Is this your first time or have you been here before? Maybe you have visited a friend, and after leaving you felt the urge to just pack up your stuff and move here? That is what happened to me after I visited Copenhagen for the first time in February 2012. Through this site, I would like to share all the danish life hacks I have learned for the past six years of living here – cause it has not always been easy.
(This webpage is still under construction, but it will soon be done – please bear with me)
Some background information about this site
On my first trip to Copenhagen, I visited a friend for a long weekend that had lived here for about half a year, she gave me the local experience and it instantly felt like a place I wasn’t finished with! Within the next few weeks I had applied to my master studies at Copenhagen Business School, and before knowing if I was even accepted – I found a room in a shared apartment that I was lucky enough to rent for six months, while the girl renting it our was on exchange a semester. Luckily, a few months after I found a place to live, I also got acceptance from the school and I was to start in August.
By the end of 2014 I handed in my thesis and I had a master’s degree from CBS at hand, ready to enter the job market. I still enjoyed the danish lifestyle and decided to stay in Copenhagen, so I found a job that would challenge me, that offered a social and fun work environment, and where I could grow. After working there a year, and reaching the end of my twenties, I made a tough decision to pack my bags once again and leave Copenhagen. I moved back to my small childhood town where I grew up, where I left nine years ago, but where all my family and some of my oldest friends still lived – I had to see what it would be like since I never meant to leave forever.
After six months I felt torn, I missed Copenhagen so much, the culture, the people, biking, summer by the lakes, drinking beer in the sun on Dronning Louises bro, and the little things you didn’t know you were leaving behind. But I finally had my family close, my brothers were being annoying on a regular basis again and balance was restored. I had great nature around the corner with snowy mountains ready for skiing in the winter and green hills meeting the blue sky in the summer. After eight months of back and forth in my mind, I came across a very tempting job ad for a position in Copenhagen and decided to send them my application. Shortly after, I was invited for a job interview in Copenhagen. It was my first time back since I moved, and it felt great! I got the job, and before I knew it – I found myself searching for apartments in Copenhagen once again.
It was summer and I had three months to find a new home, move, and get settled in before I started the new job. After living in Copenhagen for four years, I knew it would be difficult to find new places. I found it highly challenging when I was living in the same city – now trying to find something from another country was impossible! I ended up finding a seemingly nice apartment only two weeks before my flight, and I felt so lucky and relieved.
Once I arrived in Copenhagen (with way too much luggage) I got to my friends’ place, where I was staying a couple of days before meeting with the landlord and get the keys. I e-mailed back and forth with the landlord and he kept saying he hadn’t received my deposit and first-month rent, so I couldn’t get the keys yet. After three days I felt something was off, I had been in contact with my bank several times and everything was seemingly fine, so I started searching about the ad, the landlord, and every little piece of information I had from him. It didn’t take that long before I realized it – I had been scammed. I wrote the fraud of a landlord and asked him to confirm the information I had just provided to the police, of course, the Danish police couldn’t do much with the information I had and I had to realize that facts pretty quickly.
So, here I was, two days before my first day at work, no place to live, and an empty bank account – welcome back! I wrote on so many Facebook groups and asked family and friends for help, but it was August, school start, and thousands of others also looking for a place to stay. A reporter from TV2 actually reached out to me at one point as she heard about my story, and I got on the news a few days later. Unfortunately, nothing gave results, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to extend my start date with my new job for one month, so I had some time.
A few weeks later I managed to find a short-term lease ( four months) from a girl who was renting out her apartment while studying a semester abroad. It gave me some time to find something new, and I could start in my new job with a little more ease – now I had somewhere to land. Since then I have moved again and again, but a few months back I finally bought an apartment HURRAY! I have learned so much throughout my six years in Copenhagen, some of my lessons cost me a lot of money, while others have been very time consuming, and it has resulted in this site – I hope it can be of help to you or someone you know, to get settled more comfortably in this lovely city I call home.
Welcome again, and hope to see you around!