In this solo episode of the How to Live in Denmark podcast, host Kay Xander Mellish reflects on his recent return to Denmark during a warm summer. He comments on the country's lack of air conditioning, the pleasure of swimming in Copenhagen Harbor, and the practical habit of buying half‑price supermarket food on its last legal sale day to avoid waste. He recounts a minor police encounter that illustrates Denmark’s courteous law‑enforcement style, and describes a rapid police response to a mass‑shooter incident, noting the shooter’s unmet mental‑health needs due to summer staff shortages. Mellish also highlights the cultural importance of summer vacation, the tradition of foraging free blackberries in public spaces, and promotes upcoming releases of the How to Work in Denmark guide and the podcast’s social media channels. The episode blends personal anecdotes with broader observations about Danish climate, infrastructure, social norms, and public safety.
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Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. I've just come back to Denmark after some time away, And I'm happy to be here, especially since the Danish summer weather has been lovely this year. Of course, this creates problems of its own. Denmark is built for cool weather, not hot weather, which means that air conditioning is rare, even in the fitness centers. Lifting barbells inside a room that feels like a toaster oven with 30 other sweaty people is really something, and not something good. Still, it's nice to be in Copenhagen during summer. The sidewalk cafés are open, and you don't need a blanket to sit outside and enjoy your coffee. I don't think there's a prettier city in the whole world on a lovely summer day. Which is something you have to remember on one of those days in November when pelting gray rain angles into your eyeballs. One of my favorite things to do is swim in Copenhagen Harbor, which has been cleaned up enough to become a giant swimming area, although you'll still see some seaweed and barnacles on the pull-up ladders. There are specific zones set aside for swimmers as opposed to boaters, and these areas can get pretty crowded— lots of exposed pink flesh on display. Although, contrary to what many might believe, the people of Copenhagen are not nude. And the women are not topless. An American journalist called me recently to ask about nude bathing in Denmark. In Copenhagen, I don't see much of it. And what there is, is mostly men. Anyway, I turned off my refrigerator while I was away. Along with Germany, Denmark has some of the world's highest electricity prices, and they've risen very sharply recently. There's no reason to be chilling a bottle of water in Copenhagen when you're on the other side of the planet. Danes are practical people, and they're careful about waste. Food waste is considered especially offensive, as it would be for people who were mostly farmers and fisherfolk a century ago. Most Danish supermarkets cut in half the price of meat, bread, fruit, vegetables on the last legal day of sale. Better to sell it at half price than let it get thrown away. So if you're sharp, you can hack that system by buying a whole bunch of this half-price stuff at one time and freezing it. The day after returning home, I filled up my freezer in no time at what is, for Denmark, a reasonable cost. I like this way of practicality. Biking home with my goodies, I ran across a minor police scene. A fellow who had left his car idling in a bus lane while running into a 7-Eleven to get cigarettes had been stopped by the cops. One cop got out of his police car and said, "Ha, der er ikke lige verdens bedste parkeringsplads du får lavet der." In translation, that's not really the world's best parking spot you've created there. Laconic, a bit sarcastic. Denmark at the moment is pretty good at creating order without authoritarianism. The man in the car did get a fine. There's no talking your way out of it, just like it's difficult to talk your way out of a fine on the train or metro if you don't have precisely the right ticket. But he didn't get humiliated. There was no show of force. That said, the Danish cops did distinguish themselves this summer. There was a mass shooter in a local shopping center, and the cops apprehended him within 13 minutes of being called. If you look at the video footage of the apprehension and the subsequent police operation, you'll see that some of the cops are wearing casual shorts and t-shirts underneath their bulletproof gear. They'd been at home, probably watching sports on TV on a Sunday afternoon, when they got a call about a top-level emergency. And they came right away. It turned out that the shooter was a young man with severe psychological problems who had tried calling a mental health line that very day, but he couldn't get through because so many of their counselors were on summer vacation. Summer vacation is a sacred thing in Denmark, where the needs of employees are considered as important as the needs of the people they serve. Almost everyone takes a summer vacation. My local ice cream store shut down for the month of July. Now, you'd think that if you were an ice cream store, you'd take your big vacation in January or February, but this is the Danish way. Now it's mid-August, and fall is beginning in Denmark. The kids are all back in school, and some of the leaves on the trees are already turning orange. The blackberry bushes are ready to harvest, and there are plenty of these bushes in public spaces where the blackberries are totally free— first come, first serve. You can make them into blackberry pie, or a blackberry crumble, or even a blackberry smoothie. I recommend this. I'm very happy to be back in Denmark. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. Fall 2022 is going to be a busy time for How to Live in Denmark. We are releasing an all-new version of How to Work in Denmark with 3 new chapters. That will be in paperback and audiobook form. You can check out our current audiobooks on Audible, Storytel, BookBeat, and numerous other audiobook platforms. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and on Twitter and Instagram at How to Live in DK. The 2 is a number. See you next time.
