Miss Kolka

producing her own life

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The city of the Happy People | 04 août 2009

So we are settled in our Mansion here in Copenhagen city. Queen Margrethe would be envious, well that is if she had lived in the 30 squaremeters in Paris before- on second thought, she has probably never lived in anything smaller that 1000 squaremeters if you dont count "lousy" hotel suites abroad. Our appartment is actually so big that it makes sense to have 2 telephones in it. Our appartment is so big that I can ignore the little man's cries if I want to (but who says I do?). Our appartment is so big that sometimes I just decide to take a walk, inside. Ok, I'll stop here.

Have to say that I have been very pleasently surprised by the Danes. Sometimes just plain surprised by their easy-going-ness. LIke the time we went to register at city hall. It was warm and alot of people waiting. The men working there were wearing shorts (!) but, why not? I noticed many mums with their young children but also many dads. Just before us, a woman with her child has her number coming up. At the same time her child is hungry. No problem. She just wips out her boob, latches the baby on and goes to the man at the desk to get her business done. Where else in the world would you see that? Certainly not in France!

Actually there are babies EVERYWHERE. A friend we met the other day who is working here for a few months actually said it, he said he didnt feel right somehow with ONLY a backpack, the baby was missing. To fit in you actually have to have a pram or a babybjorn (bags where you hang the baby on you). And Mr. F fits right in, with his new special bicycle unit!

In comparison with the sometimes (who am I kidding? all-the-time I shoud say) heavy beaurocratical world of France, basic registration seems pretty easy. Here are a few examples:

° I ordered my new cell number online and got it sent in the mail. If I run out of credit, they automatically charge the phone and let me know with a text.

° When asked if we had recieved any childcare benefits from France, we said no because our income had been too high. They asked if we had any papers about that, but we didnt. So they decided to trust us and actually went out of their way to make sure we got an earlier payment because a mistake had been made in the paperwork. We hadn't even asked for the correction, but how nice are they???

° When making a doctor's appointment they kindly ask you to do so on their website (of a private practice) and if you have any question, send an email and they will quickly reply to you. I was amazed when we took Mr. F to his first appointment and Pan laughed hard when we came out and I said we had forgotten to pay, or well at least sign some papers. Nono, everything was taken care of, directly with the health insurance card.

So my first impressions are good. It has even been sunny. We have met people in the park, drinking beer listening to some chillout music on a sunday afternoon. Its working out and somewhere in the back of my mind I remember the shouting and the stress vaguely, how very far the crazy world of France 24 seems right now..

Publié par Kolka à 20:14:43 dans Miss Kolka | Commentaires (1) | Permaliens