As of today I am officially the only one left in my Danish class that started at the beginning (June 2007) and didn’t fail or quit a module. My last standing companion Sophie, bailed out last Tuesday.

I already know the introduction story about Katrine (my lovely teacher), Sylvester (her 2 year old son), and Frederik (her kæreste) by heart!

I should get a medal!

“Leuker kunnen we het niet maken, wel makkelijker!” is the slogan of the Dutch tax office. It translates into “We can’t make it funnier/nicer, but we can make it easier!”. Try to think of that slogan when they send you a 50 pages form.

The Danish tax office is called SKAT, which could be translated into dear (english), or sweetie, or schat (in dutch).

They’re not sweet at all though… they just sent me a letter to pay around 5000 dkk more over 2007 Something I of course didn’t expect because I already paid the GNP of a small African country to them.

I just realized I’ve been here for a year. I guess I should go out and drink a…. Tuborg!

So I passed the test for Danskuddannelse 3, module 3 last Tuesday. That basically means 12 more weeks for module 4, and then 18 weeks for module 5 until I reach the level of Prøve i Dansk 3. Which is the official European level B2 and the requirement to become a Danish national (no plans ).

I guess I have something to entertain me for some more time..

I went to Frilandsmuseet in Kgs Lyngby yesterday. It’s a very nice open air museum close to Copenhagen with old farms from all over Denmark. See the pictures here.

Finally, winter has arrived! It has snowed two days already, and this is the forecast for easter:

Crazy weather here!

Two verbs that look very much alike but mean two completely different things which can lead to rather uncomfortable situations. Especially considering that knippen (pronounced like kneppe) in Dutch means klippe in Danish.

A. “Du skal også farves, ikke?”
B. “Nej, jeg skal bare kneppes!”

A. “Jeg vil gerne have et kneppekort.”

A. “Hvor mange gange skal jeg knepper, når jeg skal til Hellerup?”

There was a fully decorated x-mas tree just beside the runway at Kastrup airport today!

Together with a good friend I went to visit a castle this sunday in Hillerød. I think I’ll take anyone who’s visiting me to this castle from now on! Check the pictures here.

Aha! While trying to map the Danish political parties on the Dutch, I think I found out why the Kristendemokraterne ended up on my list. Ok, this is what I, from a first impression, think how they map:

Socialdemokraterne – PvdA
Det Radikale Venstre – D66
Det Konservative Folkeparti – VVD
Socialistisk Folkeparti – SP
Kristendemokraterne – ChristenUnie
Dansk Folkeparti – Wilders
Venstre – CDA
Enhedslisten – Groenlinks
Ny Alliance – Hmm, I find it hard to place this party. It considers itself a center party.

In Holland the ChristenUnie is quite a left-wing party (more than the social democrats) but with a christian touch. They always showed up on my advice.

The most interesting I find is Venstre who call themselves literally Left but are in fact right of the center, just like the Dutch christian democrats. I now understand that Venstre in Scandinavian politics is more often used as a term for liberalism than socialism.