Week Four

Oh man! How have we been here four weeks already?!

Friday

OK, first, remember how they messed up my photo when I started work at ALK here and it was the photo of a man every time I emailed someone? Well, I saw him in the canteen. I wanted to run over and ask him if he was new too, and if so, if they had mixed up our photos and if he had gotten as many messages as I had about it, but we made eye contact and he didn't seem to recognize me, so I'm guessing that was not the case. Plus, he was surrounded by a bunch of very fancy-pants dudes and I figured I'd just seem crazy if I approached him about it, so I just left the canteen without saying a word. Like a normal human.

Zac went back to visit the couch we fell in love with. The store was closed so he just stared at it through the window. We resolved to go purchase it.

We've been trusting the kids to get themselves to and from school at weird times on the public busses, but Khloe either took the wrong bus or took the right bus but got off on the wrong stop. She was totally lost and I had to direct her via text message to where she needed to be. It's kind of stressful to manage these things during the work day via text, but I hope the kids get really good at using their resources and figuring out how to problem-solve.

We had a pretty rough evening with Kaden. We've been getting reports of disruptive and disrespectful behavior at school, and it's hard to know if this is an adjustment period or just him being kind of a punk. I mean, we basically have this conversation with at least one teacher EVERY SCHOOL YEAR lately. TBD.

I got a package in the mail with my birthday gift from Vanessa!! I wish I had taken a picture of how beautifully it was packaged because it was expert-level packing. Check out the roller skate pom-pom hat she made me!

Modeling my new hat!

Zac built a fire in the fire pit and we made Danish s'mores again. If I didn't describe these before, the marshmallows are a little different and they get kind of shiny on the outside instead of bubbly, and we don't have graham crackers or Hershey bars so we get biscuit cookies with chocolate on one side. These are really good.

Danish s'mores - so yummy!

I've been trying to do laundry in the late evenings because apparently the price of electricity changes every hour. You pay more during peak hours and less during off-hours, so it actually saves you money to do your laundry in the middle of the night. Of course that means I have more run-ins with the giant house spiders of Denmark...

A giant house spider in the laundry sink

Closer photo of the giant house spider

This guy is not even the biggest one we've seen. I mean, he's like half the size of the monstrous ones. Killing them doesn't even seem humane because they're so large. It's awful. Like crushing a squirrel with your bare hands or something. It takes multiple tries. We cry. We apologize. We don't know how to live like this.

Saturday

After Zac's sad visit to pine for the couch through the store window, we decided we were just going to wake up and go buy it. It's just money. This couch will outlive us.

We went in and the woman who we spoke to previously was on vacation. Another gentleman greeted us, so we explained that we had looked at the couch a week ago and we had decided to buy it. He was really nice and he said they don't normally sell the pieces on the floor because it takes two months for the furniture maker to replace it.

"Oh. The woman who was here previously had said we could buy the floor model..."

"Then you can!" he said happily. He immediately started ringing it up for us.

"What if we misunderstood her?"

"I have already sold it to you. I see you are in desperate need of a couch."

Cool. So I went to pay and we found out they could not accept a credit card, only payment from a Danish bank account. Yes, I have one, but there is not much money in it right now. Most of our assets are in the U.S. I told him I could initiate a Wise transfer from our account but that it would take a few days for it to get to them. Instead of making us come back when the payment came through, he just had me show him on the phone that I had initiated the transfer and we were good to go.

People here are so amazingly kind. I cannot get over it.

Then he asked if we had a way to bring the couch home and we explained that we don't have a car. Immediately he said that they don't have a delivery service, but that he would rent a truck to deliver it to us Tuesday. Seriously?! He didn't even charge us for that.

Harrison has been begging for a hotdog since we got here. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I suggested a hot dog vendor during our walk in the park a couple weeks ago. I don't know. Anyway, there was a hot dog cart in the shopping plaza outside the furniture store and we bought Harrison his first hot dog. I used MobilePay like an expert Dane and was very proud of myself.

