Copenhagen, dream (sin) city

Intro

I ve been thinking about where to spend summer 2012 for a long time. I am working for an international company Hard Rock Cafe, so in general, I had a chance to go almost anywhere. I've always been interested in traveling and knowing new places so this time I decided to get to know Scandinavia, went to Copenhagen and it was the best choice I could make!

All things you have to get in beginning

Once you get to Copenhagen, it's not so easy to start working as anywhere else in Europe. In Denmark, you have to get 2 documents before, residence permit and CPR number. First at all, you need to go registered your address, you need your contract from owner for it, and then, once u get residence permit you have to ask for CPR number. For CPR number you have to have work contract first or be a student there. The CPR number can be obtained at the civil registration office (Folkeregisteret). Without that, you cannot do almost anything, you cannot start working, cannot open bank account, can't use the health care, cannot buy monthly ticket for traveling etc.. It usually takes about 2 weeks to get all this documents, I was lucky and I got it all in one day (so it's not that hard as you can read on all websites about CPR number)!

Lifestyle, Prices

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Copenhagen is an expensive city, but once you start working there, it becomes cheap for you. I would recommend you to have at least 1500 euro when you get there, because just rent of single room near the centre cost around 450 euro (and it's a really good price! ), and in the beginning you have to pay deposit as well which is usually the same amount as a monthly rent, monthly ticket cost around 50 euro (only if you have CPR number), you went out for a first shopping of just a basic things and you spend almost 1000 euro first day you get there. Prices in the shop are not so bad, I was shopping in the Lidl were prices were close to East Europe. Danish products, were much more expensive but they consider it as a high quality products. What is the most expensive part about Copenhagen, are restaurants, bars, and clubs. For a normal lunch you spend 20 euro, for a beer 8 euro, glass of wine as well.. and my biggest disappointment is that standard in the bar, when you order a shot you get only 0. 2 and it costs about 8-10 euro! I am used to get 0. 4 all the time so in Cph I had to ask all the time for double and me as a girl looked as a total alcoholic... But again, I was working as a server there and could earn monthly about 3000 euro without tips after tax, which are 36 percent, so believe me that after you got first salary there you stop counting every corona there, fall in love with the city and live your life fully!

About lifestyle, what I liked the most there, are bikes! everywhere! I am pretty sure that everybody heard Copenhagen is one of the most ecologic city in the world. It has about 700 0000 citizens and 55 percent of them are using bike! And you can really see it when you get there, I have never seen any bad traffic there because people just don't really use cars. Everywhere else is bike consider as a sport, in Copenhagen it's really something that replace a car. I saw girls with the high heels biking, business men in suits, old people, simply, everybody, it was amazing! Near every road you have special road for a bikes, no hills, so you can get easily everywhere in maximum 20 minutes.

Taxes in Copenhagen are high (36 percent) but you can really see that state is taking care about theirs citizens, everything is clean, climatizate buses, so many attractions for kids outsides, automatize metro which is going 24 hours, and, the most important part, state is saving money for you from your every salary, it's called holiday money, and u get them every year in May all together, usually when you are working full time it's around 2500 euro just as a bonus every year so it's not bad, isn't it? And except these holiday money they are saving you about 8 percent from every salary pension money for you as well.

All people there speak perfectly English, but if you don't speak Danish it can be problem for you to get a job there so you have to be lucky or work for international company as I do! Studying there is for free for European citizens so if I had a chance to decide again where to go to university, Denmark would be my choice for sure!

Places you have to see!

It's a beautiful city and I am pretty sure that you will search somewhere else not in blogs where to go, but I would definitelly recommend you to go to Tivoli park (http://www.tivoli.dk/), it's exactly near the Hard Rock Cafe so you definitelly have to go there as well, Kings garden is amazing place to see, Islands Brygge, and Amagerstand.

If you will have any questions about Copenhagen, just ask!

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