We've Arrived

Where to begin…..? We are here in Denmark. Our flight here was uneventful. We had a somewhat turbulent flight to Newark, which by the way, is just across the river from New York City. I didn’t realize we would be so close. It was pretty cool being able to see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in the skyline. After our layover there, we headed to Denmark. The kids were pretty good, a little antsy, but not too bad. Noah did manage to spill water all over both him and me in the first 30 minutes of the flight, so we both spent the rest of the trip somewhat damp. Our arrival in Denmark was a little hectic. Because we don’t read Danish, it was a bit of struggle to figure out where to go to get our bags and then our ride wasn’t there waiting for us, like we’d expected. But, he finally found us and took us to our apartment. Our landlord was waiting for us and we were able to get in and check out our new home. The past few days have been a bit of a blur. We are still struggling a little with jetlag, but overall that hasn’t been too bad. That first day, our landlord was extremely helpful. He left us with some bedding and towels and took us to the local market to get a little food. Then he took us all down to the local Commune, kind of like a city hall. We had to go there to register for our CPR cards. I don’t know what that stands for, but it’s something we need to be able to live here. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things we can’t do until we get our cards, like open a bank account, get access to health care, etc. Hopefully they will be here within the next couple of days. Then Chad went around shopping that afternoon with Per (our landlord.) While he was gone, the kids and I all fell asleep on the same bed. The nap really helped us get through the rest of the day. That night we cooked our first Danish meal, spaghetti. Food has been a bit of a challenge so far, mostly because I can’t read/understand the packaging and things are just so different. I’m starting to get a few things figured out though and we should be having a decent meal tonight. Anyway, on Friday, a woman from our ward, Annetta, brought us a few things that ward members had brought for us and took me shopping. We mostly looked around at things, while she explained pricing and good deals. It was very helpful. While I was with her, the bishop came over to meet us and he took Chad and the kids back to his house for lunch. That evening, we decided to take the trek into Copenhagen to go to Chad’s lab. It took quite a while to get there. We had a 30 minute walk to the train station, then the train trip into town and then a hop on the Metro and another short walk to Chad’s work. It was quite an adventure. It made us realize that Chad really needs to get a bike, or it’ll take him a really long time to commute every day. We’ve also realized that if we are going anywhere with the kids, we need to plan for a lot of extra time. Saturday was a very frustrating day. We decided to try out the buses for the first time, so we got online and planned out our route, to a local store, but the weather turned bad not too long after we left, so it was raining and cold. Then, once we got on the bus, we didn’t know where to get off at. It was kind of frustrating, there were no obvious signs of what stop we were at, they didn’t announce it on the speaker and we have yet to find a really good bus route map. Needless to stay, we missed our stop, ended up at some shopping center where we wandered around for a few minutes, but then hopped back on the same bus again to head back home since the kids were freezing. It was a very frustrating and cold experience. Chad ended up going out later on to get a few things from the store, without dragging all of us along. That night, we were invited to Annetta’s house for dinner. They cooked us a typical Danish meal with pork, potatoes, cucumbers and red cabbage. It was pretty good and surprising, the kids ate pretty well also. The dessert after was also very good, I can’t remember what it was called, but she said it was basically a mixture of sugar, milk, eggs and flavoring. Not cooked. We all liked it though. So, that kind of sums things up until today. We have been fretting the past couple of days about attending church this morning. Some things we didn’t realize before moving to this apartment is that church is really far away, it’s inconvenient to take public transportation to and on Sunday’s, there isn’t a lot of public transportation available. All strikes against us. Oh, and I didn’t mention that taking the buses would take about 1 ½ hours to get us to church. And we have 9am church. So, this morning, we got up at 6:30, hurried to get ready and took off. It’s about a 25 minute walk to the bus stop and of course, we underestimated the time it would take our children to walk there. So, we just barely missed the bus. And the next one wouldn’t come for another 40 minutes, so we ended up finding a taxi and taking that to church. Church was really great. Most people had heard we were coming and were very eager to come up and talk to us and offer us more things. It was strange listening to all the Danish, but several people were so kind to sit behind us and translate the meetings for us. The kids absolutely loved their classes and came home with big smiles on their faces and talked about all their new friend, that they can’t talk to, but just had a great time with. And then to top it all off, a sister in our ward offered to drive us home today. I can’t tell you what a relief that was. And several ward members have talked about ways they can pick us up and take us to church each Sunday! What a blessing. So, Denmark has been a challenge so far. I’m sure our challenges are far from over, but I hope that soon, many happy memories will be made.