They have two styles of hotdog here - French and...normal(?). The normal kind also come with all kinds of options for toppings - pickled onions, French-fried onions, a million sauces, etc. The French hot dogs come in a hollowed-out baguette-looking thing. We got Harrison a normal one and Kaden had a French one.

Harrison was complaining that his mouth was hurting as he ate his hotdog because of his wiggly teeth, so Khloe finished it for him. I looked in his mouth and saw that one of the teeth was about to come right out, so he grabbed it himself and just removed it casually.

Khloe was invited to her first Danish birthday party at Hørsholm Svømmehal (the Hørsholm swimming pool) and we drove up there to drop her off. We were happy that one of the parents had initiated a money collection for a gift because we didn't have any idea about the guidelines for birthday parties or gift-giving here. I knew from reading blogs of other expats that it was kind of custom to invite all the girls (or boys, depending on the kid) in the class instead of selecting just a few, and that gifts were not expected to cost more than a few dollars.

Everyone was pretty hungry, even after the boys had a hotdog snack, and we were really close to the McDonald's by the kids' school. They still have a play place! Also, there are some really fun items on the "coinoffers" item menu, like the "Tops Burger," which is cheese tops (kind of like fried balls of gooey cheese?) and the "Chicken salsa cheese," which is as described. We opted for more traditional items, but I think the chicken breasts for the sandwiches are of a much higher caliber than in the U.S.

I had gone in on a gift for the birthday girl via MobilePay and it cost me just over $7 USD. While Khloe was at the party for 3 hours, Zac and the boys and I went shopping at Hørsholm Midtpunkt, a mall nearby. Kaden got two pairs of pants and a couple t-shirts, I got some small garbage cans for the bathrooms, then we found deodorant for the kids, replenished our stock of Band-Aids, and browsed several other stores. Through the seven million messaging groups I manage for the kids' school every day, I discovered Harrison needed "indoor" shoes for school, so we grabbed a pair of those at the mall, too.

When we picked up Khloe later, I met some of the parents from year 8, and it was really nice to talk to them. They made me feel very welcome and offered to help with anything we had questions about. In fact, one of the parents I spoke to said she had been there just over a year and they had purchased a house in Kokkedal! I said, "I thought you had to reside in Denmark for five years before purchasing property!" and she said, "Oh no. You can do it. There are YouTube videos that teach you the steps and then you can join the Expats in Denmark page and ask there, too. You can do it." Definitely gonna look into that.

French hotdogs

After dinner, Kaden was in the dog bed petting Han and found a very engorged tick. Han's first! (We were not as excited as my exclamation point made it seem.) I pulled it out but the head broke off and I couldn't get it out.

Eeeew.

The tick didn't, however, deter us from taking a nice walk, so Khloe, Han, Zac, and I went out and took one of the many paths we hadn't branched off on before. A little muddy, but the views still didn't disappoint.

Harrison put his tooth in an IKEA zip-top bag and stuck it under his pillow. I had asked around about A) whether the tooth fairy exists in Denmark (yes), and B) how much she pays out for a tooth (20 DKK). Harrison was very excited to get his 20 DKK and he went to sleep happy.

Sunday

Harrison woke up pretty dejected. We failed at playing tooth fairy. Why is it so hard to remember such a simple thing? We were just waiting for him to fall asleep and completely forgot. Harrison was crushed. We suggested that maybe the tooth fairy had struggled to get the double-zip-top bag open and that we should try removing it from the bag next time. Harrison agreed that this was a good idea and with his spirits buoyed, we hopped on a train to Copenhagen to meet Rachel and Jon and the kids for a day of tourism! Oh, and we rode the Metro for the first time.

Way cleaner than NYC.

