Scandinavia Trip, part 1 - Copenhagen, Denmark

One of the selling points of my business school was the opportunity to do a global travel seminar. Global travel seminars are week-long trips to various countries where you make company visits, learn about conducting business in a global environment and work on an actual problem for a few of the companies and get real-time feedback. Last fall I signed up for the Scandinavia trip with a single-minded focus: TRAVEL!! I haven't been out of the country since Belize in 2010 and before that it was a disastrous trip to Amsterdam in 2006, the ensuing pain from which all comes back in a hurry as soon as I get on an airplane. I'm not counting the trips to Canada. Yeah, I know Quebec is in another country but if I can drive there in half a day I'm not counting it as "out of the country".

My trip to Scandinavia was last week. We visited six companies in Copenhagen, Denmark and Lund and Stockholm, Sweden. I learned so much about business!! The companies were so open with us about the challenges and problems they've faced and how they're strategizing for the future. It's going to take me the next six months of my life to process everything that I learned from the company visits. We did two case questions for two different companies and those were, um, an interesting learning experience. I won't bore you with the details but rest assured there is nothing worse than being part of a team where one team member is trying to use the cases to catapult herself into a job at the companies and makes it perfectly clear that she thinks I am a total idiot. Night. Mare. I also learned a lot about myself and what I am looking for in the future and how I work best and which areas I need to work more on. And along the way we got to do some sightseeing.

My plan is to post pictures from the three cities we visited. You'll note that we had amazing weather - 70s and sunny all week. It rained on one day while we were inside at a company visit all day and on the day we left. Copenhagen and Stockholm are farther north than where I currently life so the sun didn't set until about 9:30pm (or later). We went out on our last night in Stockholm and sat at an outdoor cafe. It blew my mind that at after midnight the sky was dark blue, not midnight black like it gets in New England. You can imagine that winter in Scandinavia is pretty grim with the sun setting at 3:30pm. I really loved Copenhagen and Stockholm and would love to return to see and do more. And to be honest, after learning that I've max-ed out my prescription coverage of my crappy healthcare (and will thus be paying full costs of all prescriptions until I graduate in 2012) it is really tempting to considering finding a job in Scandinavia where the take rate is 50-60% but all social services - education, college, healthcare, retirement, etc - are free. I love Europe.

Some of the best pictures from Copenhagen:

I got to Copenhagen a day before most of my classmates so I used it as a true "vacation day", the first I've had since school started in September. I went to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art which was about an 30 minute train ride north of Copenhagen. What a treat! There was an interesting Picasso exhibit and a really cool David Hockney exhibit where he "painted" an entire series of pictures on the iPad and they were displayed in such a way that you could see his artistic process. The museum grounds had a cool sculpture garden and was situated on a bluff overlooking that water. I loved this orange popsicle stick sculpture:
Copenhagen is the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. Our hotel was close to Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard. You can take the librarian out of the library but the librarian gets ridiculously excited when she's near the home of a children's literature author!
By the seafront was a sculpture of Hans Christen Andersen's Little Mermaid. Copenhagen has more graffiti than any other city I've ever visited so I was not at all surprised to learn that the Danes had beheaded the Little Mermaid and cut off one of her arms about ten years ago. Today she is filled with concrete which keeps her safe from further beheadings.
This castle was situated in a beautiful park that was full of Danes picnicking and enjoying the beautiful weather. I love city parks because they are always so alive with city dwellers trying to enjoy the bit of nature that they can. The castle was originally the "summer home" of the royal family.
We visited Amalienborg Palace, home to the Queen and one of the princes (the other prince is a farmer near the German border and he receives farming subsidies from the European Union - no joke). There are guards but no police and no fences or other barriers. Denmark is an egalitarian society where there is a very short distance between those who have the most and those who have the least. One of the creeds of Denmark is "Don't think you are better than anybody else". In keeping in this spirit the idea is that anyone can access the royal family with no barriers. While we were watching the changing of the guard a car zoomed across the plaza beeping it's horn. It was the queen and her driver! The car didn't have tinted windows and the Queen rides a modest Mercedes.
I saw these locks on a bridge while I was running on my first morning. I think people hang them when they are in love. I loved these locks and love the symbolism! There were tons.
Copenhagen is surrounded by canals. Nyhavn Canal was the most touristy but also the most colorful.
I was really surprised to see the colorful facades in Copenhagen. I expect these colors in more mediterranean areas, not in cold Scandinavia. I thought they were beautiful and I felt inspired to let a little more color in my life. Since winters are so long and dark in Scandinavia, Scandinavians really take advantage of nice weather and spend time outdoors.