Week Three

We've survived another week in our new country!

Friday

I went to work and had morgenbrød with my department - it's something they do every Friday. Someone brings delicious bread, pålægschokolade, pastries, juice, etc. and we eat together and chat. It was a nice start to the day.

I've been working mostly on finishing up work tasks from Post Falls, so I did that until lunch and then I had to leave early and go to Copenhagen. Did I mention last week how I got locked out of my MitID (my digital signature app that is critical for EVERYTHING I need to do)? I switched from my U.S. to my Danish phone, and when I did that, I got locked out. To get it fixed, I had to go to the Citizen Center in Copenhagen during business hours.

Anyway, I took the bus/train and hung out there for an hour waiting to get the MitID unlocked, but it went fine and I'm back in business. I decided since I was in Copenhagen and relatively close to a Danske Bank that I should go in and exchange the cash we brought with us from the U.S. 

We brought money (U.S. dollars) with us to seed our bank account and pay our first round of bills because we knew I wouldn't get paid a full paycheck for over a month (we get paid monthly). There are some things I can only pay from a Danish bank account because things are so digital and connected here, but so far, we hadn't managed to actually get the money into the account. I even had to get an extension on the kids' tuition bill! Logistics, man.

I got to walk through Ørstedsparken, which is a really pretty park in Copenhagen. The lake is one of the remnants of the moat that used to encircle the city like 200 years ago.

It used to be a moat!!

At the bank, I was told that they couldn't exchange any currency there. The teller directed me to the money exchange down the street and said if I exchanged my USD for DKK, I could come back and deposit the kroner into a special ATM (the employees don't handle any notes or coins, I guess).

On my walk to Forex, the money exchange place, I got a call from the school about Kaden. I had to sit on the side of the street struggling to hear for 10 minutes. Kaden had missed two math assignments in the first week, had been disrespectful to his math teacher, and had disrupted class. The head of secondary wanted to talk about it, and I kind of went to bat for him. I told her we had just made a big move and everyone was adjusting and that we would have a conversation over the weekend. Kids, man.

At Forex, I took a number, waited like 40 minutes, and approached the teller when my number was called.

"I need to exchange some U.S. dollars for Danish kroner."

"How much money do you need to exchange?"

"Six-thousand dollars."

"Where did you get this money? Why do you have so much money?"

"It's my money. I just moved here from the United States a week ago and I brought it to seed our bank account since I only get paid once a month."

"Who did you move here with? Your parents?"

"No, my husband and my kids."

"You can't exchange your husband's money."

"It's my money."

"This is your money?"

"Yes."

"Where did you get it?"

"I took it out of my bank account."

"I need to see bank statements for the last three months."

"I can show them to you on my phone."

"No. I need paper copies. This is too much money."

"OK, but my bank statements will only show a withdrawal of $4000 because we had the other $2000 in our house."

"Why did you have that money?"

"We sold all of our things before we left."

"OK, but I still need to see the bank statements."

What a total waste of time. Alas, I decided to just initiate a money transfer from our checking account in the U.S. to our Danish bank account. Who would've thought it would be so freaking difficult to put money from one place into an account in another place? I just keep thinking of that old J.G. Wentworth commercial: "It's my money, and I want it now!!"

Not the best use of a day, but at least I got to see the nice park.

Saturday

It was my birthday! There's a whole other post about that (My Danish Birthday). It was a really nice day.

Sunday

Vibe picked me up to got to Holte and purchase anonymous Rejsekorts for the older kids and Zac so they wouldn't have to buy full-price bus tickets every day to get to school and the store (they can't get their personal Rejsekorts until they are registered with their CPR numbers in Denmark after immigration goes through). We had to go into the 7-11 attached to the Holte Station and I discovered an entire case of Ben & Jerry's!! And most of them were flavors we didn't have in North Idaho!!

I didn't buy any because we were going to go grocery shopping afterward and I didn't want it to melt, but it's good to know I can go to a 7-11 and get my fix. Zac and I are wasting away.

In the evening, we thought it would be nice to go for a walk in the forest with the kids. Had we known what a frustrating experience they would make it, we probably would've just left them home, but we keep trying to do things as a family when we can.

Kaden and Harrison insisted on bringing their bikes, but instantly it was an issue and the trails weren't really made for bikes once we got into it. 

It feels so good to walk through this place!

Khloe sporting one of the free raincoats we got from Jacob and Christina.

