Har du arbejdsglæde?

My Danish workplace...something I've been wanting to write about for a while.  Not only is it my first job after graduate school, it's in a foreign country.  I spend 5 days a week at this place.  Most of the Danes I know, I know from work.  Not surprisingly, my work environment has a big influence on my quality of life here in Denmark.

And the Danes seem to think so too (for everyone, not just me).  They even have a specific word for workplace happiness - arbejdsglæde.  And it doesn't seem to necessarily correlate with the difficulty of your particular job tasks, but it's more of a feeling that you can have with the right combination of a good job fit, nice co-workers, supportive managers, good work environment, sufficient resources, and general job satisfaction.  Like, your specific job tasks might be physically or mentally demanding, but you can still have arbejdsglæde if you feel equipped to meet those challenges and are in a supportive environment.

Heading home from work.  There's a large green space near my
workplace which is one of the buildings in the background.
This was back in summer, of course.

To give you some context on my particular job situation, I work as a biomedical engineer in the R&D department of company here in Aalborg that makes medical devices.  We have just under 50 employees most of whom are Danish but also two Romanians and two Americans (I'm not the only one!).  Of course, I only have experience with this one company here in Denmark, but from what I've gathered, we seem to be a fairly typical Danish company.

With arbejdsglæde in mind, it shouldn't surprise you that a lot of effort goes into making the office a place that you want to go to everyday. There's a lot of little things like fresh fruit for snacking and a bowl of candy for an afternoon pick me up and an endless supply of coffee and tea (seriously, no meeting can start until everyone has had their turn at the coffee machine).  But it's not just about free stuff for the employees.  There are bigger things within the company culture that promote a positive, healthy office environment, for example, our every 6 week retrospective.  It's a 1.5 hour meeting where the main purpose is to give everyone in the department a chance to share the good things and the frustrating things from the previous six weeks and a chance to share anything they are worried or concerned about within the company.  The subjects shared include the obvious things like project deadlines met (or not met), but they also include things like communication challenges between different departments or even opinions about the location of the Christmas party, anything related to your worklife is fair game.  And, no kidding, I've actually seen the management take action on things that were brought up during retrospective.  Simply having the forum to express frustrations and challenges makes it's harder to let things fester under the surface; it also gives us a place to celebrate the things that are going well.  Both of these go a long way towards arbejdsglæde which is important to the company because it is generally believed that happy employees = successful company.

Just one of the many, MANY cakes we have on an almost
weekly basis for whatever reason we can think of...
birthdays, anniversaries, deadlines met, vacations,
nice weather, anything really.

But arbejdsglæde doesn't just come from the top down.  The employees themselves also take responsibility for making our office a place that they want to work.  Everyone greets everyone else when they come in in the morning.  We do things like going for a walk together after lunch (which we all eat together at the same time in our lunchroom) or decorating our co-worker's desk for his or her birthday or work anniversary or making up any excuse for bringing in cake.  My co-workers readily offer their congratulations when a big project gets finished (especially when there's cake involved) and never seem to mind when I interrupt them to ask for help.  People get up from their desks, walk around, gather at the candy bowl and/or coffee machine throughout the day.  This is not a place where you remain silent at your desk for 8 hours.

So it doesn't surprise me that most of my co-workers actually seem to enjoy working at our company and value the culture that they've created there.  And I haven't even mentioned the 6 weeks paid vacation, generous sick leave, 37 hour work weeks, paid maternal/paternal leave, ability to work from home, company-provided cell phone, and subsidized lunches that were all just part of the job contract when I was hired.  All of these things that I hear my American counterparts negotiating for when they get a new job were just part of being hired at my company.  So I feel like I've landed in a pretty sweet spot.

Post-race beers after our 5K relay (left) and half marathon victory pose (right).
Our company sponsors employees in races or other events if at least 3 employees
participate so it's not a surprise we have a lot of runners.

