Next day we had a presentation of our work at Christiansborg Palace (house of the Parliament).
Later Ramya&me had an interview and appeared on TV:
http://www.dr.dk/NETTV/Update/2007/08/24/204259.htm#
Just for the camera, we hitchhiked on the street. I managed to stop some lady on the bike so she gave a ride to Ramya :)
More on Denmark
I give you here some observations which I haven't mentioned before. It's my way of looking at it, yours could be different. And mine if I would spent more time there...
- snails
Naked snails are very unpopular in Denmark. They eat a lot and Denmark is just full of them. Parliament discussed this topic once and they announced they every Dane should kill a naked snail, if he/she spots one. There was a discussion in the news what is the best way to do it. One politician suggested cutting it in half with scissors. So journalists came to him with "the tool" and the naked snail...he wasn't able to do it, of course :) - politicians... have their phone numbers & e-mails made public. You can easily contact them
- taxes... very high, could be 40% - 50%.
- high standard...well, check out the taxes. At the moment, country is ruled by social-democrats. You get a lot of stuff for free. Some cool museums, highways aren't being payed, care of elderly people, kindergarten are cheep. High-technology is everywhere. Lots of cool patents around you. Middle-class earns a lot comparing to rest of the world.
- coins... some coins have a hole in the middle. Looking funny&cool
- electrical plug... there is a switch (above the plug) you need to turn on to get the electricity. It saves energy & it's practical as well
- helpful... on the street you easily approach to ask for some info or help. Everybody speaks English. But it's harder (requires more time and effort) to make friends with them, when they give you the info you asked, they usually like to run away
- open&homogeneous... Homosexual marriages exist for a "long time" in Denmark. They accept many things and are open. On the other hand, they like homogeneous society. On the street it's hard to tell middle-class from rich. When I was in school I asked do they have state competition in math. They said no, they don't want to have the best, they like everybody to good.
- private schools... many can afford it. Some parents send their children there because they want them to be in more Danish environment since percentage of immigrants in the public schools are increasing. But by sending them to private schools, some public schools become 100% immigrant. In private schools kids learn to live by themselves, far from parents, but need to obey certain rules (like dress-code)
- Raadhus (city-hall) @Aarhus... ground where it was build was once a cemetery
- driving without hands... while hitchhiking and getting a ride, we talked to people a lot. When drivers talked to us, they liked to use hands in communication so sometimes they didn't have hands on the wheels. But if you talk to them in the park, on the street...they don't use their body-language that much :) I suppose they get excited by driving the car
- saying 'yes'... in Danish: 'Ja'...some of them inhale air while saying it. At the beginning it was weird to see it. Usually when somebody inhales loudly like that it's because they are scared, but I got used to it
- religion...they don't go to church that much, but most of them are members of the church. You become a member when you turn 18. Every member pays 1% tax
- 13... it's something old and not common any more, but interesting. Some old Danes are afraid of number 13. If they get guests in their house and there are 13 of them, they put a doll and pretend it's a human just to have 14 people on the table, not 13 :)
The project is actually over. But I still get fun&experience... more about Kobenhavn in the next posts....
No comments:
Post a Comment