Copenhagen, Denmark! (And part of a day in Malmo, Sweden)

With so many places we'd like to visit in Europe and not knowing where to begin we chose Copenhagen as our first trip outside of the UK based on where was cheapest to fly for the long weekend (Sat Oct 5th-Tues Oct 8th) we wanted to go.  We were quite excited to check it out as we knew little about the city before heading there! 

My favorite part of Copenhagen was a small harbor/shipyard area called Nyhavn.  Most of these colored buildings are around 300 years old! Today the area is lined with restaurants with outdoor seating.  We enjoyed drinks here our first afternoon.

On Sunday our first full day we did ALOT of walking and covered most of what there is to see in Copenhagen.  We toured Rosenborg Castle which was built in the early 1600's.  My favorite thing to see here was the Danish crown jewels.  Pretty impressive!

Hans Christian Andersen author of fairy tales such as The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Pea spent alot of his life in Copenhagen. There are many things in the city dedicated to him including the famous Little Mermaid sculpture.  We found this to be quite hilarious that people were flocked to see this sculpture.  Notice she is out on a rock... in order to get a pic with her you had to step out into the water over a few other rocks.  We were just waiting for someone to fall in!  Never happened and we decided to just wait for people to move out of the way and quickly snapped this pic... not to great but you get the idea.

Here are some other pics from exploring the city...

We learned that biking as a commuter option is HUGE in Copenhagen! Everyone was on bikes! They had separate bike roads all through the city along side the normal roads that cars drive on.  Much larger then the normal bike lanes in Minneapolis for example.

And of course there was no shortage of Danish pastries!

        We wandered through some pretty botanical gardens...

Below is the Oresund Bridge which stretches from Denmark to Sweden.  We decided to take the train (35 min ride) across into Malmo, Sweden to check it out!  

Malmo's tallest residential building in the background

Downtown Malmo

We were there just long enough to have lunch and wander the city center a bit.  Some things we did learn... much colder on the other side of the bridge... could not read anything... sometimes you just order food when you can't read and hope it will be good (luckily it was!) Lastly when looking for the restroom and making the assumption "Herr" means women's... that is incorrect! 

A Month of Getting "Settled"

After a busy month and a half of not working and getting ready to leave... and after quite a few hard goodbyes we finally took off on August 18th! It felt great to finally be on our way! Here we are nearly 7 weeks later and we can finally say we are starting to feel settled in!  It took quite some time as everything in the UK seem to be a process to get set up! The short version is that we encountered some frustrating obstacles and waiting periods when getting phones set up, dealing with banking issues, getting deliveries from IKEA, setting up utilities and painfully waiting about a month for internet and cable to be up and running! Oh yes and almost forgot... mastering the laundry situation here! We have a tiny dual washer and dryer located in our kitchen which is very loud and takes many hours to complete a load! However I've learned to love that I don't have to switch the clothes to the dryer between cycles.  I've gotten used to the fact that laundry is almost a daily duty... you just put it in and forget it! Also I finally discovered which type of liquid fabric softener to use so our hard water no longer causes our clothes to come out crunchy!

When we first arrived here we were set up in temporary housing for 2 weeks.  We arrived on a Monday and after day to straighten out our jet lag (it took much longer then that) we met on Wednesday with a relocation agent arranged by Brian's company to help us find a place to live.  Since Brian's office is to the west of London about 15 miles from central part of the city we had given her some areas that we wanted to see ahead of time which were located in the middle.  So we were lined up to see about 14 different flats that day.  I am convinced that the first few places we were brought to were purposely set up just to make the others later in the day seem nicer and lead us to ultimately choosing one that day.  Lets just say the first few were very small, outdated and not the cleanliest!  I had prepared myself for living somewhere smaller then at home but was honestly worried at this point! 

Luckily as the day went on they did get nicer.  Nothing was really jumping out though until we looked at the one we are currently living in! We are located in the area of London known as Chiswick.  Each area has what is called a "highstreet/road" essentially what we call a "main street" in the U.S.  Our flat is along the highstreet and above a shop.    We loved the area because there are tons of shops/restaurants and pubs within walking distance.  Also the "Tube" also known as the London Underground or as we say at home the subway is only 2 blocks from us making getting around very easy!  We really feel like we lucked out finding an updated flat, partially furnished, for the right price and in the location we had pictured perfectly in heads!  There are many other details that went along with the process but I'll spare you those and just get to the pictures! Our shipment arrived from the U.S. a few days after we moved in so it was great to have familiar things and start to make it feel like HOME!


Here it is...

Top of the entryway



Our bedroom

Hallway

Bathroom

Living room

                           

Open to the living room area

Kitchen

That's the tour! It's small and cozy but the good news is it doesn't take long to clean "the whole house!"

Waiting...Packing... Moving!

Moving abroad for work was something Brian always talked about wanting to do.  It was something he could pursue looking into in "3 years, 2 years, 1 year from now" once he reached what he felt was the right level in his career.  Well finally this year, near the end of March he interviewed for a manager position in London! While it was very exciting (and a bit scary) there still was plenty of waiting to do! It wasn't until the end of April (a full month after his interview) that the agonizing wait was over... He was extended an offer to work in Uxbridge which is to the west of London!

There was still a waiting period in determining actually "when" they wanted him.  The UK firm was anxious to have him as early as July 1st, however the MPLS firm decided keeping him in MN for themselves until August would be more reasonable.  Considering we needed to figure out many logistics including whether to sell or rent our first house... a little extra time was still plenty early enough!  Since Brian was going to be working up until the time we left it seemed best for me to quit my job as a Program Specialist at Virtual Radiologic early to take care of the countless things we had to do! I was done at the end of June, this is when things started to feel a bit more real!  I was asked countless times "how not working was" however the time get spent packing up our house, deciding what to keep, what to get rid of, ship to London, put in storage, move to storage, pack in suitcases and many other items all while still trying to soak up time spending every last second with friends and family was exhausting!  So while "not working" may have seemed nice and relaxing...it was anything but that! 

We decided to keep our house and actually lucked out on finding renters through relatives of a former co-worker of mine.  So with peace of mind that our house would be taken care we decided what to ship (a long exhausting process that I couldn't have done without the help of my Mom) and movers came July 18th to haul it away! We still would not actually find out the date we were leaving until about a week and a half before we left (August 18th) nor did we know where we were going to be living when we arrived (beyond our 2 weeks in temporary housing)... so it felt very strange to be sending everything off into "never never land" hoping to see it again!!! Our stuff would be sent on a boat across the ocean with an estimated arrival 6-8 weeks out.  It still was hard to grasp the fact we were leaving but this helped the "3 years, 2 years, 1 year from now" concept begin to feel like it's happening NOW!

Above is a pic from when the movers arrived...

 They packed everything we were shipping for us which turned out to be 30 boxes!