10 Things the Danes Are Born With...?

Ten Things I'm Convinced The Danes are Born With...

1. An amazing immune system

Naturally, being true to myself, I've come down with a cold. The gross kind where I'm constantly sniffling, sneezing, and struggling to breath through my nose. First of all, I see no boxes of tissues... anywhere. Luckily for me, I had this same congestion when I left the US and so I had a spare pack of travel tissues. A life saver for me today. But whenever I blew my nose around other Danes, like on the train or while walking on the sidewalk, they all stared at me like I had the grossest disease ever. I was perfectly clean about it, sneezing into my elbow and all that stuff. It's like they've never had a cold before! My last piece of evidence to support this probably wrong assumption is that when I went to the 'apotek' (pharmacy) for some tissues, decongestant, DayQuil, NyQuil, etc. I found none of the above. Except for the tissues, I did find a pack of travel packs (my classmates will be thankful probably, less sniffling) and a single box of tissues. No super packs of eight or anything like you find at home. And most disappointingly.. no Puffs Plus :( If you know me well, you know how attached I am to my Puffs Plus in times like these. Sadly, all I could find in terms of decongestant was a nasal spray... gross. But I'll try anything at this point. And it is for these reasons that I have materialistically concluded that the Danes simply just don't get sick, which is ironic because they have free health care.

2. An innate sense of cleanliness

Things are just clean... everywhere. The streets of the major city are clean, even after I saw them a night or two ago filled with cigarette butts and broken glass. There's far less gum stuck everywhere, and they don't even have big trash cans. They have trash cans about the size of the one in my apartment at Villanova, and there are green footsteps leading up to each of them, as if they needed to remind the already-clean Danes to not litter. My host family's house is super clean, so I'm trying to adjust my sometimes normally usually always messy philosophy. A home cooked meal which definitely took a lot of pots pans and things looks like it was never made, and a dinner is cleaned up within seconds. I simply don't understand!

3. Avoidance of lung cancer?

This is probably very wrong and perhaps offensive to any Danes with lung cancer (which I don't intend it to be) but I'm still shocked at the number of people who smoke in Denmark. And according to my host mom, its mostly younger people who smoke! They definitely grew up with at least some of the anti smoking culture that came to power as we got older. They are smokers everywhere, which is even more shocking in such an otherwise health centered society. I just assume that if lung cancer was as prevalent here as it is in America, less people would smoke, or especially take up smoking knowing that fact.

4. Extra hours in the day

From what I've heard from others in host families, and from my own, freshly made bread is often a staple. As is a home cooked dinner every night. As are both parents working full time jobs. Therefore, the Danes must have like, 27 hours in the day to get all of this done. Clean houses + children + fresh food + full time jobs + sometimes working pretty late = impossible.

5. Trusting nature

Only in Denmark could you leave your dog tied up to your baby stroller (tied to nothing with no lock) outside a store in the middle of winter with no fear of the baby being stolen (or freezing, but more on that later). While it has happened sometimes in the past, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it does in the United States; There, babies are stolen from much less convenient places, aka requiring more effort to intentionally steal a child. It's also illegal in Denmark to carry a handgun, knife, pepper spray, or really any kind of weapon (as far as I know). There's a much lower crime rate here than at home. Not saying this to comment on any gun control arguments; simple to state that in a safer place it's not necessary to carry such safety measures that are a staple for many US residents. Babies can run around in a city and manage to not get hit by bikes, cars or pedestrians. They pay high taxes to take care of themselves as well as the less fortunate in the country, and trust that people won't abuse the system. Not that their system doesn't have its flaws, they just seem to be a trusting people.

6. Blonde hair and long legs

Everywhere.

Good thing I'm not that insecure about my appearance or anything..

7. Excellence in biking

Children who struggle to ride a tricycle in America are successfully mastering a real bike in suburban and city areas in Copenhagen. Somehow pedestrians know how to navigate cycle-crowded streets, whereas I look like a deer caught in the headlights whenever I see a bike approaching me. I have a deep fear of continuing to get in the way of it and somehow seriously injuring a Dane.. not the way I'd like to be welcomed into the country. I don't know how they learn so much bike etiquette and excellence at such a young age and so my only explanation is that they're born with it.

8. Naturally skinny

I don't think I've seen anyone overweight here in my 15 days, despite the availability of delicious danish varieties around every corner.  I'll chalk it up to the otherwise healthy diet, smoking, biking everywhere, high cost of food and alcohol, high tax on cars and gas, obsession with football and handball, and the blond leggy genes.. definitely makes sense now.

9. Patience

If I lived in a country with a national language that everyone spoke, and still encountered Americans and other foreigners asking me questions in my not-native language everyday (or butchering phrases in Danish, which isn't hard to do), I'd get a little pissed. But so far everyone I have ordered from, asked for help, or talked to hasn't seemed at all upset with my lack of Danish. I'm sure they get used to it, but still it must take a certain amount of patience. I think that those who promote the 'live in America, speak English' (even though America has no official language) argument should pop over to Europe for a day where almost every sign is doubled in English... even though they have an official language.

10. Timeliness

Somehow, the Danes are always, I repeat, always, on time. It's been talked about in every into and orientation to Danish culture we've had here- the Danes don't accept tardiness. Last week, we had about ten guests over for dinner. They were invited at 5:30. Pretty sure the doorbell rang at 5:30 sharp and they were all there, despite having come from different places. Same scenario this past weekend. A family with two small children were invited over at 3pm, and (I checked this time) arrived at 3:03. So sharp! I don't know how they do it, especially when so many people travel by public transportation which has a reputation for becoming delayed due to the smallest weather convenience. My host mother told me she and her colleagues were to interview what was looking like a pretty sure thing candidate this morning, but she arrived 20 minutes late with no excuse or concern for her tardiness. Needless to say, she is no longer so certain of a candidate. Even my art history professor today arrived five minutes before the start of class, and was apologizing about his lateness. He blamed the S-tog, and informed us that he's usually there before anyone else. I don't know how the Danes do it but somehow they get everywhere right on time.