Harrison couldn't ride his bike through the terrain and we ended up pushing it through the woods, bent over and cursing the bike until we decided to just go home. It was lovely though!

The boys before they gave up on the bikes.

As we left, Zac saw a sign, and when we translated it, we found out bikes weren't allowed there anyway. At least we won't have to fight the kids on that issue next time! 

NO BIKES!

It was a really neat place though. We saw a deer and some cool beetles. The beetles are a type of dung beetle called the black dor beetle.

Hi, friend!

Later in the evening, Zac and I wanted to go for a walk down to the lake, but about halfway there, we figured it would actually be a pretty nice time to try riding bikes to ALK. My goal was to get a feel for the trail and the effort it would require. It looks so easy! I nearly died. My bike has three speeds and they call this the "roller coaster road," so I made it there and back, but my legs and knees kind of hated me for it.

The bike road to work.

I don't hurt at all though, so I guess it was fine. I can only get more fit from this point on, right..?

We sat out back and watched the sun set, and it was a pretty nice night.

Monday

I let the kids try to navigate us to school on their own: I let them search the route on the Rejseplanen app, select the one we would take, check in and out at the appropriate times, etc. and they did great! However I got flustered on the way from the school to ALK because apparently I can't read the app properly, and I ended up getting yelled at by a bus driver. I thought maybe that would bother me more, but I think I've gotten much better at diffusing my anxiety for the most part. I just got off the bus and didn't look back at him or respond in any way. On my pretty walk up the path to work, I just told myself that maybe he was having a bad day, he was probably an immigrant and dealing with some of the same frustrations that I am, and that I needed to let it go. So I did. Growth.

Kaden had a better day at school and was pretty proud of himself for changing his attitude since last week. He was pleased to tell us that he is maybe going to play bass on a song during a school performance (Here Comes the Sun) that's coming up! I'm really excited he's finally showing some interest in playing an instrument. We'll see if it lasts long enough for our instruments to arrive from the U.S.

Oh, and I located and printed a waste schedule for our commune at work, so we actually took our own trash/food waste can out for the first time since we got here. The neighbors have been covering us up to this point...

Right before bed, I found out Kaden's schedule changed completely, which caused a little turmoil. It's challenging for us to have one kid or another starting before the other two on random days, but we're figuring it out.

Tuesday 

Kaden got himself to school on his own since he had to be there earlier than the other two. I took Khloe and Harrison on the bus. I swear, I always just miss the bus I need. Most of my mornings are just spent waiting for buses. It's very tedious to pass work every morning, change buses, go to the school, wait 9 minutes for a bus, wait 9 minutes for the bus line I had started out on, and then go to work. If the kids keep doing well, I won't have to spend the morning riding busses, and Zac won't have to spend the evenings doing the same!

My life.

The older two kids got home on their own! They accidentally got in at the back of the bus and couldn't check in with their Rejsekorts (you can only do that at the front of the bus), so they got off at the next stop, called me to confirm that they had identified the issue, and they continued on correctly.

Zac went to get the littlest one. Harrison complained that his mouth hurt when he was brushing his teeth later that night, and when I investigated, we found out he has two wiggly teeth on the bottom! He's very proud, but also kind of in pain.

Harrison's two wiggly teeth (we circled them)

The money transfer that I initiated Friday from our U.S. checking account was deposited into our Danish bank account, so I spent the evening figuring out how to set up automatic withdrawals (betalingsservice) for utilities and paying our overdue tuition and stuff.

I had also been waiting to have money in the Danish account so I could register our dog with the hunderegister. He's required to be registered within 30 days of entering the country. I uploaded his USDA paperwork to the application and realized that since no one ever checked him in when we arrived in France at the airport, the whole bottom section was blank. I submitted it anyway and apparently it didn't matter because the dog's registration is complete. Registering the cat is optional, but I still wanted to do it. Unfortunately, I have to get a vet in order to register the cat, so she's still unregistered.

Wednesday

Kaden got himself to school. I planned to ride with Khloe and Harrison just to my stop for work, but oooooh, that girl!!! She has no concept of time. We were just waiting for her and it was time to leave and she just disappeared. I told her we were late and she just casually put on her shoes. I practically dragged Harrison the whole way up the path to the bus stop and we ended up crossing against the light and running as fast as we could. Fortunately, the driver saw us coming and graciously decided to make the stop as we ran up. He didn't have to do that, but I'm sure glad he did.

The kids did all manage to get home OK though!