But for all of the arbejdsglæde that I have at work, I also feel uncomfortable and/or stupid on a fairly regular basis.  Let's start with the language issue.  Our official company language is English (meaning I can actually do my job), but practically, the language most spoken is Danish.  I mean, of course, it's Danish.  No surprise there, but that doesn't make me feel any less self-conscious when I have to remind everyone that we should do the meeting in English if they want me to actually participate.  (I will give a shout out to my boss who does a really great job of remembering this himself and just starting meetings in English without me having to say something.  But not everyone pays quite as much attention as him.)  Besides feeling self-conscious, it's hard not to feel isolated when everyone around me is speaking a language I'm just beginning to understand on a meaningful level.  They always switch to English when talking to me, but I know that there are things I'm missing because I just don't get all of the Danish.  Almost daily, there's a big joke or funny story at lunchtime that I can't laugh at, and some days, I'll go through all of lunch without saying anything because everyone is speaking really fast Danish and I feel self-conscious for speaking English (and I'm usually really hungry anyway).    

So there's positive experiences at work and frustrating experiences at work, and then there's experiences that I didn't expect to have at work but have become really grateful for.  Namely, work is the place where I've learned the most about Danes and Denmark.

Step 1 in celebrating your co-worker's birthday...
decorate his desk with flags, lots of flags.

There's the things about Danish workplace culture like the fairly flat managerial structure and the attitude that work should be something that enhances not drains your life (and the other nice things I've already mentioned).  I'm (still) getting a grasp on Danish humor with its preference for sarcasm and irony.  I've learned that to properly celebrate a birthday in Denmark you must have a kagemand (see photo below), lots of Danish flags (see photo above), and a loud song about chocolate and cake.  Most of the traditional Danish foods that I've tried have been at work.  I don't know if our company lunch provider makes the best versions of these foods, but from what I gather, it's a decent representation of the smørrebrød, flæskesteg, hons i asparges, and leverpostej.  And whether it's about the lunch food or, most commonly, about the weather, Danes have a penchant for complaining (who wouldn't with the weather we get here?).

Step 2...eat a cake shaped
like a person topped with candy.

My colleagues seem to love it when I try to do something Danish...whether it's speaking Danish (evidently my accent is similar to that of one of the princesses who's from Australia) or eating some Danish food that I haven't tried before...and I'm usually happy to try and always grateful that they're willing to share their culture with me.  I've had countless conversations about Danish culture, Danish government, Danish values, Danish people, Danish comedy, Danish TV, Danish weather, etc, and it's conversations like these that make me feel like I'm actually learning about the country I'm living in.

I've even been able to bring in some American culture too.  Danes know a lot about American culture as American movies and TV shows are widely available here.  But American football remains a topic of confusion, and I've given a few lessons on the subject.  I've also explained what exactly Americans are celebrating on Thanksgiving and where Black Friday comes from (which is making it's way to Europe even without what I consider the necessary holiday of Thanksgiving the day before).  And I greatly enjoy sharing some of my favorite American foods like Reese's cups and pumpkin pie.

Considering that, when we moved, we thought it entirely likely that I would not even find a job in Denmark, I'm very thankful for the job that I have.  Besides providing mental stimulation and an income, it has really been a cross-cultural exchange for me at my workplace.  This Danish adventure would have been a lot different without a job, and I hope my colleagues know how much I appreciate their kindness towards the American girl. 

A Scandinavian Summer, Part 2 (don't forget your jacket).

The Google doodle told me last week that fall is officially here now, but this year, Denmark seems to have forgotten the season that comes between spring and fall.  Seriously.  I should have started worrying last summer when everyone said that it was the best summer in 10 years, and it just felt like a mostly normal although somewhat cool summer to me.  The talk this year was that this summer was the worst in 10 years.  At least, we've gotten the full spectrum during our time here.

Fortunately, the long daylight hours of summer come no matter what the temperature is so we tried to get out and enjoy those as much as possible.  But don't be surprised when you see us wearing coats in the pictures.

Taking advantage of one more three day weekend in May, we avoided the famous/infamous Aalborg Karneval (see here for last year's coverage) and instead hopped the ferry to Göteborg, Sweden with our friend Christine.  While it took a while little to get the pronunciation down (something like "yo-ta-bore", but I'm not a linguist), it did not take long to see that Göteborg is a really cool city.  It's bigger than Aalborg and had lots of the cute shops (with trendy Swedish design) and hipster coffee bars that Aalborg still seems to be missing.  The ferry dropped us off smack in the middle of town on a sunny Saturday right before the start of the largest half marathon in the world, and the town was buzzing.

