Oddities in My New World

I noticed three things today that seemed very out of place in Denmark. First, I saw a guy jaywalk right in front of a bus. The bus driver laid on the horn, and the guy flipped him off and yelled something in Danish. That doesn't sound very remarkable, but it is for Denmark. The people here follow the rules, and they almost never jaywalk, much less flip the bus driver off. They are also generally pretty introverted in public - unless they're drunk. Maybe this guy was drunk, but he's the first person I've heard yell angrily at someone else in a public street.

I also saw, or really heard, a guy sitting on a street corner, playing an accordion for the pocket change of passer-bys. The old man was the first street musician I've seen here. They prefer American hip-hop and '80s pop over anything instrumental, and there wasn't much money in the poor guy's case. It's also odd that he was poor, because the welfare state here is so amazing; it takes care of everyone. Maybe he was an immigrant or a hustler. Who knows.

My last odd sight was a beggar by the bus stop that may have been blind. Again, it was odd to see someone poor in public with Denmark's welfare state. This city is also so clean and tidy that I was a little suprised that the man was allowed to beg in the city center.

All of these instances really reinforced to me what a great place Denmark is to live. Aarhus has about 220,000 people - how many other cities of comparable size could you live in for a month without seeing a beggar?