When I first decided to travel to Denmark for my student exchange I thought it was going to be easy because almost the entire population speaks English. While it is true that most of the locals speak English and are friendly, they usually speak Danish. Not to mention all the signs, menus, food labels, and other important displays of information are in Danish.
Copenhagen is a rather large city compared to my hometown of Kauai, Hawaii but seems small when you compare it to places like LA and Chicago. There are tons of people like a big city, yes, but the city is much more country like. That doesn't really make sense, let me try to explain. In Copenhagen, as far as I can remember all the buildings have been under 7 stories or so. People ride bikes everywhere, there are definitely more bike riders than car drivers. There are lots of small shops all over the place and not many of those huge discount stores like Walmart and Costco. Well, I haven't been to too much of the city since I just got here 3 days ago, but I have yet to find a shop that's bigger than the size of Longs.
The Copenhagen Business School (CBS) is great so far. There are about 750 exchange students from about 54 countries this year and about 13,000 full time undergraduates. I was shocked when I found out students attending higher education institutions in Denmark don't pay tuition, they go to school for free. On top of that they get about an 800 Euro a month stipend because the cost of living is so high. Talk about growing up in the wrong country.
That's impressive - 750 exchange students from 54 countries! Just imagine how much your global perspective will change making new friends from around the world. Nice write-up. Looking forward to hearing more about your cultural experiences and impressions of the education system in Copenhagen. Enjoy!
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