[dashboardfront]

Man. I studied in Copenhagen, and I really disliked the place. It was a sentiment shared by a lot of the international students I ran into, sans the ones on exchange. The variety of stores, the opening hours, the size of grocery, the limited food selection, and especially the unwelcoming culture got to me pretty quickly. How are you integrating into the Danish culture (assuming you're not a native Dane)?

[_delirium]

I haven't had much of an issue with groceries/etc. Opening hours are good enough for me, typically 8am-10pm x 7 days a week (depending on how long ago you were in Copenhagen, that might not have been the case at the time).

I guess I'm not really attempting to integrate into Danish culture per se. I feel pretty comfortable with cosmopolitan Copenhagen culture, which is a bit different. Copenhagen is a really international city these days, and my group of friends is from a number of countries (Spanish, German, Greek, Polish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Korean, Syrian, and yes, Danish). So unless we all become fluent enough in Danish to prefer it over English, we're going to speak English as a practical matter anyway. If you're in the central areas of the city, in my experience that's not uncommon— in a typical bar in Indre By, Vesterbro, or Nørrebro, the table next to you is almost as likely to be speaking English as Danish. It'd be nice to speak Danish too, just from a practical perspective I have little opportunity/need to.

I'd say about half of the cultural events are in English as well, so it doesn't even really feel like being in some kind of expat bubble. Especially anything to do with science or technology: game-dev meet-ups, hackathons, research talks at universities, etc. are mostly done in English. Looking at the talks at http://www.cphtalks.org/, for example (which admittedly leans towards academic talks), I count 50 talks in the coming week, of which 41 are in English and 9 are in Danish. Between that and having learned enough written Danish that I can read a newspaper ok, I feel reasonably connected.

I do think it's hard to meet Danish people, but once you know 1 or 2, it's easier to meet others. And Copenhagen is a great place to meet non-Danish people. I think I have honestly met more German people here than I would have if I were actually living in Germany.

[dashboardfront]

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing as well. I collected more than a few Danish friends from going to school with them, but a good portion of my friends were Norwegian, Danes that lived abroad, French, etc. The international crowd is always good fun.

Groceries wise, I'm still sort of 'there', but I live in the U.S. Just pop in for exams, I'm having difficulty finding housing. That actually might be a huge part of my dislike of the city; I'm sure if I lived near Norrebro, my experience would be a lot better. Commuting is never fun.

I guess the little things got to me though. I'm used to people generally having some degree of friendliness/politeness in public, which I found lacking in CPH. The cashiers at Netto would often not even acknowledge my presence. That was weird. Asking a random stranger for something like directions sometimes felt like you were committing a no-no. Maybe I'm just projecting, but the entire city's atmosphere felt mildly hostile/alien.

[GandalfTheThird]

In other words, not for those dependent on consummerism and overeating.

[dashboardfront]

Right. Because there's no consumerism in Copenhagen and no fat people either. I'm curious as to how you pulled that out of everything I said.

More accurately, there's little room for individualists in Denmark. The atmosphere of Jantelov is not very pleasant, and outsiders especially struggle to find their place within it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante