Acknowledgement
First of all, I’d like to thank everybody involved in this abroad experience in Denmark, since it was well organised, very useful for, I think, all of us and I liked it, literally, a lot.
Special thanks to the TAG's team and the Roskilde College's team for organising this abroad experience and, in particular, to Silvia Franceschini, Alessandro Malpaga, Saltori Giada and Sine Felding.
In addition, thanks to Henrik Birkvig for the presentation of DMJX - Graphic Design College and to the staff of Tivoli.
Also, I'd like to thank all my classmates, because they have played a significant role in all this one-week experience.
Abstract
As a student of TAG (i.e. Higher Technical Institute of Graphics and Multichannel Communication), in this report I describe my one-week experience in Denmark which was held from 19 to 26 March 2022, which main purpose was working on the project to promote Copenhagen (i.e. the capital of Denmark) as a sustainable city, using promotional tools, such as but not limited to: add/post on SoMe (i.e. social media), poster, advertisement, flyer, brochure, outdoor commercials.
I share some of my thoughts as well as some photos I took there.
Furthermore, I also develop the following topics:
- Considerations about cultural differences between Italy and Denmark;
- Culture shocks I've experienced living a week in Copenhagen;
- Relationship with mates;
- Brief description and considerations about the project.
Table of contents
- Introduction
- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3: Monday
- Day 4
- Day 5
- Day 6
- Day 7
- Day 7
- Considerations about cultural differences between Italy and Denmark
- Culture shocks you've experienced living a week in Copenhagen
- Relationship with mates
- Considerations about the project
- Summary
Introduction
As soon as I found out about the upcoming abroad experience I was really excited. First of all, I’ve never been to Denmark but I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. Discovering the city of Copenhagen, a legendary Scandinavian gem, where vintage and cutting-edge architecture co-mingle to create a stunning backdrop for the retreat, sounded pretty attractive.
On the other hand, I was curious about the Roskilde Business College’s project and the skills that could be gained, implementing the project.
Furthermore, for me, personally, it was going to be a unique double foreign language experience, since my mother tongue is russian: I was looking forward to practising Italian round-the-clock for the whole week with my mates and also practising English with the Danes and during the work on the project.
That's why, even if initially I was confronted with some problems, which are beyond the scope of this report, I've done my best to participate in this trip. And so I did.
Day 1
The road to Denmark
As usually happens, the most convenient time for flights are nights or early mornings. In this manner you don't lose a daytime on the road but usually you skip a sleep time.
The same happened also in our case: we had a flight at 6:30 a.m. and we had to leave Trento at 1:30 a.m. and so I wasn't able to sleep that Friday night and, moreover, we had a lection that morning so I've woken up early.
But despite all this, about 8:30 a.m. we arrived fresh and full of energy at Copenhagen. The first big difference I've noticed was the air, the fresh sea air. It's been a while since I've sensed it.
First look at Copenhagen
From the airport we took a train to reach the city centre and we went to a hotel that was situated really conveniently near the central station and the city centre.
Unfortunately, we couldn't check-in right away 'cause it was still too early, however, we left some of our luggage at the hotel's storage room and set out to explore the city on our own.
At that point it was literally impossible to remain in one big group, so we divided into a few small ones.
One of my classmates kindly invited me to join him and to show me and a few other classmates the city, since he's been to Copenhagen before, so we've started to explore the city together.
After about an hour of walking and visiting some points of interest, we met some other classmates and went together to finally have lunch. It was hard to decide which restaurant to go to and so we chose an option that each of us already knew: McDonald's.
Then, we continued exploring the city. Copenhagen's Scandinavian architecture attracted me a lot. It's really different from other cities I've been to. Probably, the most impressive thing is the way Danes combine the historical look of the city with modern buildings. I've also noticed a lot of parks and green areas there for such a big city, therefore we went to see one of them and, consequently, to have a rest after a night on the road.
After we sat on a bench to rest a little bit in The King's Garden a funny thing happened – we received a photo in our group's chat and we understood that some of our classmates turned out to be in the same park, therefore we've united all together.
Check-in
We spent about an hour sitting in the sun and relaxing in one of the central parks of Copenhagen, talking and laughing, enjoying the time together. Unfortunately, it was already time to come back to the hotel to finally check-in.
I left the park a little bit earlier with some of my roommates as we didn't want to be in a hurry since we weren't sure how far the hotel was and we wanted to calmly enjoy the city sights and drink some Pepsi along the way.
It took about an hour to get our luggage back from the storage room, to check-in and eventually to enter our room.
