Scandinavia Is So Green Because Of All The Rain

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Scandinavia Is So Green Because Of All The Rain

In the continuing effort to replace all the stuff that I lost due to British Airways incompetence, I spent my morning of July 5th out searching for a camping store that might have some supplies that I needed. When we awoke it was absolutely pouring out so Kel decided to stick around the hotel room and rest a bit which translates to some serious reading time for her. I had asked the hotel concierge for an idea of where I might go to get the things I needed. He pointed out a street that had a few outdoor stores just north of the old town.

The moment I stepped out of the building I could tell it was going to be a wet morning for me. The rain coat I had bought in Paris was really short and had a hood that was almost unusable do to the ridiculous duck bill shaped visor which hung directly in front of my eyes no matter what I did. Instead of using the hood I stuck with one of the small umbrellas my parents had left with us which did a decent job of keeping my head dry but did nothing for the lower half of my body.

As I walked through the rain soaked streets I noticed that Danes are very prepared for rain. They tend to have state of the art umbrellas, coats, water-proof pants and huge rain proof galoshes. Never have I seen such a variety of really good rain gear. This extravaganza of rain gear should have been a clue in to the fact that it rains a ton here and usually when it rains, it really rains!

By time I reached the camping store, about two miles from the hotel, my legs were completely soaked. I was worried before I walked into the store that people would be concerned by the fact that I looked like I had just stepped out of a bathtub fully clothed. Instead no one really cared, I guess, because this is a common sight in a rain soaked country like Denmark.

When I stepped into the store I was awed by the quality and quantity of camping gear available to me. This was the first time in a while that I felt like a kid in a candy store. They had the full line of Arcteryx coats and Osprey packs. I subsequently spent the next hour and replaced my lost pack with a duplicate of the one that I had and got a good raincoat and a matching fleece to fight off the chill up here in the north.

Feeling much happier since I had my nice coat and fleece to keep me dry and warm, I returned to the hotel to get Kel. She had gotten a little worried about me since I had been away for about three hours. At this point we were both hungry so we headed out to catch a bite to eat for lunch.

After stopping and getting some decent salads at a nearby café we spent the remained of our rainy afternoon in the Danish National Museum. This huge collection of memorabilia from the 1200’s to present (there is actually a much older section that is closed in 2007) gives a really great view of Danish history. We spent about an hour in the older section of the museum which had a pretty decent collection of Catholic items which predated the Danish reformation in 1536. I was surprised at how much of the stuff had survived considering the fact that the Danish had given Catholicism the boot more than 400 years ago and had never gone back.

The rest of the ancient section had a really detailed section of coins, cooking pottery and jewelry. Of course there was the obligatory section of weapons which was small but nice. The part that I found the most interesting was a mock up of the system used for old clock towers. Using a stone as a counterbalance and a rope wound around a wooden barrel as a spring, this very simple mechanism did a good job of ticking away the seconds and keeping time. Usually you don’t get a chance to see something like this working so I thought it was pretty cool.

The second floor of the museum had the section of history that we found slightly more interesting and relevant, the Danish history from 1600-present. We really don’t get a good picture, or really any picture at all, of history for the minor European countries. Thus Kel and I had very little back ground for the wars and struggles that happened in the northern parts of Europe. At one point the Danish were a super-power in this part of the world due to their superior sea power. For much of the 1600’s and 1700’s the Danish occupied many of the other countries north of here.

Unfortunately from 1700 onward the empire that the Danes had built slowly disappeared until they became the small country of today. Despite this “fall from grace” the Danes seem to be really happy about who they are which can really been seen in the more modern sections of the museum. Despite the small blips in history which occurred around the Depression and WWII, the Danish have steadily improved the lives of everyone in their country. Of course to accomplish this the Danish believe strongly in their socialistic welfare system which has enormous taxes. 25% of everything you pay for things you buy goes to the government, about 52% of everyone’s incomes goes to taxes and there is a 120% markup on automobiles. This may sound ridiculous to Americans but in return for giving up such a huge chunk of money the Danish all get their whole educations for free and have all of their health care paid for completely. Not a bad trade off that many Americans who can’t afford these services might consider making.

On top of their governmental liberalism, the country as a whole is very liberal. Women have had rights in Denmark for a lot longer than they have in the US. Gay people have been able to get married in Denmark since the 80’s. In general the country believes in a live and let live mentality that is very refreshing in a lot of ways. As you walk around the streets (in the rain) you can see that the average Dane seems to be pretty happy, maybe there is a lesson for us back home.

Later that night we asked the concierge for a recommendation for food in the area, some place that we could get to in a cab since it was still pouring. Fortunately or unfortunately we didn’t ask a lot of questions about where they were booking dinner for us. We ended up getting a really great dinner but we managed to find ourselves in one of the better restaurants in town. Good restaurants mean expensive meals. The meal was a bit pricier than we would have liked but when it’s pouring out you aren’t exactly in a place to go out and look for something else. Oh well!

More Rain and More History

Once again it rained on the 6th. This time we decided not to let the rain stop us so we set out in the morning and found ourselves some cheap food for brunch. Kel had decided that she wanted a raincoat too (so much rain can do that to you!) so we headed back to the camping store to get her a coat. With a new raincoat on, we set off to the far east of town to see the Danish Resistance museum.

This free museum fills in the gap in the museum we saw the day before. The main National Museum skips the years of the war in order to allow this annex to fill in the details between the Depression and the post WWII years. We proceeded to spend the next hour and half to two hours reading a lot of the articles and learning about the war from one of Germany’s closest neighbors.

The most interesting fact throughout the whole war was that the Danes really had it pretty easy during WWII. Don’t get me wrong, German occupation was not fun for anyone but compared with some of the other European nations that were occupied, Denmark got away pretty easy. The Danes were allowed to elect their own government through most of the occupation and only a small portion of the country’s Jews died in internment. The Danish Jews were kept in much nicer camps and were actually given Red Cross packages. The Nazis were really fond of Aryan, blond people and Danes sure fit the bill so Germany was more willing to cut them some slack. Whatever helps, I guess!

Later in the war the Danish got fed up with German rule and started to act out. In the last two years of the war many Danish got involved in the resistance movement, including sabotage of factories and rail lines, and caused quite a bit of trouble for the Germans. In the process a good number of the Danish were caught and killed and the Danish government was thrown from power and replaced by German martial rule. In the long run the Danish helped win the war and threw off the low key, go with the flow (aka don’t fight back) mentality of the early war years. As an occupied country, they really accomplished a lot for the Allies under wraps.

Well, we hope everyone is well back home. The cool weather here in Denmark is nice ever if there is a good amount of rain. Kel and I both believe that cool weather is more important than dry weather. Stay well back home and keep reading!

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