When I got home from work, Jacob and Christina were already here waiting for us. They had brought both cars - one to lend us for a week and a half, and one to take the four of us adults up to Louisiana, a modern art museum in Humlebæk just north of us.

I went inside to put down my bag and use the bathroom before we left, and I saw that we finally received the card my mom sent us on August 8th! That was fun.

We all got into the fancy electric Skoda car, and Christina pulled forward with incredible torque...right into a boulder she couldn't see that sits outside our front hedges! It tore the bumper off on the passenger side and it was hanging too low to drive. Jacob held it together pretty well, and Zac and I just felt bad because they were only there to pick us up and leave us a car, so in a way, it was kind of our fault.

We got into the other car and went to Louisiana anyway, and I'm so glad we did! I wasn't sure how I felt about modern art. I don't know if you all know this, but Zac and I haven't been to a lot of art museums in northern Idaho/eastern Washington...

Jacob and Christina are members, so they were able to bring us in with them. There were some really interesting exhibits, and there is a fun kid's area where kids can go do art projects and display their own creations. They have a playground, beautiful outdoor pathways, a trail down to the beach, and a great restaurant.

There was a super cool exhibit by Cave_bureau, and I don't even know if I could explain how creative and thoughtful it was. I didn't even take pictures because first, that wouldn't have captured it well, and second, I was too busy reading and staring and being impressed as hell.

Jacob got us booked for a tour of the "Epic Waste of Love and Understanding" exhibit by Icelandic performance artist, Ragnar Kjartansson. Unfortunately, the tour was only in Danish, so Christina just had to kind of translate the gist of it every once in a while for us quietly in the back. She's so nice. I've never really seen performance art like that before, but the things he did with audio were just wild and I can see why he's so famous.

Zac and I both enjoyed some of his works. Zac liked "Me and My Mother," which was a series of videos, staged the same, filmed every five years, of Ragnar and his mom, an actress, who spits on him the entire time as he fails to react. 

I liked The End, which was a series of 144 paintings. He and his friend holed up in an Italian palazzo for 6 months, and every day, he made one painting of his friend wearing the same black Speedo. The paintings are really simple, but they show how they basically just painted and listened to music and drank the whole time and you can sometimes see the album covers or other paintings in the series painted into the background.

A small section of the paintings in The End

He also had a work called "A Lot of Sorrow" that he did in collaboration with the National, my favorite band. It was so crazy to just be walking through the museum and hear "Sorrow" playing loudly in a room I couldn't see. We skipped it in the tour, but there was a comment from the tour guide about it because Zac caught the name of one of the band members. Christina said Aaron Dessner is married to a Danish woman. Anyway, in this piece, Ragnar had the National perform the same song over and over for 6 hours as a way to study "the evolving emotional tenor of a work stretched to its limits." We only listened for about 5 minutes when we went back later, but I'd listen to the whole freaking thing.

A shot of the screen during "A Lot of Sorrow"

After the tour, we went to dinner at the restaurant. It was great and we had a nice view of Sweden across the water. Jacob and Christina gave us a history lesson, and I got to send my first MobilePay payment when we split the check! It's kind of like Venmo. Super easy. Outside the restaurant was another piece of the Ragnar Kjartansson exhibit, a big neon sign called "Scandinavian Pain." Jacob took a lovely photo of us in front of it.

Outside the restaurant at Louisiana

A somewhat-squashed panoramic of Sweden across the water.

These funny animal-like statues are all over as part of a permanent exhibit.

At home, we rounded up some tape and zip ties so Jacob could reattach his bumper, then we called it a night.

Thursday

We had to really push to get Khloe out the door to catch her bus in time, and then she ended up missing it and I had to sit and text her for like 10 minutes to walk her through the options. I really hope she gets better at traveling alone!

I thought about riding my bike to work this morning, but before I left, I got called again by the school to go have a meeting about Kaden at 13:50, so I decided I'd just take the bus. The meeting went fine and we made some agreements with him about how he'll shape up and quit being so distracting in class, but none of the goals seemed very concrete, so I don't know where it will go.

I rode the bus home with the kids. Apparently, Harrison has a "bus friend," and it was so cute watching them interact and talk about where their bus stops are at.

Our new Oister SIM cards came in the mail, so I got the old used Samsung Galaxy phone Zac scored all set up for Harrison. He had a fun night messaging his family members on WhatsApp.

Why does he look so grown up in this picture?!

Zac's immigration was approved, so he'll have to go get his CPR number activated next week, but that means we're one step closer to being able to stay here for a while!