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streets. Copper spires create fairy-tale skylines. The place feels like a pitch 'n putt course
sparsely inhabited by blonde Vulcans. Travelers here find the human scale and orderliness
of Danish society itself the focus of their sightseeing. Everything is just so… Danish.
The local Disneyland—Legoland—is a wildly popular place featuring 35 million
Lego bricks built into famous landmarks from around the world. (They claim that if you
lined them all up, they'd stretch from here to Italy.) The place is crawling with adorable
little ice-cream-licking, blonde children. Although stoked with piles of sugar, the scene is
strikingly mellow. Kids hold their mothers' hands while learning about the Lego buildings
and smile contentedly as they circle around on the carousel.
Riding Danish trains is also thought-provoking. Wandering into a nearly empty, sleek
train car, I noticed that each seat was marked
Kan reserveres.
I figured that meant “not
reserved,” and sat down. Then I was bumped by a friendly Dane with a reservation. He
said, “The sign means the seat 'could be' reserved…we don't promise too much.” Noti-
cing several young men with shaved heads and the finest headphones listening to iPods
as they made clockwork connections on their commute to work, I thought that Denmark
seemed so minimalistic and efficient…and so well-ordered.
On another train ride, I was filming a segment for a public television show. I'd look
into the camera and say, “A fun part of exploring Denmark is enjoying the efficiency of
