Meeting people through our dog

As it turns out, the best way to have friendly conversation with people here in Copenhagen is to take our dog Sasha for a walk. There is a park a few blocks from our apartment which is unofficially a dog park - a big empty field lined with hedges where dogs young and old take their owners to socialize. Dogs are excellent at breaking the ice. As soon as we get to the park, I let Sasha off her leash and when other dogs are there, she quickly bounds over to greet them. The dogs end up romping around together, and us humans, for lack of anything else to do, begin talking to each other about our dogs. And other topics as well. For instance, the fact that we are all standing around in the middle of Copenhagen speaking English to each other is usually an entree into talking about where I come from and what I think about Denmark. And once that's been talked about, there's always the weather. And if nothing else, you can always talk about how silly and cute the dogs are. We're there often enough that people know Sasha by name, and Tom and I by association. It's not much, but it's the social outlet that we need, I think. Even having someone recognize your face (or your dog's face) in a foreign land helps it feel just a little bit more like home.