Read Online The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell - Free Book Online

sofa and putting his arm around me. ‘We just need to get to know the place better. You should get out and about more, meet people.’ He’s probably right. Working from home and socialising via Skype and FaceTime isn’t good for a girl. But then neither is Sticksville-on-Sea’s public transport system. Having suffered frostbite and fury at the mercy of infrequent buses and trains since Lego Man started commuting to work with our sole mode of transport, a leased Lego-mobile, I decide that the time has come to buy my own car out here.
    Coming from the UK, I have it relatively easy in terms of hitting the Danish roads. Most internationals from outside of the EU are forced to take a test before they can drive here. Regulations came into force in 2013 allowing new arrivals from countries deemed to ‘have a level of road safety comparable to Denmark’ to simply swap their licences, but there are conditions attached. Applicants have to have taken their test after the age of eighteen (ruling out most Americans who take their tests at sixteen) and need to have had a clean driving record for the past five years.
    In common with everything else in Denmark, motoring isn’t cheap. New cars have a sales tax of 180 per cent, making them cost about three times the amount that they would back home. This means that a simple hatchback that might fetch £10,000 in the UK (or $17,000 in USD) retails at the equivalent of £30,000 in Denmark ($50,000) – and the inflated costs trickle down to used car prices.
    â€˜Is this why most people drive matchboxes?’ I ask Lego Man, when these alarming new discoveries have sunk in.
    â€˜I suspect so. Are you going to be OK out there? Car shopping, I mean?’
    â€˜Sure,’ I tell him, sounding not at all sure but feeling as though this is probably something a grown woman in the 21st century should be able to handle.
    Feeling courageous, I venture to the nearest car dealership. Having discovered that a return flight to London is cheaper than a twenty-minute cab ride anywhere in Jutland, I’m resigned to taking the bus again. Two hours later and relatively unscathed, I arrive in the showroom and am rewarded with the aroma of pleather, car air fresheners and cheap aftershave.
    My price threshold rules out every car in the place bar two. The first is a scratched-up tin box on wheels that looks and smells like a family of feral cats have been living in it, relieving themselves regularly. The second, a cheery, tomato-red number, reminds me of a mobility scooter. I’m not instantly enamoured, but after a pootle around the block I find that a) the thing goes and b) my lofty driving position means that I can look down on other motorists. A novelty for a 5′3″ Brit in a land of Vikings.
    â€˜I’ll take it,’ I tell the dealer, who hands me a nine-page document – in Danish. I ask if I can take this away with me to interpret it or at least have some quality time with it in the vicinity of a Danish-to-English dictionary. But instead, he offers to translate for me. I’m not convinced that this is normal, but having been assured by my guidebook that there are fair trading rules for second-hand car dealers in Denmark and that salesmen don’t get paid commission, I figure I’m unlikely to get ripped off. The guy has little to lose by being straight with me. In for a penny, in for a krone , I think.
    So I thank him and he runs me through the deal. But it includes several more zeros than expected.
    â€˜What’s this for?’ I point at an alarming row of virtual hugs on page four.
    â€˜Oh, that’s for the winter tyres.’
    It’s not just cushions that get a seasonal update in Denmark, it turns out. Winter tyres, though not mandatory, are advised. Shelling out a further 5,000 DKK (roughly £580 or $850 USD) for wheels that won’t send me headlong into a ditch on unfamiliar roads in sub-zero temperatures