Foreigners in Denmark's Blog » Denmark

The Global Kitchen – let’s share recipes!

paulathecatlady — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:37:20 +0000

The Global Kitchen is a project that many members contributed with ideas: a platform that we can all exchange recipes. Thinking how diverse of a group we are, with people from all areas of Europe, North and South America, India, China, Australia… we thought: why not exchange recipes?

Here is a Brazilian one I added there, which many people like: Salmon in tomato and coconut sauce

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Filed under: Cuisine, Culture, Denmark

The Danish cartoons

paulathecatlady — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:48:21 +0000

Courageous to some and infamous to many, the cartoons published by the Danish newsletter “Jyllands-posten” in 2005 has been a controversial topic between the West and the Muslim world, and has put to the test: freedom of speech and the consequences of a Global economy during a conflict.

At ForeignersinDenmark.dk we have been debating this issue since it began in 2005 and although there is no consensus, there are very interesting point of views!

The latest forum topic about this issue is: Danish cartoonist attacked

Posted in Denmark, Politics, Religion, Violence Tagged: cartoonist denmark, cartoons denmark, muslim cartoons denmark

Oprah, Denmark and the famous baby carriages

paulathecatlady — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:41:37 +0000

Millions of women have seen the show about Denmark in Oprah’s show. I have been living in Denmark for the past 5 years, lived in the Twin Cities for 8 and 16 in Brazil, where I am originally from. So, I have my views on the positive and negative aspects of living in all 3 countries.

Overall I thought the show was good, a little too “cinderella like”, but good – although Oprah did not mention that daycare is not free, it is a subsidized service and most of my friends with children are very happy with the quality of care their children receive, but not with the price, which is about 2300 kr (460 dollars) per month.

We are having a very good discussion on the forum about the show, check it out: Oprah Winfrey’s views on Denmark

Please leave a comment on this blog post about your thoughts of the Danish system, as shown by the women in the show.

Posted in Culture, Denmark, Family Tagged: baby carriages denmark, oprah denmark

Trustpilot – the consumer’s watch dog

paulathecatlady — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:52:09 +0000

As their own description says, Trustpilot is a consumer watch dog portal. On the website, consumers can write reviews of stores and give them a grade from 1 to 5 – and there is nothing the store can do about bad reviews – they are there to stay! Stores that don’t shape up end up with a poor customer service reputation and can even be found on search engines – Good news for the ones who takes us – the customers – seriously and errr not so good news for the ones who don’t!

Denmark, in my eyes, the land of “ok” customer service and overpaid employees have a lot to learn from how customer service should be handled – the “Mc Donald’s smiley employees”, which is a reflection of one of the company’s core values (great customer service) does indeed pay off. But Trustpilot ratings can still help us decide what shops don’t deserve our business and which do.

The portal is available for the American, British, Romanian, Danish, Russian and German markets. It has also a resouceful tool, called Trustpilot Guard, which a person can download and then be able to see the “rating” of the shops shown on the search engine results.

Posted in Customer service, Denmark Tagged: Customer service, trustpilot

The Dane, The baby and The cigarette…

paulathecatlady — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:52:29 +0000

Babies and cigarettes don’t really go together, but if you walk the streets of Aarhus or Copenhagen or even go to a mall during the day, you will probably see some mothers smoking right in front of their baby carriages. And in the most normal Danish behavior, no one will say anything – they will see it and go right back to whatever they were doing, minding their own business.

Do all mothers in Denmark do this? NOPE, but plenty do.

Is it socially acceptable to smoke in front of small children (not just in outside areas) in Denmark? Well, THAT I would like to ask Danes. My impression is that it is, since I don’t see people staring at such parents or behaving any different around them.

This behavior does surprise me. In a society that all get a good education and the effects of cigarettes are widely known, how can this still happen so often?

Posted in Culture, Denmark, Just weird Tagged: parenting, smoking

Spring in Jelling

paulathecatlady — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:30:24 +0000

One day in March, Adriana (a friend of mine) and I went for a long walk in Jelling, where she lives. It was a beautiful day and we couldn’t resist taking some pictures.

Jelling is a small town north of Vejle, in Jutland, with a population of just 3200. The history goes all the way back to the Viking age, where it was home to some of the first kings of Denmark.

Here is a picture of the church, which is in the center of the city, right in front of the museum and next to the Runesten:

The only museum in Jelling, Kongernes Jelling, where information about the king’s stones are:

Ya, I know it must seem creepy to take pictures of graves, but in Denmark, graves around churches are so well keep and beautiful, that I just can’t resist:

I think these are about the kings?

A picture of where the king and queen, Gorm and Thyra, were buried. Thyra was buried before her husband, but the date is unknown. Gornm was burried in 958:

Here is me, in front of the Jelling stones. The stones are a tribute to the deceased and were a common tribute paid to kings in the past:

More pictures of the church:

A ladybug that was asking to be photographed

A beautiful flower bed right in front of the museum and church:

Posted in Culture, Denmark, Travel Tagged: churches, jutland, spring

An interesting question.

marriedtoadane — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:57:44 +0000

Yesterday, someone happened to ask me “at what point do you give up and go back?”.

Now, funnily enough, I’d never really given this much thought other than us (me and the Mr) agreeing that we’d give Denmark at least 2 years. But now, I have been thinking about it and asking myself at what point will we give up; when I’ve applied for over 200 jobs and not got anything?, when we’ve been here over 2 years?, when the dark winter weather scares us off completely? Honestly, I don’t know the answer and I’m not sure anyone can predict the cataliste that makes someone throw the towel in.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been points within the first 6 months, where I was just saying “that’s it, I’ve had enough…no more!”. There were days when we discussed the practicalities of moving back, but for me it was always the cost of the furniture moving back that stopped me (that and my whopping great pride!), but as Mr said “it’s only money”. And I guess he’s right, in the scheme of things, you can’t put a price on happiness. So I guess that’s my answer, if we got to the point where either of us were completely miserable, then we’d make the move back.

In the meantime, I keep learning the dansk, keep applying for jobs and get buoyer’d by the success stores.

Posted in Denmark, Life issues