Copenhagen also has public bathrooms on main streets and plazas, food boxes made from pure cardboard that flattens to a tray as soon as you open the cover, and dedicated bicycle lanes (with hundreds of cycles, more than cars) everywhere you go. But the thing that impressed me the most was the lack of something.

Crossing a main bridge to the heart of town, we passed over the main waterway in the middle of the capital. The air was clean and cold and we realized we don’t smell the water. The smell I grew up used to in the city and everywhere in the world was simply not there. Shocking.