Rachel is my oldest friend (in time we've known each other, not in age, to be clear), and her family had planned a vacation to Copenhagen before we even had an idea that we might move here, so it worked out pretty serendipitously.

Behold! Joey and Janice's Lindsey and Rachel's (and everyone else's) Day of Fun!

Stop #1: Christiansborgs Palace

This is the house of the Danish Parliament and home to they royal stables, among other things. Technically, we didn't go into the palace, we were just killing time walking around the grounds until our harbor tour, but we stopped at Bishop Absalon's statue (the "founder" of Copenhagen), talked about him for a quick second, and then moved along. We'll go back another day to tour the palace, I'm sure.

The Cogen-Kutteruf and Barber kiddos climbing around during their history lesson

Stop #2: Harbour tour

We took the Stromma harbor tour and it was great!

Last time I went, it was February 2013 and I was too frozen to enjoy it. This time was very pleasant. The tour guide was hilarious and informative. Harrison and Asher had a great time hanging out together and picking out their favorite houseboats.

We learned about notable buildings, quiet-zone laws, the Danish peoples' right to walk along the coastline, the Danish navy, holiday lore, famous Danes, kings of the past, and all kinds of cool stuff. Highly recommend for any visitors.

Stop #3: The Round Tower (Rundetaarn)

I've been to this tower twice in my travels before, but it's always worth a visit because it's super cheap to go in, you get a great leg workout on the way up the spiral floor, and there's usually a cool exhibit in the library about halfway up. There's a wonderful view of the city from the top, and the tower is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe.

The smaller kids had a good time ducking into all the little hidey-holes in the tower. There was no exhibit this time, which was kind of a bummer, but we did get to go to the top, check out the telescope, and stand in the center of the tower.

Khloe posing in a window at the round tower

Don't look down. Trust the glass.

Three little adventurers!

Tower buddies!

Stop #4: Rosenborg Slot (Castle)

This one was cool. The castle was built in the 1600s and was inhabited off an on by various kings and queens, so there's a ton of history there and so many things to see.

Rosenborg slot across the moat

Khloe was the photographer through most of the tour and she was thrilled to be inside an actual castle.

Intricate cabinets and clocks are everywhere.

No boring ceilings in this castle!

The white throne on the left is made of narwhal tusks.

French birdcage

Royal crossbows and weaponry

When we finished staring at the Crown Jewels, the families parted ways. Our friends went back to their hotel and we headed toward the train station through Ørstedsparken.

Khloe on the bridge in the park over the water that used to be part of the moat when the city was fortified

Everyone was hungry, so I found a place that Yelp claimed was close to our location and good for kids. We ended up at Halifax Burgers and it was delightful. Also, I got my onion rings!! Mmmm. (Before we left the U.S., I was hoping to get some good onion rings because I figured they'd be hard to find in Denmark, but it never happened.)

[Side note: At the grocery store, you WILL see what appears to be a bag of onion rings in the freezer section. Do not buy this. They are octopus rings. ALK's canteen will also put out a steaming hot tray of these to try to entice you, but again, do not eat them. They are still octopus rings.]

When we got home, we listened to a bunch of audio stories about the round tower. (Why don't families sit around listening to audio programs anymore? It was great!) We actually learned a lot about the tower's long history. We also looked up the map of Rosenborg and found the answers to some of the questions we had as we had wandered through.

That night, we also set about six hundred alarms, alerts, and reminders so we wouldn't forget to give Harrison his tooth fairy money. Nailed it.

Monday

Harrison was pretty pleased with his 20 kroner.

Score!

There was a whole kid-lunch hullabaloo before the day even really got going. Kaden had to go to school before the other two and failed to make a lunch, so he grabbed a bag of peanuts or something on the way out the door for his entire day's sustenance. Khloe normally makes her lunch and Harrisons, so I saw a lunch on the table, assumed it was Harrison's, and didn't ask questions. As the younger two and I ran for the bus stop, we learned they only had one lunch between the two of them, so on the bus, they divvied up the food and I felt terrible. I texted Zac and asked him to bring them all some real lunches. Thankfully, he took care of it.

