This week I’ve been orientating myself in Copenhagen. My girlfriend (Camilla) and I have been staying with family friends, spending days sorting various work/ life admin, and the evenings seeing her friends.
The first item on our To-Do list was to buy a bike.
We found a place called Buddha Bikes (see below) where they take battered up second-hand bikes, fix them up, and then sell them.
On Monday afternoon we headed over there, picked out a few to test from the showroom, and rode them around before each picking one. I ended up riding off with one which hopefully does well on the “functional-yet-boring” spectrum: good enough to get around, but not too attractive to thieves.
Grocery shopping = expensive²
We’re staying in a quite nice part of Copenhagen for now. Sort of like Notting Hill in London.
The only supermarket nearby is one called Irma, kind of like Waitrose/ Whole Foods.
Coming from the Kenyan-grown street vegetables of Nairobi, the cost of food shopping is, well, a bit of shock. I find myself having to concentrate intensely, making calculations of how much certain things do cost, and whether that’s an amount I’m happy to pay or not.
Anyway, the one that stuck out for me was an aubergine, costing DKK 16 (£1.91).
The 🍆 index
It so happened that the bike I bought was for DKK 1,600 (£191).
Of course, we’re dealing with extreme price points (even Camilla was surprised at 16 kroner for an aubergine; most bikes aren’t that cheap), but it was interesting to equate the price of the bike with 100 aubergines.
I’m hopeful that when we move to a less polished part of the city the price of groceries will fall and, with my aubergine heavy diet, so will the cost of the weekly shop.
Other observations
I’ll compile some more things of note/ interest from living in Denmark in time (including the duvets), but for now, my focus is on:
- Getting to grips the language: the Danish soft “d” is elusive
- Watch Borgen: and other trendy Danish TV shows. Alas, no longer on BBC iPlayer
- Join some clubs/ a co-working space: to make some pals
If you happen to know of any interesting people living/ working/ regularly passing through Copenhagen, do let me know!
In other news…
On a few runs around Copenhagen to get to know the local area I’ve been enjoying listening to the Against the Rules podcast, by Michael Lewis.
He’s the guy who wrote The Big Short and Moneyball, and it talks about the decline of the “referee” (in its many forms) in recent years, and what impact that has on society.
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