last winter had finally melted off and this was the first week you could see the blue ice.  They were very excited about the blue ice.  We nodded and smiled.  Yes, very pretty.  Can we move on now, its getting chilly.

On the way to the top of the glacier we stopped to pick up the Snowcat that our guide and his dad had left up there.  Some of us were lucky enough to get to ride inside.  

 There was a point in our drive where we passed a rainbow.  We passed it again in the same place on the way back down.  We were told its there more often than not.

We stopped at the top to "drink 400-year old water".  Tasted like the stuff that comes out of the tap, but we didn't tell them that.

Coming down off the glacier:

 Our  next stop was another national park.  This one contained the continental divide.  To take this picture, I'm standing on the edge of the North American plate.  There's a miles-wide valley between it and the edge of the EurAsian plate across the park. The edge of the plate crumbles and falls off as it moves.  Looking right:

Looking left:

 Next stop was a geyser park. I've never seen one in person, so I thought this was pretty spiffy.

 Our last stop of the day was Gullfoss Waterfall.  It drops far below what you can see in this picture, because I'm standing away from the edge.  We were able to walk on a trail on the left and follow it right out onto the rocky outcropping that juts out into the falls on the left.  Like all the other places we'd visited that day, there were very few safety measures - just a warning sign here or a little rope there.  I thought of Mr. Pellegrino as I was leaning over the string barrier to get a better picture.

The quality of the pictures deteriorates here at the end of the trip 1) because it was raining again as it had off and on all day and 2) it was approaching 9 pm.  Dusk lasted nearly 2 hours up here near the Arctic Circle.  Its hard to explain the quality of the light, but it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced in Massachusetts.  Thus ended Day 1 in Iceland.