At lunchtime, I decided I was going to learn to buy bread at the canteen. I approached the rack and learned that it's done through MobilePay, which I totally have now, so I filed that away for another day.

The bread sale rack outside the canteen.

After I finished eating, I looked out the window of the canteen and saw Zac checking in at the reception desk. He was at ALK for a meet-and-greet with his new bosses, so I went out to say hi to him and I got to meet his bosses, Kasper and Lasse.

In the afternoon, I met up with my friend Mike in the main building. He was in Denmark for finance stuff and we didn't have very long to chat, but it was still nice to see him and hear about his trip to Italy. It's so fun to see people from the U.S. in Denmark!

Zac and I both forgot that Harrison gets out of school before the other two kids on Mondays, but the universe smiled upon us. Due to a teacher illness, Kaden got dismissed when Harrison did and it all worked out. Guess we'd better prepare better for the subsequent weeks...

Harrison was annoyed by his other loose tooth and asked me to pull it out. I don't know why extracting his little tooth was so fun, but I enjoyed it and he was happy to have it removed. Zac and I didn't have any more 20 DKK coins, so we had to assemble a mess of 5, 2, and 1 DKK coins, but I got them under the pillow in a little pile successfully.

Tuesday

Kaden reported that his school schedule had changed again, so I had to re-think all of our coordinated to-and-from school plans for the third week in a row. Lame.

On the bright side, I bought my first loaf of bread at work successfully. It smelled really good even through the bag, so I thought it would be best to guard it.

Boba Fett on duty

Here's a new one: how much money do you give a brand new colleague for his upcoming wedding as part of a collective fund?

I was invited, via email, to contribute to a wedding gift for a colleague who is in a closely related department, so I solicited my coworkers for advice. Based on the feedback, 50 DKK was pretty standard. This is at odds with what I would do in the U.S., as 50 DKK amounts to about $7 and I think in the U.S., I'd contribute like $20 to a group gift. Apparently, this is the going rate for a single contribution to a colleague's group wedding gift (when you aren't invited to the wedding) in Denmark. If you are invited to the wedding, you buy a gift that's more like 200-300 DKK ($29-$34), or the approximate cost of that person having you at their wedding. I'm learning stuff. 

There was a meeting at the school for the parents of the Primary students (Harrison) after work from 17-19 (5-7 p.m.), so I went and listened to some presentations, met Harrison's teacher, paid a "class fee" that goes toward treats on field trips or other miscellaneous things. I got a message that the kids' P.E. uniforms I had ordered (mandatory) were ready, so I met up with the vendor in the parking lot at the school, saving myself a trip into Birkerød to get them later after they had shipped to a local store.

I saw two interesting things on my way out of the school. One was this cute Bug Hotel. The other was a huge-ass rat. I should probably email the school about that...

No humans.

After a looooong day, I came home to my new couch.

Aaaaaahhhh. Italian comfort.

Unfortunately, our super kind furniture guy hit the same rock that Christina hit. We will be better about warning people in the future, I guess.

It's been displaced. We can't move it back. It's heavy.

It was also a big mail day!

All the cards and letters!!!!

Our mantle and hearts are full.

We made some video calls to Mom/Deb/Grandma Debbie and Mom and Dad/Wade and Lisa/Nana Lisa and Grandpa Wade, and it was really fun to see their faces while we chatted before bed.

Wednesday

Sports Day! Every year, the kids at North Zealand International School form sports teams, and each grade plays against the kids from the Danish part of the school (NGG) at various sports.

Check out those personalized track suits (that were required and cost a crap-ton of money...)!

Let's do it!

