Yay! I have somewhere to live :-)

After getting stressed and frustrated about not finding a place to live here, I finally caught a break. Actually, on Sunday evening I got offered a place I had looked at the previous week which I quite liked - turns out their first choice fell through. The place was relatively nice, and in quite a nice area (actually in the city of Frederiksberg), but slightly further away from the office (which is just to the north of the CBD). The plan was to part pay the deposit in cash upon my return (since I didn't yet have a local bank account to transfer cash from, and none of my colleagues had their tokens for accessing their Internet banking). However, in the mean time, I got an email about another place which looked very interesting. It was DKK 500/month cheaper and closer to work. (Actually, I also found out about a third option which sounded pretty good - but gave up on it in the end because it was a studio apartment, and I decided I wanted more than a single room).

So my plan was to return from the work retreat Wednesday afternoon, quickly check out this new apartment, and unless I really really liked it, go pay the deposit for the one in Frederiksberg...

Turns out the one I saw in the afternoon looked nicer than the photos, and not only was it cheaper, but instead of having to pay 3 months deposit plus 2 months up front, I could pay just 2 months deposit and 1 month up front. So I decided to take it then and there!

One thing with looking at apartments here is you can't compare them to anything back home - places are small, and kitchens/bathrooms are typically very old. However, this one isn't too bad. Some things I've learnt to look out for are:

• A bathroom outside your own apartment (sometimes shared between multiple flats)
• Showers in bedrooms
• Showers in bathrooms - but in the same location as the sink (ie., you shower over the sink)
• Showers in bathrooms but no curtains
• Lack of washing machine

Thankfully this place has a pretty reasonable bathroom, and although it doesn't have a washing machine in the apartment, there are communal washers (and dryers - which is definitely a bonus in this town) in the basement.

The other thing I really like about this apartment is that it really is a 3 room place - bedroom, dining room and lounge-room. The dining room could theoretically be closed off as a guest room and the estate agent was kind enough to even offer to bring over fold-out beds and extra linen if I ever have guests! Talk about service. So - all I need is people to visit me now. I'm waiting... Who's coming first???

The apartment is located in Østerbro (pronounced "oosterbro") which is one of the central suburbs. There is a main street nearby with cafes, bars, and buses. And a train station around 1/2km walk away. Work is probably around a 25 minute walk.

Interesting Facts about Renting in Denmark

• Everything works on a calendar month here - it took me a while to understand why so many properties happened to become available on November 1. Turns out the standard lease document downloaded from the internet specifies calendar months and people have a lot of trouble working outside it. In my case, it means it's too complicated for the agent to charge me for the last few days of October, they just give it to me for free!
• The deposit required for renting an apartment can legally be up to 3 months rent. On top of that, they are allowed to also ask for 3 months in advance payment. Plus, they can then ask for the current month - which is another way of saying they can ask for 4 months in advance. So for some people, moving into a rental can require a payment up front of 7 months worth of rent!
• The standard notice period if you want to terminate a tenancy is 3 months. 2 months if you're lucky.

No Compass?

View from the bedroom - centre courtyard in the complex

One very interesting thing about the suburb names here is that the Danes who designed this city didn't know how to use a compass. Apart from the city centre (CBD), you have Østerbro to the north, Nørrebro to the west-north-west, and Vesterbro to the south-west. Noting that 'bro' means 'bridge' in Danish, nord means north, øst means east and vest means west - you can see what I mean when I say that they didn't know how to use a compass!

And for the smart arses out there - yes, it did occur to me that maybe there is some very large magnetic deviation here and what we mark as west on a map, really is north-west on a compass. But I checked that one out, and that's not the case.