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So, I recently looked at a map of the world, and realised that I knew nothing about Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. I guess I could google them, but I noticed there are some members here from these places and would rather get the info first-hand from them, or anyone who knows anything about these countries.
I'm just curious ;)
I'm Danish, so I should be able to tell you a bunch.
Weather:
It's gray most of the year, the wind is worst in the western part of the country, our winters are somewhat white/gray, but our summers are warm in a not too hot way, and the land is beautiful when it flourish.
Geography:
The land is pretty.. flat.. which makes it perfect for farming. We export a lot of cow/pig products to germany, and much of the western border is covered with "hede" (don't know English word for this)
Social:
Our country has a LOT of wellfare, a relatively high tax, but are still officially the happiest country (or atleast in the high top). Secondly, we are also the country who subscribes most "Happy - Pills" :P
We are a democracy, and our govermental system is well known for it's security (the power is divided in a way so dictatory is impossible)
Goverment:
We have a Monarch (Queen), and a royal family, although the power lies with the people. The queens only official power, is that every law, has to be signed by her.
Folketinget is a gathering of 92 people chosen by the people, where 4 of them are from the Faere islands and Greenland (whom Denmark was the owner of, and still have close relations to).
We have a lot of parties, who represents liberty and socialism, most important are the Socialdemocrats(social) and Venstre (liberal). At each election, all the parties make campaigns, and all the votes are gathered up, the party with the most votes get to be Prime minister, all of the votes are then used to find out who shall get minister posts and how many represents from each party may have a vote in the Folketing.
The folketing is used to vote for/against new laws, changes in laws, and can, if there is a majority, suspend any minister from his post. (I'm pretty sure this is how it works, but I might have made a mistake somewhere)
Goverment +:
The power is divided like this:
The Lawmaking part (Folketinget + the ministers)
The Upholding part (The minister of justice who is in charge of the policeforce)
The Judging part (The high court and all the judges in the country)
This is called something with triangle of power or whatever, atleast it pretty much keeps the power divided :)
Thank you :D As I said, I thought of Denmark and what I knew of the place (along with the other countries) and thought "What do you know of these places?" and uh, drew a blank.
Not bad, it must be nice to live in one of the happiest places in the world! Maybe I'll pay a visit when I'm travelling and feeling blue :)
History
One of the most interesting events in Danish history, is the time where we were fearsome and brutal Vikings xD. We sailed over to England and plundered and raped, this was when we believed in Thor, Odin and Loke, all the Northern Mythology. The vikingery died off with the conversion of the Danish king into Christianity. The myth tells, that when the missionary arrived before the king, the king made him walk over burning coal or something like that, and he should do it calmfully under the protection of the "real" god, and he was able to do so, this happened in the Danish city of Jelling, where a stone was inscripted and placed to memorize it. (writen in runes, and that's where the story is from)
Denmark has "owned" both Norway and England in old times, and we had a large part of Germany too, but after ww2 the area we previously owned (Slesvig) got to vote wether they wanted to be a part of Germany, or Denmark. Wierdly they voted Germany : /
You should wait till summer then :) It's lovely at summer, well also at spring :)
Klikko covered most of it, though I guess it's worth mentioning that most Danes can speak English to some degree, meaning that visiting here is fairly painless, compared to countries such as France and Germany. Aarhus and Copenhagen are probably the most interesting cities to visit. If you swing by Aarhus, you could probably pay Klikko and I a visit, although Herning is a little further into the country than where I live.
In Herning we have constructed a great multi-arena, for koncerts, sport events and such. So far both Lady Gaga, Elton John and Pink (and some more) have come. In the future Pink Floyd will also come, U2 and more of those great names. So you might try to collide a visit to Denmark, with a concert with one of these :D Also had Coldplay
hah, even I learned a thing or two from your posts Klikko :3 Aarhus FTW!
Do Danes care about Greenland?
Well I could tell you something about Finland then :cheeky:
Weather:
We have pretty "clear" seasons of the year. For example if you come here in Springtime your probably know that its spring and when you come here at autumn youll know its autumn etc.
Winter
This and past winter have been really cold and snowy. I live in southern Finland and when I look to my backyard theres about half a meter snow, the temperature is right now about -10Celsius and its really windy so its even colder because of the wind.
Spring
The snow starts to melt in beginning of April, birds start to whistle and everythings getting greener. I dont like the spring so much because when the snow melts it reveals the garbage which it has hidden underneath, so its sometimes ugly looking...
