Differences Between the U.S. and Denmark: Part 2

Welcome to the second installment of the "Differences Between the U.S. and Denmark" series in this blog. We've been keeping track of these using an ongoing list I keep on my phone.

Everything is Digital

Denmark is digitized - almost to a fault. There are a bunch of virtual systems working together to make daily operations simple and paperless.

The (first page of) apps I had to download when I got here.

All official emails from the government come to a single, private email inbox using an app on your phone. You do not get duplicate copies of these sent to you via post, so if you don't get your e-Boks set up to receive them, you might miss something critical.

Utility companies also send your bills electronically. The'll mail you paper bills/statements if you request for them to do so, but there is a process for the and you have to pay a fee to use the paper-based service.

Travel cards are physical but you manage them either through the online service portal or by adding money to them at a kiosk in a train station. Train tickets purchased through the travel planning app are also digital.

School communications are sent via apps rather than sent home with students or mailed to the parents. These apps are used to receive school-wide notices/communications, critical info about dates and events and required supplies, etc., as well as individual communications from instructors or other parents.

Your signature is digital here as well, so essentially any time you have to prove that you are, in fact, yourself, you use a digital app called MitID. You need your MitID app to log into your e-Boks for your official government mail, you need it to log into your bank and to approve money transfers, and you need it to manager your cell phone services online.

Mostly, it's awesome, but sometimes, it's a huge pain. For example, I was proud of myself for getting my MitID set up after my CPR number was activated (kind of like a social security number) and being able to use it to log into the bank and the government emails and stuff, but when I changed my phone from a U.S. number to a Danish number, my MitID was deactivated on the old phone. To get it back, I had to leave work early on a weekday, take a 1-hour bus/train ride into Copenhagen to the Citizen Service Center, wait an hour for an appointment, and provide paperwork to them so they could activate the MitID on my new phone.

Until I reactivated it, I couldn't activate my new bank card, I couldn't get an email from the government that was waiting for me (and had no idea if it was time-sensitive or required action), and  couldn't order new phone lines for the boys.

So the digital thing has its ups and downs.

Retraining Our Brains

There are some minor differences that just force us to re-train our brains a little bit every day.

The light switches are (mostly) all rocker switches. In the U.S., you rock it upward to turn on the light and downward to turn off the light. It's backwards in Denmark. We fumble with light switches a lot.

The keyboards are slightly different as well. They have to make room for those extra vowels. I can type pretty fast on a U.S. keyboard, but the Danish one knocks me down a peg. The kids' laptops also have Danish keyboards, so it's exciting for all of us to learn. There are settings you can adjust to make it so the keys match the U.S. keyboard strokes, regardless of what it looks like you're striking, but where's the fun in that?

Kind of the same, kind of different.

I like the key in the center...like an uncertain little party-hat guy.

Toilets all have a half-flush option (for #1) and full-flush option (for #2) to conserve water. Some toilets in the U.S. have this, and I once saw a toilet in Denmark that just had a single pull-chain, but the overwhelming majority of toilets in the U.S. just have one flush setting, and most toilets in Denmark have the dual option. It just makes you think a little more before you flush.

Flush buttons on the wall - the larger half of the circle is for a full flush and the smaller piece is for a low-flow flush.

Same deal, but the buttons to flush are on top of the tank and the left side shows a full circle for full flush; the right side shows a half circle for low-flow flush.

Grocery Stores

Zac has lamented that there is no cold beer at the grocery store. It's all out on the shelves at room temperature, so you have to buy it and refrigerate it for some time before it's suitable for drinking. Although I did find a small case of cold beer at the 7-11, and a very small case at one of the smaller convenience grocery stores.

Only the first case is beer - the rest is energy drinks, juices, hydration drinks, water, and milk.

Also, the shopping carts are all-wheel-drive! I'm used to shopping carts with two pivoting wheels and two fixed wheels, so steering my cart through the narrow aisles as it glides all over the place is taking some practice.

Pivot!!

In order to get a shopping cart, you have to insert a coin worth DKK 10 to unlock it from the nested group of carts. When you lock it back in place after use, your coin is returned.

You don't usually need a whole cart unless you're getting groceries for the whole week, which is less common here. The stores also have baskets, and they can be smaller baskets carried on the arm, or larger baskets, which are on wheels and pulled behind you across the floor.

Employment

In Denmark, there are a lot of laws to ensure employees are taken care of. For example, companies (maybe only of a certain size, but I'm not sure) are required to provide employers a daily piece of fruit, which I've been enjoying very much.

You also start your job with 5 weeks of vacation (compared to the standard 2 weeks in the U.S.) and sick days whenever you need them, which encourages people to actually stay home when they're ill. In the U.S., there are two main sick-day schemes - you either use your vacation days (FTO) when you're sick, or you have separate vacation (PTO) and maybe a week of sick time to use separately. Sometimes, unused sick days are paid out at the end of the year (which encourages people to "push through" and come to work even when they don't feel good or are contagious), and sometimes, unused sick days are just lost.

Post/Packages/Mail

We learned that they don't pick up the mail at your house here; the box out front is only for receiving mail. You can get little stickers for your mailbox that mean different things, too. For example, ours has stickers that mean we have a neighborhood watch and that we don't want to receive any junk mail and that it's OK to leave packages at the door on the side of the house if we aren't home.

There also isn't as much online shopping/home delivery kind of stuff here. If you want stuff, you go to a store during business hours. I did discover German Amazon though.

In the U.S., pretty much every little town has a post office, and then sometimes there are other little postal annexes in grocery stores or something. Here, there is no real "post office" to speak of. The larger grocery stores have a counter by the bakery where you can go and ship things. You can also go online and pay and get a code that says you paid that you just write on your letter or package.

Money

I'm pretty sure everyone knows the money is different here, but here's a look at some of the coins and cash. There are no "dollars," there are "kroner" (kroner = plural, krone = singular). "Krone" means "crown" in Danish. One krone can be divided into øre rather than "cents."

The front (I think?) of the 50 DKK and 100 DKK notes

The back of the 100 DKK and 50 DKK notes

50 øre, 1 krone, 2 kroner, 5 kroner, and 20 kroner coins

Same coins, different side.

Monarchy

Since you may have noted that there's a picture of Queen Margrethe on the 20 kroner coin, it's probably a fitting time to say that Denmark has a royal family!

Denmark has one of the oldest monarchies, and though the queen is kind of just a figurehead, the people seem to approve of her and the royal family for the most part.

GETTY IMAGES/THAIS REYES FOR PEOPLE

The U.S. obviously doesn't have a royal family, so I feel like this is a pretty significant difference, but not one that really impacts day-to-day life at all. You can watch the changing of the guard here like you can in London. They even wear the big hats.

Road signs

We've been having a fun time figuring out the different road sign meanings. This is the "dead end" sign, but it also shows that there is a path that continues after the dead end, and there can be slight variations that also describe what kind of a path it is.

The dead-end signs in Denmark

Addressing Teachers

In Denmark, students call the teachers by their first names. It's weird to hear Khloe come home and talk about "James" and to get phone calls from "Shannon."

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That concludes the second round of differences we've tracked. As always, more to come!