Florida Good-byes

Before heading to Denmark, we were able to spend a week in Florida with Chad's parents. It was so nice to get out of the cold weather and spend time in 70 degree weather. Not all days were that nice, but still, no winter coats needed! We spent a good portion of the time there just relaxing and enjoying each other's company. We walked along the Sandbar in the Intracoastal a couple of times-looking for conch's, starfish and other sea life. We even saw a couple of Manatee's poke their heads up out of the water. On another day, we went to "Engagement Island". I'm not really sure what's it's called for reals, but that's what Judi calls it since that's where Jordyn and Ben got engaged. It was beautiful. I especially enjoyed the part when we were sitting on a low wall and we were going to take a little family picture, when suddenly we hear this snort behind us and there was another Manatee. Then, as we were leaving, we saw another Manatee just beyond the shore and we were able to follow it for a while and got some decent pictures. We also went swimming in the ocean a couple of times. The kids mostly loved playing on the beach in the sand. We also had a manatee swim by us about 10 feet away. Crazy! A little side note on Manatee's, they are endangered and not seen very often. But, this time of year, they are in the area. Chad's parents have lived in Florida around 6 years now and haven't seen any Manatees up until now.

On another day we went to the Florida State Fair. Weird that it's in January, right? We had a fun time eating greasy food, watching the kids ride the carnival rides and enjoyed the petting zoo that was complete with Zebra's, a camel, llama's and a variety of other animals.We also did our old stand-by favorite of visiting the Turtle Rehab center. They always have these sea turtles that have been injured that they are working on rehabilitating so they can put them back in the water. We've always enjoyed going there.
The best day though was our last day in the States. Chad and Kent went out golfing that morning, while Judi and I took the kids down to the Intracoastal one last time. It was just perfect weather. We saw a bunch of starfish and a few other sea creatures, but mostly we just enjoyed walking around in nice weather. Then when the guys got back, we loaded up the waverunners and headed down to Peanut Island. It’s actually a man-made island in the Intracoastal that is supposed to have a lot of Manatees around it this time of year. We rode around for a little while and spotted a few manatees before docking the boats on the beach. As soon as we got off the boats, we saw a few more manatees in the water. We were able to go right up to one of them. We spent the next 2 hours snorkeling with this one super friendly manatee. It let us touch it and even as we would swim away from it, it would follow us and come right up to us. It was so amazing! I wish we’d had an underwater camera.

(We didn't take this picture, but I wanted to show what they look like under water.)

It’s really hard to see it very well from above the water. The Manatee even came close enough in so that Myra was able to pet it. So neat!

Well, that was a great day to end our time in the states. The next morning we got up early, headed to the airport and flew off to begin our stay in Denmark.

♫ All our Bags are Packed ♪♫

We have moved out of our house in Hyrum, have packed all our bags, have spent a week at my parents house in Sandy and are currently in Florida, visiting Chad's family. We leave for Denmark in 3 days. It still doesn't seem real. We are feeling a variety of emotions including sadness, excitement and anxiety. We are ready to just get there and start setting up our life there. But on the flipside, we are so sad to leave everyone behind. Like I said, a variety of emotions. Here's a picture of all that we are taking with us. Mostly just clothing, books and toys for the kids and a few other items. It looks like a lot and feels like a lot trying to navigate the airport with all of it, but it's really not much considering it's for 5 people for 3 years. What an adventure!

