Week 10 - Denmark & Norway = NEARLY DONE!

Europe Train Challenge – 28 Countries In 10 Weeks: The last leg on our journey has begun. The final countries during the Europe Train Challenge will be in Scandinavia, beginning with Denmark – the country with the happiest people in the world.

Countries This Week: Denmark, Norway

Yes, Denmark has been praised by other countries several times to be the happiest country in the world, and I was curious to hear the Danish peoples’ thoughts on that – which turned out to be quite interesting.

According to themselves, people here complain a lot and don’t really smile much on the streets – in other words, they don’t look too happy.

The guy we talked to thought it had more to do with the low expectations they had and the acceptance rather than happiness.

Copenhagen is the first foreign place I remember visiting as a child.

The first impressions were so strong that I still associate them with the city; The smell of freshly made waffles on Ströget, the night lights on the Tivoli theme park and the excitement of something different.

And there is something that makes Denmark different from the rest of Scandinavia, something that makes it seem more relaxed.

Perhaps it’s the fact that they have a small part of Copenhagen which has its own laws, flags and rules – Christiania.

Or maybe it was because of the many festivals they have there – while we were there the Copenhagen Jazz Festival was on.

Old and young mixed together sat on the stone-cobbled streets and stairs in front of stages tapping their feet and swinging to the sides to the funky Jazz rhythms and brass tunes.

On our way to Oslo, we stopped over for two days in my hometown Gothenburg in Sweden.

Having the luxury of home-cooked meals, catching up with friends and a foot-bath was well needed.

I hadn’t realized just how badly my feet had been treated until my mother made that ”worried” remark about my blistered feet.

Those are things you really don’t have time to think about when you’re traveling, and getting those small every-day luxuries made me long for some time in one place.

Oslo was next on the agenda. It was pretty, small and had beautiful nature – which pretty much seems to sum up the whole of Norway.

I’ve never seen any other part of Norway, and I’m dying to see the fjords and northern parts of Norway. I will make sure I get to see it within a year.

For some reason we saw more homeless people and druggies than in other parts of Scandinavia.

A bad place to be if you have no money, it’s pretty much double the prices of Sweden – and that in itself says something about the costs…!

Next week we’re off to Sweden and Finland, the two last countries on the Europe Train Challenge! What are we going to do next???