Good night Denmark

I started dreading winter about a month after I moved to Denmark. It was June. I was just starting to enjoy the first sunny days (“very late this year” everyone kept reassuring me, “we normally have a lovely spring” – well, apparently not this year!), the streets were starting to fill up with people and energy, more and more outdoor activities seemed to be taking place. I could feel myself falling in love with Copenhagen, with its beautiful urban landscape coupled with a dynamic street vibe, all glimmering in a lovely early summer sun. And then I got my first buzzkill – “wait until winter time, see what you think of Denmark then…” said one foreigner I met.

There would be many more buzzkills to come in the following weeks, from Danes and foreigners alike. The range of comments I got included things like “You think you’ve experienced a Northern European winter in London? It’s nothing compared to a Danish winter!” or the more sombre “Yes it’s nice to see Copenhagen alive in the summer, but it’s only for a short period – the city goes dead around October and doesn’t wake up until the following June”. Then there was the obvious one: “See how you deal with it being totally dark when you get up and go to work, and totally dark when you leave work to go home. It’s depressing.” And my favourite one: “Wait until winter. I hope you like candles.” I actually do like candles, so at least the last comment had something positive in it, for me anyway. But the question remained – can I survive a Danish winter?

Having grown up in a Mediterranean city, it was never easy getting used to winters in places like New York and London. In the case of the former, my main comfort was the fact that no matter how cold it got, on most days I still got a sunny clear blue sky, which was a huge advantage. In the case of the latter, well, there wasn’t much comfort. London was darker, wetter and more overcast than New York, not just in winter but pretty much throughout the year. It was much harder to get used to, and I was constantly craving the sun, physically and emotionally. But there were two ‘bright’ spots: it didn’t actually get that cold (definitely not as cold as NY), and the city always offered plenty of evening activities. While it got dark early in winter time, people kept going out and socializing, so you never got the feeling that London was asleep. It feels like I’m in for a much tougher challenge this time around.

There’s a lot to be said for a ‘tough winter’ culture. The Danish axiom that “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing” shows a national character that has a strong, unspoiled attitude to life, and enjoys nature and the outdoor undeterred by something as trivial as bad weather. I like that. The fact that of all places in the world, it’s cold Scandinavia that developed a culture of cycling and babies sleeping outdoors (still trying to get used to the latter…) shows that if anything, the bad weather only made people here look for ways to spend more time outside. And then of course there are those hyggelige candles and soft incandescent lights – having long dark evenings created a culture that values warm and cosy indoor environments, another great plus in Denmark, especially for a homebody like me. So even though I can already see that winters here are longer, darker and colder than London, I think there’s a chance I might survive them if I just focus on the positives.

But one thing still worries me. The ‘city going to sleep’ thing. I laughed in summertime that the Danish business world seemed to have gone to sleep for two months – everybody was away, no companies seemed to be functioning. This would never happen in either New York or London. But a commercial market asleep for two months is nothing compared to a whole society asleep for the better part of the year! Is it really true that throughout winter people go straight home from work and never leave again until the following morning? What’s the value of living in a metropolitan center if nine months out of twelve it’s got no street life or evening-time social activities, other than visiting or hosting friends at home? Is it even possible to meet new people as a newcomer when everyone’s at home behind closed doors for such a long period?

Whenever I think about my transition from the warm, sunny winters of my youth to the colder, harsher winters of New York and London, I also remember that I gained something significant – the discovery of a new and beautiful season called autumn, a season that simply doesn’t exist in my home country. And that reminds me that a loss can often be seen as a gain. Perhaps this coming winter will teach me a new way to enjoy cosy evenings at home. So will I survive it? Ask me in May next year, if I’m still around…