The Best Thing To Ever Come Out of Denmark

No, it's not Helena Christensen. It's Lego bricks. Is there any better toy than legos? I submit there is not. I spent an inordinate amount of time as a kid playing with legos, and still get a kick out of those little plastic bricks and minifigures.

As you probably guessed by now, legos were created in Denmark. Ole Kirk Christiansen started building wooden toys in 1932 and started calling the company "Lego" in 1934 (which comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well"). The first plastic bricks were manufactured in 1949. Lego toys have gone from buildings, to spaceships, to knights and castles, to tie-ins such as Spider-Man. There are now four Legoland amusement parks and several Lego stores, including one in the Mall of America. If you spend a lot of time on the Internet, you can find various Lego-based video games and movies such as the one below.

The Weather in Denmark

Denmark (and Europe in general) is farther north than most people realize. At a latitude of 55 degrees Denmark is in line with southern Alaska (Minneapolis is just below 45 degrees latitude). However, due to its proximity to the Baltic and North Seas (at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) the weather in Denmark is relatively mild, ranging from mean temperatures in January and February of 31 degrees and a mean temperature in July and August of around 62 degrees. The country is also known to be fairly windy at times.

Another side affect of being so far north is that the amount of daylight varies greatly. During the shortest days of winter sunrise is at 8:30 a.m. and sunset at 3:30 p.m. (7 hour days). Fortunately I will be there during the summer when the sun rises comes at 4:30 a.m. and sets at 10 p.m. (17.5 hour days). The shortest and longest days in Minneapolis on the other hand range between 8.5 hour days and 15.5 hour days, respectively. While it’s hard to complain about a couple extra hours of sunlight, most people who know me know that I have a tendency to wake up with the sun. I am a little nervous about waking up every day at 4:30 in the morning, so I am considering investing $10 into some kind of sleeping mask. I am encouraged by the fact that at least the photo of the residence hall I will be staying in seems to have black curtains.

Malmo, Sweden

Moving outside of Denmark for a moment, one of the places I plan on visiting during my trip is Malmö, Sweden. Malmö is about 30 km from Copenhagen. The two cities are connected by the Øresund Bridge which, at 7.8 km, is Europe's longest. A train runs between the two cities every twenty minutes between 5 a.m. and midnight, and hourly after that.

Malmö was founded around 1275 when this part of Scandinavia was part of Denmark. It rose to prominence as an important port of trade frequented by the Hanseatic League. For a long time it was the second biggest city of Denmark. In 1434, the first citadel was built. In 1527, it became one of the first cities to official convert to Lutheranism. Following the Treaty of Roskilde, Malmö and the Scanian region became possessions of Sweden.

Currently Malmö has about 600,000 residents if you include the metropolitan area. The city has had a rough time adjusting to post-industrial existence but has recovered somewhat over the last decade. Malmö has a relatively high portion of immigrants, including a large number of Danes who commute to Copenhagen for work.

Some places to visit in Malmö:

- There are several famous squares in Gamla Staden (the old town). One is the Stortorget, which has a statue of King Karl X Gustav and many historic buildings including the 16th century Rådhuset (town hall) and the Apoteket Lejonet a pharmacy running since 1571. Other squares include the Lilla Torg and Gustav Adolfs Torg.

- Another attraction is Malmöhus Castle ("Malmö house," pictured left). You can tour the royal apartments, the Stadsmuseum ("city museum") and the Konstmuseum ("art museum"). Located nearby is the Kommendanthuset arsenal and the Teknikens och Sjöfartens Hus, a technology and maritime museum.

- There are boat tours of the cities canals that run from April through September. You can find out more by visiting Malmö's official tourist site here.

Denmark and the Coalition of the Willing

Many people don't know this, but Denmark was one of five countries directly involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That being said, Denmark's 300 soldiers only made up about one-tenth of a percent of the total invasion force. The other four include the United States (250,000 troops), the United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), and Poland (194). Currently, Danish forces mainly operate under the command of United Kingdom forces in Basra. To date, they have had seven deaths, five killed in combat.

Currently Denmark has about 460 soldiers in Iraq, although in February Prime Minister Ander Fogh Rasmussen announced that Danish troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by August of 2007. Polls taken in November of 2006 by the Jyllands-Posten found that only 29% of those polled supported keeping troops in Iraq, while 60% were against it. In many ways, the Danish involvement has played out similarly to that of the United kingdom, although Rasmussen has not paid as high of a price as Tony Blair.

The Danish Monarchy

The Danish monarchy is one of the longest running monarchies in the world, second only to Japan's. Like most monarchies today, Denmark's is a constitutional monarchy, which in layman's terms pretty much means they are basically figureheads. Danish monarchs function mostly as ambassadors and like other monarchies are known for doing a lot of philanthropy, in addition to wearing funny hats.

Currently, the reigning queen is Margrethe II (here's her website), who as far as I can tell is only the second queen of Denmark (the first being Margaret I*). Besides being considered intelligent and progressive , she appears to be best known for chain smoking and illustrating the covers of the Danish version of Lord of the Rings.

With the exceptions of England and Monaco, the Danish monarchy recently seems to be getting the most press of the European monarchies. In large part, this has to do with the marriage of Crown Prince Frederik to Mary Elizabeth Donaldson, a marketing consultant from Australia in 2004 and their first child being born in early 2006.

*In case you were wondering, the names are spelled different because Margrethe is an Icelandic name. When she was born, the King of Denmark was also the King of Iceland, and giving his daughter an Icelandic name was like a shout out to the Icelanders.

The Kroner

Even though Denmark is part of the European Union, it is one of three pre-2004 EU members to eschew the euro and continue to use its old currency, the krone (DKK, pl. kroners). The only other countries that don't are Sweden which uses the Swedish krone (SEK), and Great Britain which uses the Great Britain pound (GBP). Some experts have theorized that the British continue to use the pound out of respect for the Green Bay Packers who share the same initials, although it appears that Sweden will adopt the euro at some point.

The krone is pegged fairly closely to the euro, and therefore the exchange rate will be pretty lousy, having risen about 30% since 2000. The current exchange rate is roughly DKK 5.5 to one U.S. dollar. Fortunately, most expenses on the trip are denominated in dollars, including the airfare and most importantly tuition.

You can tell a lot about a country by what they put on their money. For example, almost all money in India has a picture of Mahatma Gandhi on it. Coins in Denmark have a picture of King Christian V or Queen Margrethe II on them. Pictures on banknotes include Karen Blixen (author), Carl Nielsen (composer), Johanne Luise Heiberg (actress), Neils Bohr (scientist), and Anna and Michael Ancher (painters). Amazingly, Hans Christian Andersen does not seem to have made his way onto any currency. I'm not sure whether this says that Danes have great admiration for the arts and sciences or that nothing has happened there in a long time I'm not sure but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

If you want to hear a rap song about kroners (actually, kronur, since this is about Iceland) you can go here.

Home Sweet Home

This is a picture of my home for six weeks while I am in Denmark, Kathrine Kollegiet. It's a six story building located in the Frederiksberg area of Copenhagen, roughly a ten minute walk from campus. Each suite has its own bathroom and kitchenette. Not very exciting but a lot of people ask me where I'm going to be staying.

The Flying Danish

Well, tonight is the launch of The Flying Danish, a new blog to chronicle my Denmark related adventures. As many of you know, I am taking off to Copenhagen for six and a half weeks this summer as part of an exchange program through school.

My flight doesn't take off for another month, so up to them the blog will probably cover miscellaneous topics such as Danish language, history, current events, and various travel stuff.