 

Like in Norway, it is legal is Sweden to camp basically anywhere (with a few common sense restrictions, of course), but camping smack in the middle of Göteborg didn't exactly seem like the best idea.  Thankfully, we had some local insight from Erik (our friend from Colorado who has now moved back to his native Sweden) who showed us around the city and then pointed us in the right direction for some more natural areas.  (Full of natural critters like the two ticks I contracted at some point on the trip.  Gross.)  The first night, we camped along Vildmarksleden, a trail that starts in the city and heads east for 40 km winding it's way through forests and past lakes and small towns.  The second night, we were hoping to find a camping spot with a sea view, but after walking through some neighborhoods near the water, we weren't optimistic about finding a spot that wasn't on someone's front lawn.  Just before the rain started to pour, we managed to get our tent set up on some rocks overlooking a harbor.  The people with boats anchored there probably thought we were weird since it wasn't really an isolated place, but no one chased us away and the view was not too shabby.

Unlike Norway, Sweden tends to be a little cheaper than Denmark which meant that we didn't feel too bad indulging in pastries for breakfast for three days, and of course, we had to eat Swedish meatballs in Sweden.

As we discovered last year, Denmark has some great beaches, and we've wanted for a long time to do a little camping trip to the beach.  However, unlike its fellow Scandinavian lands, Denmark, for some reason, doesn't grant the same right to the land that Sweden and Norway do.  Meaning, you can only camp in designated areas, most of which aren't close enough to the beach for an ocean view.  But with some searching (using this great website, for you folks in DK), we found a big nature area at a nearby beach that actually allows camping in a tent in nature (not at a campsite in an RV which seems much more common here) and decided to check it out for July 4th weekend.  We got a few strange looks with our giant packs hiking past the vacationing families grilling at the picnic tables but ended up with a great spot on top of some sand dunes with a view to the ocean and plenty of dry wood for a campfire.  If you squinted, the sand dunes even kinda looked like mountains.

 

Although we've lived in Denmark about a year and a half now, there's still a lot of the country we haven't seen yet and a lot of things we're still learning about Denmark and Danes.  Our friend Louise has been a fabulous guide in all this (she first introduced us to snaps and lakrids and gives us tips like "use both utensils while eating"), and she did it again on our trip to Fyn in August.  Fyn is the other big island in Denmark, sitting between Sjællend (where Copenhagen is) and Jylland (the part of Denmark connected to mainland Europe and where we live).  Louise's parents had invited all of us to their home in Faaborg for the weekend.

We first met Louise while she was living in Colorado for a while a few years ago.  So she knows us well, and it showed when one of the first places she took us to was Carlsen's Kvarter, a well-stocked beer bar in Odense (highly recommended if you're ever there).  Odense is the third largest city in Denmark, but Faaborg only has about 7000 residents and is in a rural area next to the sea.  So when we stepped off the bus in Faaborg late Friday night, we were greeted with the best show of stars we'd seen in a long time, including one unmistakable shooting star (and a few maybes).

                  

On Saturday, we explored Egeskov Slot, a castle first built in 1554.  It's still inhabited today, and the current Count has really tried to make his castle unique.  On the sprawling grounds, there's an antique car collection, a history of bicycles exhibit, and a giant warehouse of every different kind of transportation imaginable (bikes, cars, RV's, ambulances, British double decker buses, fighter planes).  Inside the transportation warehouse, we found one wall full of dolls in glass cases and next door, we came across Dracula's Crypt which didn't seem related to anything else on the castle grounds and was just to scare the little kids who passed by.  When you're rich enough to be a collector of random stuff like this, I guess this is one way to make some kind of use out of it.  My favorite parts were the more traditional castle things like the large gardens and the labyrinth and the castle itself which was even surrounded by a legitimate moat.

Saturday night, Louise's family treated us a typical Danish summer night with a cookout in the garden and a lesson in snobrød making.  When American kids would make s'mores around the campfire, Danish kids would make snobrød.  It's dough twisted around a stick and then baked in the campfire.  If you're feeling hungry, you first put a hotdog on the stick and then wrap the dough around the hotdog and cook it.  Just like roasting marshmallows, there's an art to getting the bread toasted but not burned.  Or you can just cover up the burned parts with ketchup.

We ended the weekend in the village of Faaborg where, as part of the weekend's food festival, we went on a guided tour around Faaborg to sample food made on Fyn.  This included some awesome things like cherry liquor and smoked cheese and beer from Midtfyns Bryghus, but no Danish food tour would be complete without at least some leverpostej (Where American kids eat peanut butter, Danish kids eat leverpostej.  I can't say I've acquired a taste for the cold liver pate yet.).  The whole tour was led by Faaborg's night watchman who still wears the traditional 17th/18th century uniform and carries around a giant stick with a bunch of metal spikes on the end.  He chugged a beer in 4 seconds, and I don't think you want to get in trouble with him.

