Heels on Two Wheels + Nordic Stereotypes

I've been in Copenhagen almost three months now.  In that same amount of time while in Stockholm last year I churned out 12 blogs.  I swear I haven't become a slacker.  Suffice it to say, relocating my life abroad and starting a new job that found me traveling six of my first nine weeks took up a lot of time.  Rather than summarize my time in Europe to date, I'm going to share two tidbits I've found quite fun.

Heels on Two Wheels

You've heard the rumors and they're true.  People in Copenhagen bike everywhere.  The city is flat, the bike lanes are plentiful and everything is within 15 minute ride so why not?  Biking isn't a hobby here, it's a convenient form of transportation.  In other words, they don't live to cycle in Copenhagen, they cycle to live.  In fact, about a third of Copenhageners bike to work, including me!  The great thing about biking in Copenhagen versus walking in New York is that you don't ruin your heels.  You better believe it is far easier to keep those pumps from peeling between cobblestones and getting ground down on the sidewalks when you're coasting on two wheels!  I'm also enjoying snapping sneaky pics of fabulous looking women on bikes.

and one of me in front of my apartment....

Biking in Copenhagen, while healthy, convenient and quite glamorous, was born as much from necessity as convenience.  From what I gather, in the 70's the oil crisis hit Copenhagen particularly hard, even though they later discovered oil in the North Sea, it made Danes fearful of ever being so dependent on fossil fuel again, and by extension, cars.  It also helps explain why Denmark now makes just under half the world's wind turbines, aims to be carbon neutral by 2020 and, yes, why Copenhageners love their bikes.  

We'll save the discussion of these contraptions for another day...

Nordic Stereotypes

As you've probably already heard from me in a long overdue email or phone call, I've been traveling up a storm - from Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm to Frankfurt,  Hamburg, London, Dublin, Cannes and Istanbul.  Along the way, I learned that Americans are perceived as loud and inadvertently confirmed the stereotype on numerous occasions.  I've also had a kick learning that there are some hardcore traditional Nordic stereotypes that have been solidified over generations.  It basically goes like this, the Swedes and Norwegians think the Danes are brash and unintelligible.  The Danes think the Swedes (their medieval rivals) are uptight control freaks.  Both joke that the Norwegians are provincial hicks (Norway was once a colony of both Denmark and Sweden and now has mucho oil money), while everyone thinks the Finns are weird.  And apparently the Finns make fun of the Russians. 

And one of my new 'hood for the road...

That's all for now.  Back to enjoying the gorgeous Danish summer.

XO,

Nordic Nora