Summer
Last summer was really hot and its not typical Finnish summer. There were these heatwaves coming from the east and if you were inside you were probably sweating allover the place, like me:P. I love the summer time. We have a summer house norther from here and the sun doesnt set in June. Lapland and not only the Finnish lapland is famous for it that the sun is shining like 24/7 in the summer.
Autumn
The Autumn colours are really beautiful, I mean when the leafs change colours from red to yellow and so on.
Geography
LOTS of forests and lakes. Also fjelds here and there mostly in Lapland.
Misc.
We love to go to Sauna and pretty many here listens to heavy metal.
Nokia is not only a big international corporation, its also a city here, and the corporation was incorporated in Nokia city.
Linus Torvalds who is Finnish, started Linux.
We have a female president who looks like Conan O'Brien.
We have a really good school system and you can see it by the PISA scores we've had.:shadewink:
Usually the stereotypes of Finnish people is that we are depressed, drunk and violent. I wouldnt say its true, but I wouldnt say its NOT true either.
I'll fill in more afterwards because I have to go to do some other stuff now...
Thank you, I like learning about different countries and their culture :D
Keep it coming!
On the whole the Nordic countries are the most advanced with respects to human rights and standard of living in the world.
denmark fucking rocks. by far one of the nicest places I've been to. great food, great weather (in the summer) and good vibes on the streets :) it's clean and pretty everywhere. definitely go there if you can. during the summer, though.
YouTube - Sissel Kyrkjebø - Velkommen Hjem (duet med Poul Krebs) + lyrics
They have quite nice music ;p
Very nice! Too bad I couldn't understand any of it.
I suck at languages. I tried to learn German and failed miserably... :lol:
And now some more about Finland!!! YAAAAY:D
Misc. History etc.
Even though we are close to Sweden, Norway and Russia, we have a really extraordinary language, it doesnt have like any influences from our neighbour countries.
While the Scandinavians (NOTE: Finland is not exactly part of Scandinavia, but Fennoscandia) were playing "king and queen" we Finns were their(read=Sweden's) peasants and most of the time of our recorded history we have been under a the command of either Sweden or Russia. Some times peasants went through hard times even though Sweden treated us pretty well??Russia especially, because of them we got this huge leap toward independency. They allowed us to have autonomy. Those hard times has been a reason why there has become this concept of "Finnish Sisu". Its pretty hard to describe what the word "Sisu" means, it means alot of things at the same time, for example determination, steadfastness, courage etc. so that even when your going through hard times a Finnish person can survive with some "Suomalainen Sisu" (suomalainen = Finnish). Sisu was also a big part of Winter War in WWII. The Soviets had alot more soldiers and equipment than we had. We kicked their soviet butts, they had lot more casualties and losses compared to ours. Eventually our forces started cracking because of the number of soviet forces and the war ended to an unfair Moscow Peace Treaty where basically the Soviet Union was saying what we should hand over to them ....
But now that the old generation who lived through the WWII and so on are dying, it feels like that we are loosing our feeling of "Sisu" and unity, but maybe its just me that thinks that (hopefully).
Also our mythology wasnt/isnt same as in Scandinavian countries. Its pretty hard to explain about the Finnish mythology/paganism because its so wide concept and I dont know much about it....
We were also one of the first countries which allowed women the right to vote in political matters.
Mostly we Finns are proud to be Finnish, atleast I am:lol:.
Ah, the politics, not much to say about it, we're a republic and we have currently a woman as a president, as I mentioned, and also a woman as a prime minister. I think that were doing fine in the politics, but we shouldnt take so much loan.
We'll thats my view of our wonderful country :).
I might have made a mistake somewhere, so correct me if im wrong.
Dont know why but that previous post went double :O
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all pretty difficult languages, Danish probably being the most difficult one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raspberry
We do, but the problem with Greenland is that they want to become independent, like Iceland. However, while Iceland can rely on tourism and their infinite energy to sustain themselves, Greenland has absolutely nothing, because regulations prohibit them from fishing/hunting seals on a large scale. Tourism isn't really viable either. There is also a cultural problem, as Greenlanders are typically very negligent. Some say they have been integrated into modern society too quickly, resulting in many of them being dysfunctional.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
Really? I would have though Norsk would be harder...
Yeah those countries are pretty cool in regards to most everything. They're generally rich too. Pretty nice. Can't comment on the beer though.