On a weekend that felt much more like fall than summer, we were very kindly invited by David's co-worker Kim to stay at his family's cozy farmhouse in early September.  While this part of Denmark does have a LOT of farmland and rolling hills, it also has some of the coolest unique landscapes I've see in this country too.  Coastal erosion is working in a dramatic way in this part of the country.  In 1900, a lighthouse was built in this area over 200 meters inland.  Over the past 100 years, it's gradually been overtaken by sand dunes and in less than 20 years will fall completely into the sea.  The lighthouse stopped functioning in 1968, and in 1980, a sand drift museum was opened on the grounds.  But we couldn't visit the sand museum on our trip there because it's been (surprise!) covered by sand.  We couldn't escape the typical Danish rainy windy weather as Kim and his wife showed us along their part of the coast, but in this place, I kinda liked it.  It really added to the whole end-of-the-world feeling you got standing on those cliffs above the sea.  And the cold only made our host's cozy farmhouse even more lovely with a fire going in the wood stove and plenty of coffee.  We even got to warm up with some of the local variety of snaps made with herbs collected from the fields in that area.

On Sunday, after a typical Danish breakfast of rundstykker (literally translated "round pieces" but more accurately translated as bread rolls), we took a long walk from their house out to the sea.  Led by Laika the dog, we hiked over sand dunes and through fields with cows, and the weather cooperated to give us a brisk sunny fall day.  We stood on one of the higher sand dunes where you could see all up and down the coast, and I understood why you would choose to live out here and commute an hour a day into the city to work.  It was so beautiful with space to breath and time to be refreshed.

I wouldn't say that I always feel the most comfortable in Denmark (if you've read my previous posts, you won't be surprised).  And it's easy to make generalizations about places and people that you don't really know.  But when I think about the people I do actually know, it's people like Kim and Louise and their families who have showed us such warm hospitality and shared with us some of their culture and their food and their lives.  It's allowed us to experience some of what it's like to live as a Dane in Denmark and learn a little more from this adventure here.  And for that, thank you.

Cool Spots in Dalmatia

Fresh on the heels of a hard post about lessons we're learning in Denmark and how being here has forced us to grow as people, it's back to our more-normal style of "here's some cool stuff we did". Although it's not always easy being in Denmark, one period when it is easy is a three-week holiday that the majority of Denmark enjoys throughout July. Having already taken two weeks to travel to the US in early June, we used our remaining week to explore Croatia.

I opted to go high-technology for this post and created a google map of our adventure, as I probably couldn't have told you where Croatia was before I moved to Europe.

Sometimes your train hitches a ride on a ferry. We did not know this was possible.

Hamburg is a pretty cool place.

After a day in transit with a short stop in Hamburg (the 2nd largest city in Germany - who knew?), we arrived in Zadar, home of the ominous (but cool) sea organ and a happening old town. All three of the major Croatian cities we visited have a cultural center defined by the walls that once protected it from pirates and the like. On our second day in Croatia, we woke up to realize that it gets incredibly hot in Croatia. We soon discovered the antidote: staying by the water and copious amounts of ice cream. After missing the bus to the nearest national park, we decided to salvage the day by ferrying to the nearest island for a beach day. It was probably our most relaxing day - no traveling, just the sun, water, words on a page, and the aforementioned ice cream.

Who needs air conditioning?

Places like this exist on Earth. No kidding.

The next day it was off to Split, the former retirement home/palace of Diocletian, Roman Emperor from 284-305, and generally not too nice to Christians. However, they got the last laugh by turning his tomb into a church (that'll teach him!). The whole palace area is now the Split old town, filled with shops and narrow European walkways. It's a great place to hide from the sun for a few hours and contemplate how old everything in Europe is (we do that a lot).

