Sebastian Haw
April 12th, 2023

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Annie with one of her four children (photo: Annie Samples)

Annie Samples feels ambivalent about the term ‘influencer’, but with 119,000 followers on Instagram, no-one could deny she has become pretty influential. Yesterday, she even appeared on the front page of Berlingske – the same newspaper that last October reported one of her TikTok posts had received 15 million views

A mother of four, Annie has dived into Copenhagen life, which she documents on social media under the moniker ‘Annie In Eventyrland’ (that’s ‘wonderland’ for those who don’t speak Danish).

Originally from Texas, she also lived in New York City and Portland, Oregon before arriving here. When she’s not looking after her kids, Annie works on content creation and writing. We caught up with her to get her views on life in Denmark.

I came to Denmark because … the company my husband works for opened an office here, and we decided to move. None of my kids were in school yet: it was a big move.

If you asked me if it was love at first sight or not I would say … yes and no. Yes in that it’s so beautiful here. The first couple of months felt like a vacation. But when I got to the reality of everyday life here, it was more of a challenge adapting than I expected. 

My favourite thing about living in Copenhagen is … the safety. There’s so many things that I love about it: the architecture, the culture, but there’s nothing that beats how safe it is, especially as a mom.

And my favourite observation about the Danes is … they’re so reasonable. And that’s something that I’m not quite used to. I’ve actually become quite accustomed to the reasonableness and the practicality and the straightforwardness. I really appreciate it.

Here in Denmark I never get used to … some of the food culture – leverpostej, for example. Somebody told me that a very common Danish breakfast is just oats with cold milk on top. That kind of stuff. On the other hand, I really like rye bread with all the classic toppings. And schnapps.

Jeg kan tale … lidt Dansk. I’m trying to learn a bit more, but if I speak it in front of my kids, they get quite embarrassed.

On an integration scale of 1 to 10 I would say I’m a … 6. The biggest barrier is definitely the language. Also, we were really fortunate in that the company that my husband was working for basically got us an immigration lawyer. We were very privileged in that way. I get a lot of questions from people asking like oh, how can I just up and move there? And I don’t know. I don’t even know if that’s possible.

I have more international friends in my social circle because … you have so much in common with other expats. It’s not that I’m opposed to being friends with Danes, or that I don’t have Danish friends: it’s just a question of common ground.

I think the best way of making Danish friends is … asking them about the culture and about Denmark. People are so generous with useful and interesting information about Denmark, and that’s something that has been so valuable to me. People here are just helpful, and they’re friendly if you take the initiative to approach them.

Tourists in Copenhagen should visit … Tivoli. I feel like it’s such a good representation of what Copenhagen is about.

If I could choose three food and drink venues they would be … Aammanns 1921 is a good bet if you’re looking for a place that’s quintessentially Danish. I don’t go out to eat so much, but we just went to Hidden Dimsum close to Gammel Strand the other day and that was really special. Another great place is Juno the Bakery.

The three words that I think best describe Copenhagen are … peaceful, safe and cosy. 

(photo: Lauren Larsen)