Year 2 (Harrison) - Fun & Games

Year 8 (Khloe): Floorball (yeah, I don't know either)

Year 9 (Kaden): Softball

We struggled a little to get them where they needed to be for all these things (Harrison to the school and the older kids to the Hørsholm Idrætspark (sports park)), but mostly they were on time. They all had a blast. Harrison was featured front and center on the Instagram page for the school with the parachute. Kaden's team (NIS Year 9) won the softball tournament!

The littlest Barber.

Year 9 softball tournament winners! (Kaden is in the center in the back.)

Kaden was excited because he got to go to the skate park with a friend during their break, and he tried some tricks on his friend's bike.

Zac met up with our immigration consultant in Denmark to get his CPR number activated and now he has MitID, too! Gotta get him access to all those other apps now.

Kaden and Khloe were supposed to figure out the buses from the sports park home, but as Zac and I predicted, they fought over which route to take, which stop to go to, and ultimately, just ended up walking all the way into town to catch the 500S bus home from the mall in Hørsholm.

I've been trying hard to make sure I get all of our bills registered for betallingsservice (automatic bill pay from our bank account), so I spend a lot of time translating documents from the utility companies from Danish to English and changing my phone number and address on the websites and whatnot. It's so time-consuming.

We also have to get "contents insurance" (like renter's insurance) and dog insurance, so I have some emails out about that. Also, I found a citizen science project at Roskilde University where you can register tick sightings or bites on humans or pets for a research project, so I registered Han's tick. (We must science this at once!)

Oh, and as I was browsing the commune's newspaper, I found an ad seeking people to have their serum drawn for an ALK peanut study!

Want to come have some blood drawn for science?

I was pleasantly surprised after dinner to get a call from my Grandma on WhatsApp! She thinks she doesn't know what she's doing, but this is the second time she's successfully called me since I moved and I think she's more capable of learning new things than she gives herself credit for. It was nice to talk to her.

Thursday

I got a whiteboard installed at work, which made me super happy, but it was repurposed, so it was covered in very old whiteboard tape that separated from the glue when I pulled it off. I had to spend over an hour drenching it in ethanol and patiently scraping it clean. But look how shiny it is now!!

It was a super rainy day and all I wanted to do was go home. Unfortunately, I had to take a bus up to the school for the Secondary (Kaden and Khloe) parent's meeting from 17-19 (5-7 p.m.)

It was actually really informative and I met a bunch of their subject teachers. This school is incredibly prestigious and the staff is really all about the students. There are so many differences from the schools the kids have been in before. Maybe I'll do a separate post about that one of these days. I really like this school and the staff.

The older kids are going on team-building trips in a couple of weeks. Kaden will get to go to Tivoli and Khloe is going to Tree Tops. (Look them up. They're both awesome.)

Also, all the kids in secondary do a big multi-day trip at the end of the school year where they visit somewhere historical, stay in hostels, learn, play, and just experience life. Khloe's class is going to Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea that's steeped in history. It's incredibly warm into the fall and there are medieval castles, rare plants, and tons of things to explore. Kaden's class will go to Krakow, Poland for a history lesson and some cool sightseeing. I'm so freaking jealous of them. Maybe they need parent volunteers...

* * *

Four weeks, everyone. No, we still aren't settled. We want our stuff to get here. We aren't sure what we're buying some of the time at the grocery store. We can't find compressed air to clean the air filters in the basement and Zac hasn't started his job at ALK here yet. The kids are still finding their place in school and trying to make friends. Our cat is all feral and our dog is kind of mopey without her in the house all the time. Despite the minor hurdles, we're pretty happy and figuring out more things every day. I hope you're still following along with us on our adventure, and if you read this but haven't seen in my other posts, I don't have my U.S. phone number anymore. If you want to get in touch with our family, reach out via social media and I'll talk to you about how we can text more frequently through apps and stuff. Khloe and Harrison also have Danish numbers now and would love to hear from you via WhatsApp, Messenger, SnapChat, etc. We miss you!!!!