YOU SHALL NOT PASS

After a few hours in Split, we headed to the most remote segment of our trip: Vis island. The first thing you notice as the ferry pulls up to the island is the boats all along the harbor. The main thoroughfare is about a kilometer long and has shops on one side and boats on the other. As you walk along, you can't help but notice these *very* nice sailboats / yachts, each with the regular contingent of smiling rich people toasting themselves. Then, at the end of the row is a super-huge mega-yacht that is clearly much more expensive than the rest. I couldn't help but wonder how all the other boat owners felt in the shadow of that monstrosity: were they satisfied with their own (very) well-off lives, or were they eyeing the next rung of the diamond-encrusted ladder? Friends, appreciate what you have, even if it's just a backpack and your walking shoes. There's always a bigger boat - don't buy the lie that you need it to be happy.

The next day, we set off to explore the island via rented scooter. Alana was our driver as I forgot my driver's license in Denmark - whoops. It was terrifying. This was probably a combination of a) being our first time on any motorcycle-type thing, b) me weighing considerably more than Alana, and c) not being in control. Fortunately, both our bodies and our marriage survived the 10 km trip intact.

Head out on the highway / Looking for adventure /

BORN TO BE WILD

We were traveling to catch a taxi boat to Modra špilja, a cave that seems to glow blue due to sunlight bouncing off the sandy white floor of the cave through an underwater opening. It was surreal and beautiful, as the not-quite-believable photos show.

On the return trip to our part of the island, we parked our not-so-trusty scooter (We had a short pit stop while some locals helped us replace a faulty spark plug. They were incredibly nice.) at an overlook and hiked down to Stiniva Bay. There is an easier way that avoids the hike, but unfortunately we left our 50 ft. yacht at home. I'm going to say we enjoyed the water more after hiking in the heat to get to it. I choose not to describe the bay because then I'll just get sad that I'm not there anymore.

Midway through the descent to the bay. %€#& yachts.

Remember the reading rainbow theme? "I can go anywhere..."

I risked the ticket and took the reins of the hog on the way back - I gunned it and took a few sick jumps on the way back (j/k I stayed below 45 km/hr and got passed by a dozen cars). But my fearless passenger did manage to snap a few photos during the return journey.

I now see the appeal of fast things with two wheels.

 

The next day we traveled via ferry / bus to Dubrovnik, our base for the remainder of the trip. The Dubrovnik old town is pretty magical: a single main street with tendrils of great restaurants and shops peppered with ancient architecture and surrounded by a 700 year old wall. As Alana described it: "it's what every planned pedestrian area is trying to be".

The Pearl of the Adriatic

On our first full day we strode the walls, eating ice cream and watching for pirates (they chose not to attack on our watch - smart). Afterwards, we escaped from the heat in the war photo museum, which had incredible images of both the current Ukraine conflict and the bombing of Dubrovnik during the Croatian war of independence. Everyone in Croatia our age and older had lived through a war that my American education had barely covered; it was a sobering reminder of the human cost of war.

And now, a picture of us smiling

Ever vigilant (and stylish)

The pirates would probably have a hard time here

The next day began with a 4 hour bus ride to the Tara River Canyon, the "European Grand Canyon" that serves as a natural border between Bosnia and Montenegro. It was worth the wait: we got our mountain fix while rafting above crystal clear, drinkable water. As one of the few English-speaking groups, our raft consisted of Swedes, Belgians, and Americans living in Denmark. The day was more relaxing than exciting, as the tough part of rafting season was already two months gone. During our 3pm lunch, we chatted with a Ukrainian woman from Odessa who liked Montenegro because no visa was needed as "they still like us here". When she asked where we came from we played it safe: "We live in Denmark."

By the time we got back to Dubrovnik, it was time for our standard 10pm dinner. Right after we found a good spot and ordered our Dalmatian ham pizza, the lights went out. Local wildfires had cut power to the entirety of old town. We nursed our wine, made shadow puppets with the candles, and snickered at the customers sitting inside, roasting without their precious air conditioning. After about 30 minutes, the power came back, accompanied by cheering across the town. After pizza, we celebrated civilization's victory over the elements with more ice cream.

Longing for pizza in the dark

Our last full day in Croatia was spent sea kayaking between islands northeast of Dubrovnik. We kayaked under arches, snorkeled in the ever-abundant crystal water, and jumped off cliffs to the water below. Our guide was a Dubrovnik local, hopeful Ph.D. student (you can do it Mario!), and beer snob (why do those last two go together so often?). After one last night in old town, it was time to leave.

Coasting through life

So long, and thanks for all the ice cream

During this trip, David was reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (thanks again Marius!) and Alana was reading Cutting for Stone.