Update

My how time flies! As we have gone through all the preparations these past few months, moving to Denmark never seemed all that real. At least for me. And now, we are moving out of our house here in Hyrum tomorrow, and there are only 19 days left until we fly to Denmark. Scary! The whole process to get to this point has had so many ups and downs, but I finally am starting to feel very excited about the move and I think we all just feel anxious to get there. Lexi asks almost every day, "Are we moving to Denmark today?"
I haven't been very good about writing in here about our preparations, so I'll try to do a little update. In our last post, Chad started writing about his trip to Denmark. He never wrote part 2, so I'll sum it up a little. One of his main objectives over there was to find a place for us to live. This is something we have been very worried about, but Chad was able to find a place that we think will work for us. A couple of things about housing in Denmark. First, it is very small. I think all of Europe lives this way, on a smaller scale. The house we will be moving into is about 900 sq. ft. It has 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. We were actually very surprised we were able to find a place with 3 bedrooms, although 2 of them are very tiny, it will be nice to have the extra bedroom. To put this in perspective, our Condo in Logan was 954 sq. ft. and it had only 2 bedrooms. There are no closets in the house and all of the appliances are about half the size of what we are use to here. Luckily though, it does come with a washer and dryer! The second thing about housing in Denmark, is that it's VERY expensive. This little tiny apartment we will be living in cost twice as much per month has the 2000 sq. ft., 4 bedroom house we are living in right now. All of the utilities are included in the rent though, so that is one nice thing. But the biggest thing is actually getting into the apartment. The country has set standards on housing deposits and they are very high. Our deposit was equivalent to 3 months of rent, PLUS we had to pay the last 3 months of rent up front. It felt like we were making a down payment on a house! It should all even itself out in the end, but it was a lot of money to come up with in the first place.
Speaking of money, it is expensive to move out of the country. Not only was there the issue of housing, but we also had to pay for our residency permits. These are the equivalent of Visas. This cost us around $3000 and then tickets to fly over to Denmark with 5 people are a little pricey as well. Luckily they weren't round-trip tickets. =) Not to mention a lot of little things as well. After all of this, we are just grateful that Chad has a job over there and his schooling is free.
So, now we've made it past all of my craft shows, Thanksgiving, me getting a kidney stone and needing surgery, Jordyn's wedding and Christmas. All we have left is to finish packing, then we get to spend a few days with my parents and a few days with Chad's parents before we are off on this great adventure!
Packing has been a challenge. We've moved plenty of times before, but it is so different knowing you are packing things up for 3 years. Luckily, Chad's brother, Blake was able to come and help us out for a few days and that helped out so much. We have decided to not ship ANYTHING over. All we will be taking is what will fit in 5 large suitcases and a few carry-ons. The kids have been great about not getting too upset about leaving things behind and I really think they will enjoy this great adventure.
So for now, I need to get back to packing. The end is always the hardest. And then we have all of our good-byes. It seems like everyone we see now, we are saying good-bye too. None of them have been easy. And some of the worst are yet to come. And then, we'll get to say hello to all the new people we'll meet in Denmark. 19 more days and counting....

Initial impressions: Part 1

Spending six days in Denmark was really great. One of my big concerns was showing up for the first time laden with luggage and three kids in tow to a completely unfamiliar country where I had no idea where to go or who to talk to. I am really grateful that I had the opportunity to visit by myself (although it would have been really nice to have Shannon with me) and get a little bit more familiar with the city and people.

Outside the first build built at the campus I'll be working. est. 1855.

The Lab where I’ll be working invited me and paid for my visit, so the main purpose was to meet them, discuses my research project, and become acquainted with the lab; so I did not have a lot of time to be a tourist while I was there. However, the trip was eye opening to how different a lot of the aspects of living in Denmark are going to be and how similar others will be. I thought I'd just share a few of my observations:

Downtown Copenhagen

 Weather
The day I arrived it was cool but the sun was out for a short part of the morning. Nicolai, the professor that I will be working most closely with and who picked me up from the airport, kept saying how great it was that the I arrived on a day when the weather was so nice. I did not think it was really that nice it just seemed normal to me (since it was my first day it was the only weather I knew), that was the last time I saw the sun during my visit. I guess for some reason, probably something to do with how much water Denmark is surrounded by, most days in the winter are overcast (perhaps the name of this blog is not that accurate). The temperature was about the same as in Northern Utah right now, but I was glad I had brought my winter coat and hat because it felt much colder; I think it is because the humidity conducts the cold more easily.

Another somewhat unusual aspect was how early it got dark, by four in the afternoon the un-visible sun was setting and by five it was dark. I have been told it will only get worse for the next few months. This was somewhat challenging since it was always dark when I was trying to find my way around in the evening when I had any time to myself.

Exchanges
The Danish money is called a Krone (crown in English), one Krone is about 18 cents, but that means very little. I found very quickly that thinking in Dollars was going to get me nowhere, even if I was able to do the math in my head, things are so much more expensive in Copenhagen (one of, if not the most expensive city in Europe) the value of everything can’t be compared to what it would cost in the US. I think once we move over the it will take us a while before we can spot a good deal or are able to really know what things should cost.

50 Kroner is the smallest paper note they have, everything smaller are coins

 I have known and been prepared for all the unit changes that we are going to have to deal with. Europe uses the metric system (which by the way the US should us too); I am pretty comfortable using it for distances and area but less so with volume, so that will be one more thing to get accustom to.  They also measure temperature in Celsius, which I have to use with my work, so that’s not a problem (although my brother Blake can make some pretty compelling arguments as to why the Fahrenheit system is better, however, there are no arguments for not using the metric system). I have to be careful when writing the date because they write day/month/year instead of month/day/year (it is only confusing for the first 12 days of the month). And they don’t use pm, everything is in military time.

