Hike to Horuphav

So I woke up in an ambitious mood this morning... It helped that the sun was shining in my window for the first time in awhile. I strapped my backpack full of sandwiches, water, and reading material for a hike to an unknown destination. There is a trail-head not far from home, so I hopped on the trail and was off. I won't try to explain it, just take a look at the photos.

Smart Danes

It seems as if the Danes have made a wise decision as to not invest billions into the US's Federal Debt fund. As a matter of fact, the Danes have no national debt of their own to worry about, thanks to the robust economy and the efficient Danish economic model!

American?: Passport Discrimination

EU passports are maroon, US passports are blue. There are probably a million bureaucratic reasons why, but it is also an efficient way to instantly spot a US citizen. I have noticed throughout my travels that in airports, people wait around in queues with their passports in hand. As if there weren't 589 other ways to identify Americans, this makes us easy to spot (stay tuned for the other 588 ways!)

The Copenhagen Post

The Copenhagen Post: "A call to build a 44 km bridge connecting the Danish mainland with the island of Zealand is being labelled as 'visionary' by politicians. But the proposal, according to the traffic minister, Flemming Hansen, is way ahead of its time and will have to wait until a bridge between Denmark and Germany is completed."

Traffic engineers called on politicians Monday to scrap proposed plans for a 19 km link over the Femharn Belt and instead focus on a link that would drastically reduce travel time between the country's two largest cities, Copenhagen and Århus.

Denmark and Germany are in the midst of negotiations over a Fehmarn link and Hansen said that while he couldn't rule out the new proposal, the bridge to Germany took priority.

'The Fehmarn Bridge will connect Scandinavia with the rest of Europe,' he said, noting that a bridge would cut 155 km off a trip to Hamburg.

Hansen added that this was not the first time a bridge across the Kattegat waterway had been proposed, but that he would nevertheless ask the Infrastructure Commission, which is to look at Denmark's traffic infrastructure needs for the next three decades, to consider the plan.

Other MPs agreed that the time to build a Kattegat bridge was not now.

'It's very visionary,' said Kristian Pihl Lorentzen, traffic spokesperson for the PM's Liberal Party. 'But it is also a gigantic proposal that we're not ready to take up just yet.'

The opposition Social Democrats felt the proposal was worth looking into, but agreed that a Fehmarn bridge was still most important.

Traffic engineer Uffe Jacobsen said on Monday that up to five times as many cars would pass over a Kattegat link between Jutland and Zealand than a southern link. The distance between the two regions would also be reduced by about 150 km.

Currently, both stretches are directly linked by ferry service.

Taxes: Have you filed?

We're getting close to that April 15th deadline, so I hope you have all done your taxes. As a diversion to your W4's and 1040's, I offer this bit of insight. In Denmark, every item purchased is charged a 25% value added tax (VAT). Regardless of what the item is: food, cars, medicine, clothes. Imagine the price of that new Ford Focus you have been eying if you add a 25% tax to the sticker price (not to mention the 25% duty paid to purchase a new car). The sticker price on a VW Golf in Denmark after VAT & duty, 234.000 DKK ($41,844USD). You could get a Mid-level BMW for that in the US!

Now stop complaining about how much the government is taking from you in taxes and file already!

Danish Whisperer

It is very hard to whisper in Danish. Be it the gutteral tones or the clearing of the throat, it isn't a language to be spoken lightly or quietly. Please use your 12 inch voices to gossip during classes...

St. Patrick Who?

Apparently, St. Patrick didn't do much for Danes, because they had no idea what St. Patrick's Day was. One Danish guy commented, "is that the day people dye their beer green and drink the whole day?" Despite this being "Swede in America," I am also a little Irish, so it was a shame not to be able to celebrate this day. We did however make a bathtub full of glogg, so I learned a new tradition, be it related to St. Patrick or not.