The room was pretty nice and even if initially it seemed to us a little bit tight for a six person, eventually, it wasn't a big problem as we've spent a small amount of time in it, mostly during the night to have a sleep.
It was absolutely necessary to take a breath a bit in the hotel, to look around for a moment, to go to the nearest supermarket to buy some snacks and some Pepsi, and so on.
As I didn't feel sleepy, afterwards I went to the hotel's lounge zone to find out what was there and to discuss with others the first impressions about the city and the trip.
The dinner
Together with our roommates, that evening we decided to have dinner in the hotel's shared kitchen. We concluded to cook pasta with tomato sauce as it's really simple, everyone's favourite and so it was certainly a sure winner. However, we couldn't decide it without having to play billiards in the hotel's lounge zone.
The night
After such a good home-hotel-made dinner I went to sleep as I was completely tired to the city centre with some of my classmates to explore the city on weekend nights and to drink some local Pepsi together. As it usually happens, at some point we've separated in a few small groups and we've continued the night independently.
We met and talked to so many people that night but it's beyond the scope of this report and deserves a separate one about it.
But the most funny thing was that after four hours walking around the city in a small group we've, occasionally, again, met the others and we all went together to the hotel to finally have a sleep.
Summary of the day
So, as a result of that day I've seen so many beautiful places in Copenhagen. I've communicated a lot with mates in Italian and with some other people in English. I've made about 55k steps without sleeping for about 44 hours.
In my defence, though, I've strictly followed the words of Marco Franceschini (i.e. director of the TAG), who had told us during the meeting before the departure to Copenhagen, speaking figuratively: "You almost shouldn't sleep that week, since the trip to Denmark will be really unique and very special experience in your lifes and you could sleep after it".
Day 2
I could go on and on with such a precise description of my days in Denmark but I'm sure it would be really excessive and would be too annoying to follow so I'll limit further description to a shorter one, developing only key subjects and places I've liked the most, since the next days I've spent more less in the same manner, i.e. walking a lot around the city, visiting a lot of interesting places, passing all the time with some classmates, tasting local types of Pepsi and so on, with one exception, that will be covered in Day 3 part.
Breakfast
That morning, just like the other ones, we had breakfast in the hotel, which offered a self-service table everyday with a variety of ingredients. I immediately adopted and found a habitual breakfast that suited me. So it was another good point regarding the hotel's service.
Christiania Freetown •••
At some point of our exploration of Copenhagen, we happened to be in the neighbourhood of Christiania district and therefore we went there to understand what it looks like.
And by the way, once again, quite occasionally, as usual, we met some of our classmates there.
Christiania Freetown – is an intentional community and occupied district of Copenhagen for more than 50 years. It has its own public services, its own set of rules and laws, in a certain sense. One of those rules is prohibition of taking photos almost across all the territory which was really sad as it's full of great landscaping, unusual architecture solutions and really beautiful graffities made with love for art. It has its own uncommon atmosphere, delicious street food and sandwiches of any sort, which we've enjoyed a lot.
Summary of the day
Day 3: Monday
Monday is one of those days when even your coffee needs a coffee. Therefore, after drinking a couple of those and having briefly breakfast, we left the hotel and took a train to arrive in Roskilde, a city half hour far away from the capital.
Roskilde Business College
A project coordinator, Sine, warmly met us at Roskilde Business College, did a brief tour inside the building and presented to us our week schedule and forthcoming project details, developing a topic of sustainability principles and 17 goals of UNGA (i.e. United Nations General Assembly).
[1ST DAY SCHEDULE]
I've liked the architecture and interiors of the college as they're modern, elegant and pretty Scandinavian.
The project
The goal of the project was to promote Copenhagen as a sustainable city, using promotional tools, such as but not limited to: add/post on SoMe (i.e. social media), poster, advertisement, flyer, brochure, outdoor commercials. The end product of our work should be a presentation of promotion campaign with focus on:
- Target group
- Media
- Layout
- Campaign logo
- Cultural focus
Before the trip, we were divided into 6 teams of 4 or, in my case, 5 people to work on the project separately in order to achieve 6 different solutions. After the presentation of the project the teams were able to discuss it, to do some further research and to come up with first ideas, getting settled in the College's hall workspaces.
Free time
After the main program we came back to the hotel, had a rest and went with some mates to explore the city.
We went up to the Church of Our Saviour and enjoyed a splendid panoramic view of Copenhagen at sunset.
Summary of the day
Day 4
As was anticipated at Day 2 part, I'm not going to go into details describing the day routine. It was structured pretty much the same way.