The red line on the corner of the building is a thermometer, it is 10ºC (50F)

Food
The food was not as different as I had expected (maybe even hoped). In fact I don’t know if I really even had an authentic Danish dish (Shannon can’t believe that I didn’t even buy a danish); I think, like America their cuisine has been greatly influenced by the rest of the world and it is hard to say what is Danish and what is not. Breakfast was probably the most unusual, I ate at the hotel and had bread with sandwich meat and cheese on it and yogurt with granola mix in, it was actually pretty good and kept me full better then cereal does at home (this meal is not so much unusual as it just seem more like lunch than breakfast).

Breakfast

Breakfast line - breads and yogurt.

Breakfast line - meat and cheese

I ate a lot of sandwiches for lunch and dinner, but I also had Chinese and Thai food. One night I bought a hotdog from a street vender and while the food was normal they served the bun and meat separate (I dipped the hot dog in a pile of ketchup and ate the bun like a roll).

Club sandwich I ordered, so good!

The salad the professor I was eating with ordered.

 Probably the most unusual part of eating was watch how they used there silverware. From what I observed, Danish people hold their fork in there left hand and a knife in there right, and they using them together with extreme dexterity that is hard to describe. Everything is cut in to neat little bites, no stabbing was necessary. This probably sounds like something silly to notice but it intrigued me to watch. I tried to imitate it but found it be more difficult than using chopsticks (although I have never really seen those used authentically and would probably be equally amazed); I would quickly become frustrated with my lack of coordination, put down my silverware, pick up my sandwich and take huge messy bites like any true American.
 
The grocery stores seem to everywhere. Not as big as in Utah, but bigger then I would have expected with the frequency I found them. I guess shopping for a several weeks at one time is not custom, rather going each day to the store is more common. One more change for us to adapt to.

One of the major grocery chains

Inside the produce department

Well I see that this is not going to be a short blog, so I thought I would post this much and do a second part later.

Short Vist: Day 1

 

I have always thought that jet lag was something beneath me, or at least I could beat it. My plan was to fly exhausted so that I would have no choice but to sleep on the long flight East and arrive as the sun came up in Denmark refreshed. Part 1 of the plan went well; I complettly exhusted myself by sleeping only 4 hours the night before my trip, and not napping during the day I was traveling. Despite how tired I was I could not fall asleep on long flight. Luckily, I was able to enjoy the 9 hour flight in business class, having been upgraded so a family could sit together in economy (it is going to be hard to give up the leg room on the flight back).  Needless to say, I spent my first day in Denmark in a sort of fog, wondering around with my mind moving in slow motion. 

Sun rise in Frankfurt

The flight took me though Frankfurt Germany and then to Copenhagen, so the stamp in my passport is German, not Danish. Nicolai, the Major Professor that I’ll be working with picked me up at the airport, helped me get some Danish money and showed me how to use the public transportation. I could not check in to my hotel until 3 so, Nicolai and I wonder around the city all morning. 

View coming up from the Metro

It was really nice to have someone that knew what was going on to guide me, I would have been completely lost without his help. 

We had brunch, which was pretty good and not that unusual as far as foreign food goes, and then visited the University where I’ll be working. The labs are really nice, lots of room and good equipment. 

University part across the street from my new lab

Nicolai left me about 2 (after I was able to check into my room a little early) and I called and arranged to make a trip east of the city to view an apartment. I was surprised that I did not have too much trouble figuring out how to negotiate the metro and trains to get to where I need to (although I think I did overpay). They guy picked me up at the train station and took me to his apartment. It was nice but small (which is the best we can hope for in Copenhagen).

 

I made it back to my room around 5pm (it was already dark outside) and called my wife on skype. I wanted to go to bed at this time, but figured I should probably try to stay up at least until 8 or 9. So I went and wondered around the city for a while. 

It was fun, I like that where I am staying is not a tourist area so I really get to experience the real Copenhagen (at least I think so).  I found a grocery store and wondered around trying to find food I recognized (most the food is the same as we are used to just the packaging and foreign words are unfamiliar) until they kicked me out so they could close (a lot of stores close early and open late). I purchased a Rümün off a street vender, which seemed a lot like a gyro, before heading back to my room. I managed to stay up until 9, keeping myself busy by ironing my closes and sending pictures of the apartment I looked at to Shannon.  I fell asleep almost immediately and slept until 1am (GRRR), I dozed off and on after that until 4, when I finally couldn’t stay in bed, and got up and wrote this. Over all I would say the first day was a success.

These guys helped me find my Hotel