Holy mother it has been a looooooong time since I have posted on the blog. So sorry about that! You guys know how it is when you go through a massive life change.... it feels like you've been punched in the face like a hundred times before you get settled. Any of you peeps that have ever had a huge move, you know what I am talking about. But! Here we are. So here's the down low on what has been happening with us since we have be here! We first arrived on August 16, tired and way hungry! We flew on Icelandic Air and to our surprise they don't feed you at all on their flights. So we stuffed face (with the classic Euro bread and cheese haha) and found our way to our Airbnb apartment. By found our way, I actually mean that Skylor's mission president picked us up from the airport, seriously the nicest man ever. It was nice not to have to track down a taxi with all of our luggage (we had 7 pieces of luggage and a stroller, so it was kind of a nightmare). I should've taken more pictures of our Airbnb apt, but accidentally never did haha. I found it a little weird to be photographing someone else's apartment! But we LOVED our Airbnb. It was a reasonably price, huge, and had everything we needed. It was our first experience with Airbnb, and as of right now we can't wait to use it again (which will actually be kinda soon... we have a trip coming up this weekend! EEK!) The first (full) day that we were here, we went out and about in the city. We had a little bit of a tough time figuring out the public transit without data on our phones... but we finally got the hang of it after walking our feet off haha! As we were walking around that first day, we actually found a Geology building and we laughed because we thought it would be such a coincidence if that was Skylor's school (University of Copenhagen is set up in various buildings around the city, so for the first couple of weeks we didn't know where Sky would be spending most of his time).... turns out that IS his building. Its a great building and there's also a Natural History/Geology Museum very close as well so it turned out perfectly. That first week turned out to be a little (and by a little I mean A LOT/FREAKING A/I WANT TO DIE) stressful. We did not find housing before we arrived in Copenhagen because landlords actually wanted to meet us before renting to us. We had no idea that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to find housing once we were actually here. No lie, Sky sent over 500 messages to potential landlords and NOTHING. I was freaking out. At the end of our first week there, we didn't know exactly where we would be going next sooooo yeah. So homeless haha. I guess the Danes know how crazy it is to find housing here in the Fall, even they have a hard time and they aren't students. Fortunately, there was this great couple in our ward (Kenneth and Marion) who had a spare room that they were willing to temporarily rent out to us while we looked for a new apartment. Talk about a life saver! We ended up in that temporary place for about 5 weeks. It was so so nice to have a place to be, but I was also very much missing some independence. It was difficult for us to adjust to being here because we didn't have anything permanent. I had a few meltdowns over the hotplate (the only thing we had to cook with... LOL) but we survived and made some fun friends out of the whole experience. K and M were great and their family is also so so kind. We feel very blessed that we were able to meet them. While we were still living in Hvidore (with K and M), Skylor had a new student orientation at KU where we found out exactly what campus he would be studying and how some things work here, which are pretty freaking complicated and annoying (see the CPR story...). This student orientation pretty much saved our butts because we were finally able to find housing out of it. Because we didn't have a permanent housing contract for several weeks, we were unable to get out CPR numbers. These numbers are vital to survive and get anything done here in Denmark. Even though we had our official visas from the government, we were unable to get a bank account, phone plan, internet or see the doctor. This was obviously a little difficult since I am like, a million months pregnant, but we survived (I actually get to see the doctor for the first time here this Friday... its been about 8 weeks since baby has been checked so we are anxious to make sure he is okay in there). Anyways (sorry that was kind of a long tangent!), we went to the school's housing foundation during orientation to see if they could help us at all. KU doesn't have student housing, let alone housing for a family so they couldn't help us a ton except for giving us a very short spreadsheet of landlords we could contact. Low and behold, one of those few contacts turned out to be a guy with a great apartment, who was leaving for 3 years (we are only staying for 2 but that means that we don't have to move at all while we are here or find different housing). He was particular about who he was willing to rent out to (he didn't want a bunch of party people trashing his apartment) and thankfully, he liked us! I guess he didn't think we would be partying too much with a baby... little does he know. JK! The place is smaller than we were used to back in the states, but super reasonable here and fit perfectly in our budget. We have a kitchen, bathroom, living room and a bedroom- after getting so desperate we were willing to rent a studio apartment, this place is a dream! Its in a great and quiet area too, which we love and I'm sure we will appreciate once we have baby boy. I will snag some pics of the apartment soon and do a little mini-home tour :) We finally got our wifi set up today (hallelujah!) and finally can like communicate with the world. We have been living off of limited "pay as you go" data so I am happy to have internet in our place :) In other news, Skylor is doing well in school! It is much different here, but he seems to like it a lot. He speaks Danish like a boss (even though his classes are in English), so he can get around and meet people whenever and wherever! He had a field trip about a month ago, he got to go to a few different places in Sweden and Aalborg (which in here in Denmark). The geology is pretty different here compared to UT (haha go figure) so he is having fun learning about a totally different geologic region. We hope to do updates periodically, so this is a pretty good way to keep up with us if you care to! We miss all of our friends and family back home, but we are super grateful to be here and to have this opportunity. As with all good things, they present their own challenges (like no good American peanut butter....) but we are learning and growing. Can't wait to have visitors to tote around!! Also, if you missed our little video diary of us running around Copenhagen a few weeks ago, the link is below! We are trying to practice our video skills, they are just way more fun than photos sometimes!
2 Comments
Kate
10/12/2016 10:36:32 am
I love the updates! I'm so glad everything is going so well for you both! Sounds like some pretty awesome adventures! I'm glad that you now get to settle a bit. :) I can't wait to see more pictures of Denmark and you both! Love you lots!!
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Koren -momma
10/12/2016 08:47:23 pm
Im so excited to see you, looks like a beautiful place. I love to see your belly bump, thats my grandson!! Love you two see you soon momma
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