We Are Here:

We did it!  After many months of contemplation, a false start or two, a monumental move out of Los Angeles, and a very long plane flight with a very little boy, we have finally arrived in the Land of the Danes.  Two weeks in and here I am: Jojo in Daneland.

But what have you been doing in Denmark, Joanne?  What sites have you seen?  What foods have you tasted?  What friends have you made?  Tell us, tell us, of your grand adventures!

And so I shall . . .

Our first grand adventure was getting here.  We began our journey at San Francisco International airport on Friday, July 2.  See, here we are:

I was a little nervous as to how young Alexander would handle the trip considering it was not only a trans-Atlantic multi-stop venture, but also his first plane flight ever!  We had been asking him for weeks ahead of time "Do you want to go on an airplane, Alex?" to which he would always reply with a bewildered and adorable "Yeah."  Finally our departure date arrived and as we drove to the airport Russ asked Alex once more "Do you want to go on airplane?" This time Alex replied "Boat."  Sorry kiddo, but in the 21st century we fly to Europe.  And we did.

Turns out the boy is a traveling champ.  In fact the women seated in front of us complimented him at the end of the flight to London on what a well-behaved passenger he had been.  Did you get that?  The people seated right in front of him, and therefore the direct recipients of any seat kicking, screaming, and general toddler misconduct actually had positive things to say about him after a 9-hour flight to London.  What a good boy we have.  (I will not detail the 30+ minutes of intense screaming he dealt to the passengers on our flight to Copenhagen).

So after a long and time warp-y travel day we arrived in Copenhagen on the evening of Saturday, July 3.  We grabbed the hugest taxi we could find (because hello, we are going to be here awhile and we brought a ton of stuff!), and found our way to our new home.  Russ ran out to grab some essentials to get us through the first night:  Milk and a pizza.  Bottled and fed, we were all dog tired so we went to sleep.

The next morning we joined our good friends (and now upstairs neighbors) Sixten, Lene, and their darling young Lucca, in the garden for a very Danish breakfast of muesli with yogurt.  And so it all began.

The two weeks since our arrival have been a blur of sleep deprivation (baby jet-lag is no joke) and learning our way around this cute apartment and this lovely city.  It's been quite a different experience from my previous travel adventures, as this time we are really not tourists.  The top sites on our list so far have been Irma, Fotex, and Netto (all grocery stores), the nearby toddler playground, the bakery, and our own backyard.  I have yet to wander a museum, eat out at a restaurant, or buy an "I ♥ CPH" t-shirt.

I do intend to do all those things, and then some, but I've got to fit them in between nap time, snack time, and bath time, because, oh yeah, did I mention I'm doing the full-time mama thing now?  That's sort of the point of this whole experiment:  Russ gets to focus on wooloo, I get to focus on our cutie-patootie dude, and we all get to chill out and relax in a happy fun time of family togetherness and love and rainbows.  ;-)

It has been quite a lot of work to get here, but I am feeling like it just might actually end up being worth all the effort.  I think we're going to have a pretty fabulous time in Denmark.  I will keep you all posted as the adventure unfolds . . .

In the meantime, I leave you with this photo sampling of our activities to date:

Exploring the local playground:

Getting caught in an unexpected downpour:

Laundry Day:

Grabbing a snack from the fridge:

Planning our next outing: