Originally Posted by
fassy
1) Do not even think about importing your car.... assuming you have one. The tax on importing automobiles is just absurd....
Originally Posted by
nacho
About moving to DK, car is a big thing to consider (you'll be penalized like X if you are bringing your car into DK).
#generationcarless (not to be confused with #generationcareless)
Originally Posted by
fassy
2) Start looking for a place to live veeeeery early and be prepared to move around a lot. Copenhagen rental market is as bad as they come... most of the time you will have to rent for a few weeks and then jump to the next flat for another few weeks. There are very few permanent or long term apartments available for rent in the city. Good thing: You have a chance of moving around and seeing various parts of Copenhagen and it can be quite a lot of fun meeting and spending time in the city with your new room mates.
Is it impossible to find a place to live on your own for a year or so? No. It is possible. But hard and quite expensive or in "bad" parts of the city.
Originally Posted by
nacho
If your university helps you with accommodation then it's not an issue for you, otherwise finding a place to stay can be a big issue in Copenhagen + Malmo area. If you need a place to stay, there are a few things you need to be aware of.
Luckily I've got accomondation in vicinity of the university (DTU) which is specifically for exchange students. I get a two room apartment with a small kitchen for 10'000 DKK per month (but get back 2000 DKK from some organisation because it has a ktichen for some weird reason...), which I guess is a lot, but for Swiss rent standards it's a decent (not that this would make it better in any way...). It'll be a student home, so cue to a scene from animal house.
Originally Posted by
fassy
3) As nacho said... don't get sick! DK healthcare is still better than the one provided in SE. But compared to CH, very basic with long waiting times. It is a good idea to get an extra insurance which will cover you in case of serious illness (like cancer or some major surgery) and offers treatment in Germany. I have one here in SE and they are quite ok... they use a network of private hospitals and guarantee to get an appointment with 72 hours. And if nothings works, they allow treatment in Germany or Poland. Actually, not that expensive. I pay about 750kr/month. But they do not cover everything... so make sure to read ALL of the conditions.
Originally Posted by
nacho
Healthcare - make sure you get everything fixed/done before moving here, medicine can be expensive (no idea about the cost in Switzerland). Dental treatment is expensive (no public clinic even though you get some kind of subsidies but it's tiny, plus they like to add extra things to bill you - like you want to have your teeth clean they will try to teach you to brush your teeth and charge you 100 for that).
I'll keep your inputs about the healthcare in mind and so far I've very rarely been sick at all and I'm not planning on changing this so hooray. I guess this is one of the benefits of being young (and we do often forget how precious good health can be and take if for granted). This is why I am considering just keeping my Swiss healthcare and return as a very last backup option.
Originally Posted by
fassy
4) As in Sweden, you are nothing without the CPR. Make sure to obtain the CPR as soon as possible. Prioritize it above anything else. If you hit a roadblock, sometimes it is better to talk to an immigration lawyer. There are some big ones like Deloitte which offer these services (at 5000kr/hr of course) but also some small individual lawyers with reasonable fees to push the right levers of the machine.
Hopefully it won't come to that but I'll keep this in mind.
Originally Posted by
nacho
It doesn't matter even if you have an AMEX Centurion card and want to apply for a CC in DK, they don't care.
At least this will teach me a lesson in humility for taking fancy credit cards and approved CC applications for granted :P
Originally Posted by
nacho
They must have changed that, as it was about 20 years ago when I went through Danish language course and learned about those issues my German classmates.
If SAS is still there by then, what they put me through I would never step foot on SAS again (we are all EBG).
I think I recall some of your experiences you posted about in another thread. Quite shocking imho, so I do understand your sentiments, but I've really only had the opposite experiences with SAS, many times the agents are very accomondating and are much more likely to allow creative solutions in comparison to for example LHG. Maybe I still look too much like an UM...
Originally Posted by
nacho
If you live in a city and ride a bike, make sure you bring it into your home and buy a lock that's approved by insurance etc. - there are bikes stolen daily, even where I live people drive a truck and take bikes along the way. Make sure you know the rules well like what ticket to buy, and your bike needs ticket etc. as the fines here are not little. 100 EUR if you got the wrong ticket.
I was planning to buy a bike for commuting, so I'll keep this in mind!
Originally Posted by
nacho
Get used to crappy supermarkets and forget about Swiss standard when you come here - you pay the same in price but everything is of lower quality. Public transport too - I don't take public transport normally but I do hear traffic report over the radio and delays and cancellations are common on trains, and there's always a reason for it: too cold spring, too hot summer, fallen leaves and storms in autumn and snow in winter. The last time I was in Basel was 10 years ago and the train station announced a 2 minute delay with an apology and there's no trash anywhere - clean and safe. We had a great impression and we were thinking about moving to Switzerland and it's not easy with kids who can't attend local schools (they have been in international schools their whole lives).
Yeah, I've already seen this in Norway regarding super markets and food in general. I really don't understand how anybody can eat those fat dripping hot dogs they seem to offer everywhere... And so far I've only had very little success even finding a sandwhich that was anything more than just edible with the exception of Joe and The Juice. If push comes to shove I'll just survive on Joe and The Juice sandwhiches :P
If you are still considering to move to Switzerland at some point shoot me a message. Imho it is a very good place to raise kids, maybe second to the netherlands.
There are some solutions for schools which might not be obvoius at first. Obvoiusly there are also the very expensive international ones which most expat kids go to. In my school (a private one) we've had a class dedicated to bilungual students and I believe some schools also offer classes for non-native german speaking people. (We had a girl from Brazil that had to learn German from scratch and she managed fine with the school providing extra lessons to accomondate her and get her up to speed). Depending on the age of the kids this could be an option. Let me know if you ever have any questions.
I personally am a bit fed up by Switzerland atm, which is why I'd like to see and experience some other countries: Moving to Norway in the long term is still very much a long term option for me.
Originally Posted by
nacho
If you need a bank account, there's an online one that seems to have no restrictions (I couldn't open a bank account with COOP and there are people saying that they won't let anyone who is not born in DK to get an account - my husband got it and they denied mine). Let me know when you have a CPR number and you can open a bank account with 150kr bonus - it's like any Danish bank with payment services and comes with a free Visa card and you can pay bills too.
I'll definetly keep this in mind. I've opened some accounts with some of the new challenger banks that offer free accounts and no foreign transaction fees and such, but a local danish one might come in handy. Will definetly keep your offer in mind.
Originally Posted by
nacho
Let me know if you have any questions! I moved from the UK to DK more than 20 years ago and after obtaining my DK citizenship we moved to Sweden to have a children. We moved back 2 years ago (now I looked back and it's a mistake - we should have moved straight from Sweden out of Europe). The main gain from this move is Mr doesn't have to drive 250km a day to and from work, a nicer house, safer environment and my kids are finally learning at their schools. But our bank account drain a lot faster here compared to Sweden.
I didn't realize that there's such a big difference between Denmark and Sweden. I always knew Norway was on the more expensive side, but maybe I'm just used to Swiss prices (and salaries :P ).
Great, thanks for the inputs! I will get back to you if any further questions come up!