Taxes and More Taxes

Although Denmark is rated as the happiest country on Earth, it also has one of the highest tax rates of any country. I've heard that the upper income tax brackets in Denmark can pay taxes that amount to almost 75% of their yearly income. This also extends to sales taxes, which are about 25% for most goods (including groceries). No matter where I go in Copenhagen, everything is expensive; I've seen music CDs that would be 15 USD max in the U.S. sell for about 150 DKK (Kroner, the Danish currency) - which amounts to roughly 30 USD. That's just outrageous. It seems to work for the Danes, though, since they all maintain stable and roughly equal standards of living.

On Sunday, I woke up early and went with Jill and her roommate Karina on a tour of Frederiksborg Palace, which built by King Frederik II in the 16th century and was home of the Danish royal family through the 19th century. We barely missed a guided tour of the palace, but we explored on our own for a while and got to check out every room of the palace that was open to the public. The palace was mostly filled with paintings of Danish royalty and famous events in Danish history, plus a collection of gaudy furniture and old astrological equipment - but sections of the ground and top floors were set aside as gallery spaces that were used for displaying artwork commemorating important figures in modern Danish politics and culture. We also happened to meet a few other people from our class at the palace, and afterward we grabbed some food at a local pølse stand (pølse is the signature Danish hotdog) before heading back to Hoffmans by S-tog. Later I just chilled in the room for a while and got some reading done.

The Facade of Frederiksborg Castle

The next day wasn't too eventful; in class a guest lecturer same in and explained the theories behind narrative psychology - a field of psychology that looks into the ways that people describe their life stories - and discussed how this field could be used to explore the positive qualities of people's lives. Everyone in the class then ended up participating in a workshop where we used narrative psychology techniques to consider ways that problems in people's lives that could be improved. During a break I chatted with a few guys form my class who had visited Berlin the past weekend an asked them about their trip, and after class me and a group of my classmates checked out some shops downtown. Afterward I browsed around for a while, headed back to my Kollegium, and grabbed some groceries from Netto. Later I studied at the park near Hoffmans and chatted with a girl named Nadia who lives  few floors up from me, then afterward a girl named Theresa who also lives here showed me how to get onto the roof of the Kollegium. It's so tight. From now on, I'll probably get most of my studies done up here!

The View from the Hoffmans Roof

(And yes, I'm currently writing this blog update from the roof. The view of Brønshøj - the suburb where Hoffmans Minde is located - is phenomenal.)