It’s a crisp day in Copenhagen. I’m with four of my closest friends: we’ve spent the morning grazing on strawberries and drinking orange juice, and now we’re mooching around the city centre, animatedly catching up on each other’s work and family and love lives. I’m swaddled in a hat and scarf and a huge coat that makes me feel like the Michelin man. The sun is shining and the sky is a piercing bright blue. I’m feeling very hygge.
We’re visiting Emma, who recently relocated to Copenhagen for work. She’s been here for a few months, but until now the idea of her living in another country somehow seemed abstract and unreal. Actually being here—seeing her bike in the hallway, how she navigates the metro so easily, her fridge full of Danish food—suddenly makes it real.
The five of us meander into a coffee shop. As a borderline caffeine addict, I instantly perk up: the richness of continental coffee is always such a welcome change from the watery, tasteless stuff available in Britain. Emma tells us the café we’re in is actually a chain. “What’s the equivalent in the UK—Pret?” someone asks.
I know immediately that there is no chain in the UK equivalent to this café. I look longingly at the fluffy ciabattas filled with fresh tomatoes, creamy mozzarella, pink prosciutto. There are golden pains au chocolat, buttery croissants, sticky cinnamon swirls in neat lines and rows of cakes topped with fruit and cream and chocolate. The sad ham and cheese toasties we buy from overpriced coffee shops in the UK don’t compare, and even our artisanal bakeries feel like a pale imitation.
It’s not just the coffee and cakes which are better here. There are big public squares and parks and swathes of pedestrianised spaces. There’s no litter anywhere. The houses aren’t damp and cold. The metro doesn’t smell of piss. There’s a palpable sense of community too: one morning, Emma—who lives on the ground floor—wants to keep the kitchen window open to get some fresh air into the flat while we’re out. Some of us bristle at this: won’t someone break in? Emma assures us no; it isn’t like that here. Apparently, some people actually leave their babies in prams outside of shops while they do their shopping and retrieve their offspring without any issues.
And people really live here, whereas in the UK it so often feels like we’re just surviving. Getting by. Subsisting. We take pride in our stoicism and permanently stiff upper lips. The war ended nearly 80 years ago, but the legacy of the Blitz spirit endures. The ability to “grit your teeth and bear it” is considered a sign of moral probity, and the result is our collective resignation to a shockingly poor quality of life. Wages remain stagnant while living costs rise. Our houses are damp and cold. Our government swilled wine while the rest of us went months without seeing family and friends. The French burn cars when things start to look bleak, but the British? We prefer to “get on with it.”
This is why young people are so frustrated by the nonsensical suggestion that we could buy a house if we simply cut out avocados and oat milk lattes and Netflix and the gym. Discounting the fact that cutting down on small pleasures still wouldn’t enable young people to buy a house—Vice recently found that you’d have to give up Netflix for over 1,000 years to afford a deposit for a house in London—why should we have to forfeit the things that bring colour and joy to life on this grey, rainy island?
Xenophobes and nationalists love to parrot the line “why don’t you just move then?” whenever someone dares criticise the UK. But it’s a justified question—why don’t I just move somewhere else, if I hate living here?
Because it’s home. My family and boyfriend and friends are here. I’d miss a good cup of tea and puddings with custard and Strictly Come Dancing. There are slivers of time when life here is beautiful, too: like when I’m walking in the Malvern Hills with my parents on a bright Boxing Day morning, or sinking pints in a Leeds beer garden on a humid July evening. My flatmate Jen also reminds me that the grass is always greener, and there’s definitely truth in this: I’m exceedingly grateful—now more than ever—that I don’t live in a warzone.
It’s true that things could be worse. But equally, in the country with the fifth highest GDP in the world, our day-to-day lives could be so much better.
