Those were the days, Part I

Lately I've found myself thinking a lot about our 3 years living abroad and really missing our friends, the slow paced European lifestyle and the every day adventures of living in a foreign country and getting to travel to new places all the time. I was thinking how it would have been so great if they had this blog thing about 6 years ago because it would have certainly kept me busy. Most of you reading this know that I went stir crazy after almost 3 years without working, well working and getting a paycheck that is. I did work for a non profit about 10 hours a week, but that wasn't enough for me. Especially with a husband who traveled ALL THE TIME! It's funny how the grass is always greener on the other side. I can recall numerous conversations with friends and family complaining how bored I was getting and how I couldn't wait to move home and work, work, work! WOW... did I really feel that way? This adventure all started when I began dating my now husband who was working for a Danish company. After graduating college, I immediately got a job teaching 5th grade down in Charlotte, NC. So, I migrated south a few days after graduation. It was a tough year teaching to say the least (actually I HATED it!) and we weren't particularly happy in the Charlotte area, so when an opportunity with B's company was presented to him at the world headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark, we decided to go for it. This decision was not actually made that easily. I actually think the first words out of my mouth were "Where is Denmark and no, I'm not moving to another country with you! We're not even married. Heck, we're not even engaged!" After a few weeks of weighing all the pros and cons and having a lot of chats with our Danish friends who were living in Charlotte and on the brink of getting expatriated home to CPH (Copenhagen), I finally came to the conclusion that it was a once in a lifetime experience and the worst that could happen is I don't like it and move home. Many people thought it was a bit crazy for me to move to another country with a guy I wasn't even engaged to, but I guess that was one of my rare decisions of living on the edge.

B moved over in May of 2002 and I followed a few months later. We had a fantastic summer and of course went through the rollercoaster of loving it, hating it and then loving it again. The picture above is a very popular spot called Nyhavn, pronounced Newhoun. And days as gorgeous as the one above are pretty rare and very appreciated by the Danes. The climate in Denmark and lack of sun was something I had a rough time adjusting to. Because CPH is on an island, there is a constant moisture always in the air in the spring, fall and winter. Not to mention the fact that it sometimes stays dark all day in the winter. The summertime is a different story. Denmark is so far north that it stays light out until midnight or so.

Here is Hans Christian Andersen's famous Little Mermaid statue.

Brad and I somewhat inherited our apartment from the American guy who Brad was replacing. Because it was an easy find and had an incredible location with the bus stop, taxi stand, metro and train station directly across the street, we didn't bother to shop around. Our apartment is the third one up and is right above a 7 Eleven and a few buildings down from a night club. It took a while to adjust to the constant buzz of people at all hours.

Our apartment was also located right on the famous shopping street, the Stroget which was very dangerous for a shopaholic like myself who had a LOT of free time on her hands. However, Denmark has a VAT (value added tax) that is 18% which makes everything crazy expensive. Think about everything you buy on a regular basis and add 18% to that. It's shocking!

I spent many afternoons at cafe Europa below having lattes with 2 shots of caramel reading a book or trying to perfect my Danish by reading Danish newspapers. Now it's not that I didn't have any friends, in fact I had several close friends, but they all worked during the daytime, leaving me to fend for myself.

Pictured below is one of the five lakes in a row frozen over in the winter time. My good friend Aimee and I used to walk several times a week around all five lakes. I can't recall the distance, but we never did run out of things to say to each other.

To be continued....