And what America can learn from them — A little over a year ago, my husband and his two daughters moved from Denmark, voted the second happiest country in the world, to America, the eighteenth country on that list. Here’s what they think so far. American schools look like jails When my 10-year-old step-daughter joined a (well-ranked) public school in Brooklyn, she asked…

Sometimes I’m just as puzzled as he is — For a year and a half since moving to New York and then Los Angeles from his home country of Denmark, my husband has been asking me questions about this weird country of ours that I sometimes struggle to answer. It’s not that his questions are difficult. It’s just that…

Two polar-opposite people from two polar-opposite countries — You couldn’t find two countries more different than America and Denmark. The huge vs. the tiny. The loud vs. the quiet. The money-obsessed vs. the equality-driven. The huge egos vs. no egos at all. The fourteenth Happiest Country on Earth vs. the second. …

We can’t all move to Denmark, but we can bring some of it to us — When adjusting to life in Copenhagen, I noticed that things were very different in Denmark from back home in New York City. Locals seemed more relaxed, less addicted to their phones, more present with one another. Streets were quieter, shops and restaurants played gentle music on low volume. …

Sometimes you need to go back to the basics before going forward — In America, we so often focus on fixing problems that we forget how much easier it would be to prevent them in the first place. When my husband moved to the U.S. from Denmark, rated the Second Happiest Country on Earth, he quickly learned that our country was all about…

We’re not as stupid as you think — My Danish husband spent the last three years in the U.S. While he occasionally pokes fun at America, he’s deeply sympathetic to its people. “It’s not the people, it’s the government that has its priorities all wrong,” he commented on substantial problems in the country that prides itself on being…

By trying to fit in I actually became happier — They say fake it till you make it. When I arrived in Denmark, ranked the second happiest country in the world, I was lost, tense, neurotic, and hard as a rock. A normal state of mind for a New Yorker, but for a Danish person — almost unheard of. In…

Some things take getting used to but some are just nonsense — Plenty of things struck my husband as odd when he moved from Denmark to the U.S. three years ago. Some of those he got used to and even accepted (tipping!) but some he will never understand, let alone adopt. Here are a few of those. Paper everywhere “America is drowning in paper,”…

Don’t ry to be special, eat some candy instead — I recently talked about my experience of living in Denmark, voted the second happiest place on Earth, and what I learned from the Danes before returning home to the U.S. It turns out that no matter where you are, you can always try to feel just a little bit better…