Denmark’s currency is the Danish Crown, called Danske krone in Danish (abbreviated DKK). At the time of this writing, 1 USD is just under 6 DKK (~5.98). Last fall, 1 USD was about 5 DKK. So to get an approximate value of how much an item costs in USD, you’d divide the amount in kroner by 5. So 100 DKK is about $20 (actually it’s less than that since the exchange rate is about 5.98-ish, but I’d rather overestimate the value by a few dollars than underestimate it).

The plural form of “krone” is “kroner.” Krone is the Danish word for crown. When I first arrived last fall I kept saying “kroners” to make it plural but that’s a redundancy because “kroner” is already plural. Saying “kroners” is like saying “dollarses.”

Well, there are quite a few coins. Sometimes I still struggle to remember which is which. To alleviate that problem, I am going to sort all of my coins out and place them in separate bags according to value. I will then clearly label each bag (e.g. 5 DKK). The Danish coins are (clockwise, starting from the smallest silver coin at the top in the picture at left): 1-krone, a 2-kroner, 5-kroner, 20-kroner and 10-kroner. The 1, 2 and 5 kroner coins come with nifty little holes in the middle. I assume it’s so you can string them together and wear them as a necklace so you’ll always have change with you?

There are also 25- and 50 øre coins. 100 øre = 1 krone. So 50 øre is half a krone and 25 øre is a quarter-krone. But the 25 øre coins went out of commission in October 2008 and are no longer in use.

The Danish paper money is also quite interesting and colorful to boot. You can get a 50 kroner bill, 100, 200, 500 and 1000. According to Wikipedia they are going to redesign the bills between 2009 and 2012, with Danish bridges as the theme.

Note: The paper money pictured at the top is actually part of my rent money. I snapped a photo of it just before I took it down to the post office to pay my rent for the month. ;-)

No, no more snow on the ground, but here are some pictures of snow days we’ve had in recent weeks.

Now the weather is mostly cloudy, although on Wednesday we had a few lovely hours of sunshine. The world was doused in color. I didn’t have my camera with me then, but next time we have sun I’ll grab my camera.

Little snowman outside of my kollegium blok.

My school is the building on the left! Snow doesn't shut THIS city down!

You can see MANY more pictures at Flickr!

I’m back with the blog! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I decided to return to Copenhagen for the spring 2009 semester, and after a wonderful Christmas break back at home in NC, I am back in Copenhagen! I’ve been back here for a month now. At first it was rough re-adjusting to the 6-hour time difference and life in the dorm. But after about 2 weeks I finally got back on track.

Classes are very interesting. One of them is called Knowledge Media in Society, and it focuses on various types of media and how they interact in a knowledge society. The other course is called Science Studies, and it is a course in the philosophy of science. Not any particular science, but just science in the sense of knowing. I’m sure I’ll have a better explanation of what the class is about as time goes along!

Well I’ve got a lot of ideas for blogs this time around. I will be much more diligent about blogging. :-)

We had quite a bit of snow the past few weeks. I will post pictures in the next entry. The weather has warmed up considerably and now there is no snow whatsoever on the ground. Plus we had a few hours of sunshine yesterday. It was amazing. I almost forgot what a sunny day looked like! :-) Also, the days are getting longer. Back in December it was dark by 4 pm, now it gets dark at around 7:30 or so. I’m really looking forward to the long hours of daylight later this spring.

I’ll be back soon with a new post (pictures of the SNOW)!