Our 1st Year in Denmark

We have now lived in Denmark for a year.  And what a year it has been.   

This is all we moved to Denmark with, except for our Dog, Nena.  We really miss her.

 It's been a year of difficulties and great personal triumph's.  Sometimes when I think about it, it's hard to believe that a year has already gone by.  At other times I think that it was the longest year of my life.  That we still have 2 more years to go?  Or that we only have 2 more years left to fit everything in.  It's a lot of conflict of thoughts and emotion. 
We were reminiscing about our first day here last year.  We remembered how cold it was after being Florida and how gray and gloomy it looked.  As we drove to our apartment, I was wondering where all the cool old buildings and castles were.  We were sad about leaving behind our home and family. We thought about going to the store the first time and thinking that we would never be able to figure out what we were buying and how we ended up buying a bunch of random food items that we would never had bought otherwise.  We remembered how we had no lights in our apartment, because in Denmark, you have to provide your own lighting.  We remembered that we all slept in the same room on the same bed that first night and we were freezing.

 We remember being tired and pretty much in shock at the new reality of our life.  It was so nice to think about all of these things now and to be able to laugh about them.  When in reality, those first couple of weeks were some of the darkest times of our life.  We are so glad to have this year behind us and to be able to look back and see how much we have grown.
As I started writing this, I looked back to our posts from 6 months in and it was fun to see what has and hasn't changed.  We still miss our family and friends, our dog, a car, a garbage disposal and warm weather.  But, although we miss the convenience of some things, like Walmart and restaurants, we've learned to live without.  Although our choices of foods are much more limited, we've eaten a much larger variety of dinners, because I've had to really stretch my cooking abilities.  Even the foods that we missed back in the beginning, we don't seem to miss as much now.  Although I would love a good Root Beer right now. =)  And we bought a crockpot from England, so that deficiency has been resolved. 
The things we love about Denmark haven't really changed, but we've just added more to them.  I love the friends my kids have made and the fact that they live right here in our apartment complex.  I love that my kids are learning a new language.  I love all the random things about Denmark that make us just shake our heads and remark, "Only in Denmark."

Not the weirdest thing we've seen, but this was from our first trip into Downtown Copenhagen and the kids especially were all a little shocked.

 I love that now we've lived in such dark days during the winter, we will really appreciate our long days during the summer.  And although I hate the cold weather, I love that first snow sparkling on the all the trees surrounding the bike path we ride on.    I love that I can ride my bike for 5 minutes and be in the middle of the woods.  I love all the Danish traditions.  And the list goes on...
I guess to sum it all up, I'm glad to be a year in.  And I think that this next year will only get better.  The days are already getting longer, we are hoping to buy a car soon and life just feels good.  Much better than it did a year ago.