Roskilde Business College
[2ND DAY SCHEDULE]
Working on the project
Free time
Summary of the day
Day 5
Roskilde Business College
[3RD DAY SCHEDULE]
Working on the project
Free time
Summary of the day
Day 6
Roskilde Business College
[4TH DAY SCHEDULE]
Working on the project
Free time
Summary of the day
Day 7
Roskilde Business College
[5TH DAY SCHEDULE]
Works presentation
The time to present our work had come seamlessly. Our team was planning to make much more things but it came out the way it came out. Nevertheless, we’ve done a nice project.
One of the toughest parts, at least for me, was to present our work in front of the class in English.
I’d also liked the projects of other teams since they all were pretty creative, developed quite well and really nice-looking.
[PHOTOS OF PRESENTATION]
Free time
Since it was the last day of the trip, right after we came back to the hotel we went to the city centre to celebrate the project completion, to enjoy Copenhagen for the last time and to drink some Pepsi together. We spent the whole night in the city, constantly ran into each other, mixing between the groups and changing locations.
Summary of the day
Day 8
For me, there was no eighth day as it was combined with a previous one since I almost had no sleep that night. Although it felt differently. It was really sad to leave Copenhagen and to finish that experience but we had to.
Therefore, early in the morning we checked out from the hotel, went to the airport and, as expected, we came back to Italy.
Considerations about cultural differences between Italy and Denmark
I've already mentioned some of them in the text above but I'd also like to briefly list the other ones.
Differences
Face masks, covid, green pass
There is no obligation to wear a face mask and also to have a green pass visiting public places in Denmark.
Public transport control
Almost every time we've used public transport we were controlled about having tickets. In Italy it doesn't happen so often.
Window shutters (tapparelle ecc.)
I haven't noticed such widespread usage of window shutters compared to Italy but in my opinion, the usage of ones could decrease the energy consumption and make cities even more sustainable.
The climate and the way the Danes are dressing up
I haven't developed this topic but the weather was pretty cold, often windy and seviar in general, especially during nights. Although we've got lucky with the weather since usually it's even more seviar and rainy. We’ve noticed that by seeing some Danes wearing t-shirts and short pants.
Credit card and contactless payments
You can pay with a card everywhere in Copenhagen, in some places it's possible to pay only with contactless payments. Furthermore, there are some places where it's not possible to pay with cash. The situation in Italy is a bit different.
Prices
Copenhagen is on the seventh position on the list of the most expensive cities of the world and we felt it a lot during our trip.
Bicycles
The bicycles are very common in Copenhagen. In some areas of the city there is more bike traffic than the car ones. And it's not surprising as the infrastructure is well bike-oriented.
Culture shocks you've experienced living a week in Copenhagen
Actually, I can't really consider the following as cultural shocks but anyway.
- The squared pizza folded in half and wrapped in bakery paper (parchment)
- Christiania •••
Relationship with mates
I believe that the trip to Denmark was really useful for each of us in terms of relationships inside our group. It was cool to get to know each other better, to spend time together, to get to know everyone from another side.
For sure, as it usually happens, we were unable to spend equal time with each other since our class is pretty numerous and almost always we were divided into small groups as it's more natural and convenient. Apart from this, we constantly ran into each other, mixed between the groups. Moreover, we had not less than three different and unchanging groups: work teams, roommates and those with whom we often went outside.
Also, it was a really unique experience personally for me, since it was the first time I didn't speak my mother tongue for one week and, instead, practised a lot of Italian and English with my classmates.
Considerations about the project
Actually, I liked the project as it was real world-like and was supposed to give a many-sided experience to everyone involved. Although, I understood how difficult the team work is in the conditions we were put in.
Nowadays there are tons of useful tools to make the team work more convenient and efficient. In our case, unfortunately, we weren't able to use them decently as we had no proper Internet connection.
As well as we didn't have a well-prepared workspace to work in a team, that's why we had to get used to the existing conditions, i.e. noisy places full of people, tight desks and also being limited to find one with power supply near it.
As a result, we faced the issues with the team work coordination, which probably decreased our efficiency that influenced the final product we've presented.
In my opinion, in such conditions it could be more productive working in smaller groups, around 3 teammates, for example, as it would make finding a proper workspace easier and coordinating between each other more efficiently, always having a possibility to check out the work progress of each teammate without the need to have the internet-based co-working tools.
Summary
Since I’ve taken more than 2000 photos during the trip, using geotag data I’ve got this heatmap of Copenhagen. 
It was legen…
wait for it...
dary! Legendary experience!