One thing you notice when you move to a new country is that shopping is different. A move to mainland Europe may not seem a huge jump culturally from the UK or US but you quickly notice there are significant subtlies when it come to where to buy things. My general rule of thumb is to look in the types of places or shops you would normally find things, many times this works out but there are times when it doesn’t. I thought I’d start a regular feature here looking at how to find everyday things here when the answer isn’t obvious.

To start I am looking at greetings cards (and stationary). Sending cards isn’t a big thing in mainland Europe – I have found this to be the case in Germany, France and here in Denmark – so you won’t find card shops. A limited election may be found in supermarkets, toy shops and shops such as Tiger and Søstrene Grene but to have a really decent selection you need to head to your local bookshop (boghandel).

This is also the place for decent selection of functional and pretty stationary such as diaries (amazingly and refreshingly people still use these), pencil cases, pens etc and also colouring books.

As well local independent book shops, there is also a chain, Bog og Ide, which sells a wide selection of cards and stationary, the go to place for school start items.