A real Danish winter

When I came back home last summer everyone was expecting me to tell them that the weather in Denmark was horrible and that is as cold as in the North Pole. I had to tell them the truth. It is known that Denmark and especially Copenhagen is not as cold as other places in Scandinavia but last winter was especially mild. It only snowed once and it was in April! It was dark and it rained a lot but temperatures were rarely below zero so I ended up with the feeling that it had been an exceptional and rare winter.

I was right. These past months I got to experience my first real Danish winter. It has had everything from tons of snow, ice, and temperatures way below 0. October, November, and December felt a bit colder than last year but it was nothing extraordinary. But when I came back from Christmas the real show started. We landed and it started snowing. The first weeks of January were full of snow. It snowed almost every single day and the towns and forests were painted in white for some weeks. The first days were fun, we threw snowballs at each other, built snowmen, and used our slides as we were 5 years old. But after some weeks, we didn't even care when it started snowing again. What at the beginning was exciting ended up being quite annoying.  But overall, I felt like that white January cheered the country up during a tough lockdown period.

I thought I had seen it all. That was what I was expecting when I moved to Denmark. White streets, snowmen and -5 degrees.  I wasn't ready for what was going to happen in February. It was insanely cold. Temperatures weren't able to get over 0 for a couple of weeks and at points, they were almost -10/-15. Walking on the street was risky and taking your hands out of the pocket to check your phone was a horrible idea. This extreme cold had actually nothing positive until we discovered that the lakes had started to freeze. First, it was the small lakes but as days passed, bigger lakes started to freeze and we even started seeing people walk on them. One of those weekends, we decided to bike to Sjælsø under the risk of freezing. It was a great idea. We found hundreds of people skating, friends playing hockey, and lovers walking over the frozen lake. It was not until some days later that we discovered that it was forbidden to do that. Apparently, this was something that didn't happen every year and this explained why so many Danes had made the same mistake. We discovered that the Kommunes (Town Halls) were the authorities in charge of measuring the ice and that they could allow people to walk over them if the ice cover grew and it was safe enough.  Luckily, the temperatures didn't rise and some days later it was legal to go on the frozen lakes. We went everywhere, even the Lakes in the city center were full of people. I had never seen something like that before, thousands of people rushed with family members and friends to enjoy that unique event.

But the biggest surprise of all came some days later. When temperatures went down to -10, some parts of the Baltic Sea froze. Not only Nyhavn and the canals were covered by ice but even some hundreds of meters of the coast were completely frozen. I joked that we could have crossed the straight and invaded Sweden just marching over the ice! People rushed to walk over it even if it was forbidden. Walking on the sea? I had never imagined this could be possible. Apparently, Danes rediscovered their passion for winter bathing when the sea was frozen and people rushed to the beaches to find holes on the frozen ocean to sink in them.  It was insanely cold but apparently, it is good for your health. Many of my friends did. I have to admit that I was not in the mood to try it and I regret it. I actually did it some weeks later when it was still cold but there was no longer ice on the sea so I can't show off and show you a picture of me inside the frozen ocean.

March came and temperatures suddenly rose. This crazy winter is coming to an end and the beautiful danish spring is trying to gain ground. Hopefully, flowers will blossom soon and temperatures will slowly rise because it has been a nice experience to live a real danish winter but I think I'm ready to turn the page.