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Danish Miscellania

Some things I have noticed about Copenhagen and Danes:

  1. People smoke everywhere, including public transportation. 20% of deaths in Denmark are smoking related, and the young seem as likely to smoke as the old.
  2. People here are as blond(e) as they say they are.
  3. The cost of a car here is about 180% of sticker price due to taxes. People thus have a strong incentive to bike everywhere, and they do--bike lanes abound.
  4. Danes do not eat particularly well. Foods are fatty and sugary--6.6% of the population is said to be obese.
  5. Denmark boasts the one of the lowest life expectencies in the developed world, and the highest suicide rate in the world.
  6. Everybody here speaks English. Seriously, none of us have yet encountered anyone who could not hold a pretty good conversation in English.
  7. Stuff here is expensive. A 1.5L bottle of water is ~$4USD, patrons are charged ~$1USD for a glass of tap water at a restaurant, and meals will cost at minimum $20USD for a main course, unless you are eating at the Golden Arches.
  8. Danes are apparently known for their design skills, and our bathroom at the Cab Inn is a marvel of efficient space-constrained design. The shower exists as part of the bathroom--there is no separate shower stall or bathtub. The showerhead pokes out of the ceiling right beside the sink. To use the shower, you turn on the sink, pull the shower curtain closed around you, and flip the switch beside the tap from "sink" to "shower". The water drains from the bathroom floor through a drain under the showerhead. They have managed to build this in a space that is about five feet by five feet.

Update: That 6.6% figure in #4 was a little low, so I double-checked. Turns out that 34% of women and 50% of men in Denmark are obese. That 6.6% figure comes from the number of obese people in Copenhagen (350,000) divided by the number of people in Denmark (5.3 million). The number of obese people in Copenhagen is 350,000 / 1,300,000, or 27%.

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About

Hi, I'm Kareem Mayan. I co-founded eduFire, an online video tutoring company.

I've done time at ESPN and FIM.

I advise WorldBlu, helping them build democratic companies.

I moderated a council for Creative Good.

And, I helped bring Barcamp, a technology un-conference, to LA, which is where I live. I am now living and working in cool cities around the world.

More about me.

Opinions stated here are mine alone.

Contact: blog -at- reemer

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