Copenhagen

We have left Kristiansand after being there for a month (wow, that went by fast!) and having no luck with jobs (tried pretty much everywhere in downtown). We are hoping a bigger city will have more job opportunities for English speakers and that we won't run out of money quite so fast. We arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday, and from what we have seen so far... it is awesome!! I'll keep you all posted on our progress... I'm now using the internet in a lobby of a hotel... best wishes.

Itchy Feet

We are in Europe. WOW. When I wake up in the morning after realising that Maya isn't sleeping next to the bed, and I start to miss her... then comes the slap in the face that holy crap... we are on the other side of the world, away from anyone we know. Then the excited, spontaneous Leah jumps in and my feet get itchy. Dom's feet are itchy too. We want to travel! See everything! There are so many countries and so much to see and do and they are all so close. Ah, but then the moral dilemma of money. Money sucks totally. We really want to make it work here, which means jobs and such. The mature adult in me thinks nei (no), don't go to the zoo today, that is $80 a person and you might need that money in a few weeks when you still haven't found work. The 'screw the system' Leah then thinks BUT this may be the only chance we have for a long time if we get jobs and such.

The job hunt: hard. We have been to every employment agency in town, and they basically all politely said 'okay, we'll keep your CV and call you if anything comes up, but don't count on it because you don't speak Norwegian'. The lady at the government office (as far as I can tell is supposed to help EU nationals find jobs) was down right rude to Dom. We've been told that hopefully we can get the regular immigrant jobs like picking strawberries or cleaning hotels until we learn the language. So, slowly I am translating vacancies online and then we'll hit up hotels and such next week. Until then, I am cramming the language in... Ipod style. Can I pay someone to download it into my brain or hypnotise me to learn it?

First Impressions

1. Lots of people smoke here, and right outside front doors and on restaurant patios.
2. Women do not wear heels. I wore boots with high heels today and the traditional clip-clop drew everyone's attention. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.
3. Apparently tight rolling your jeans and pulling your socks up over them is back in fashion. big.
4. Girls wear alot of makeup here, almost clownish, and fake-tans abound.
5. Expensive! Everything. We need work. Fast.
6. People walk and drive however they want, without looking.
7. Lots of cycling! Yeah!
8. Lots of Turkish immigrants
9. unexpected ammounts of graffiti
10. good local beer
11. really friendly, smiling people.

Welcome to Norway!

We are here in Kristiansand. The trip was as smooth as possible. Not once did anyone ask us any questions. I am so used to dealing with US or Canadian customs, so we had our story all planned (I was also nervous about having a one-way ticket). When we arrived at the Copenhagen airport, a guy just looked at our passports, stamped mine, and handed them back. Not one word. In Kristiansand, there were 2 girls and one asked us "anything to declare?" Nope. "Okay, go on through".... Didn't even ask for ID or anything. You have to realize how funny we looked trying to cart around 9 pieces of luggage! Dom sweet talked the Danish lady checking us in in Seattle and she didn't even charge us for being over weight. We had a great day in Seattle: ate good food, walked around. The 9 1/2 hour flight was okay. Not much sleep for either of us, but individual movie screens on each seat and 2 free glasses of wine :). Dom became a Tetris expert on his screen. I watched Revolutionary Road (ironic because they wanted to move to Europe). There was a father and son from Idaho (small world) sitting next to us. The son had won a trip to Denmark with his 5th grade team for developing a bio-fuel from school bus exhaust. Pretty cool kid. Everything went so smoothly! We have found an apartment which is awesome, 2 blocks from the ocean and sandy beach with a big park. Everyone seems very nice and friendly and thankfully speaks English pretty well. We have a nice 16 year old living above us that said he will help us with anything we need. And mom, lots and lots of bakeries here. Yeah! I do have pictures that I hope I can get up this week, but other things are a priority right now like finding a bed, and next week getting a job. We are pretty jet-lagged... when does that end? It is also confusing because right now the sun rises around 5 am and sets at 10:30pm. Yep. We are 9 hours ahead of Victoria, 8 hours ahead of Idaho. Hopefully we can set Skype up soon, just hyjacking some wireless connection we found right now. Love to all.

Kristiansand, Norway!

We are moving to Kristiansand, Norway on April 28th! Yeah! I'll explain the reasoning behind picking Norway in a later post, but we picked Kristiansand because we didn't want somewhere too North and too cold, we didn't want a really big city (Oslo), or too rainy (Bergen). Kristiansand has around 75,000 people and gets the most sun in Norway. It also looks like it gets snow in the winter and is on the coast with pretty buildings. Close to hiking, skiing, etc. I am really looking for any info, so if you have visited, I would love to hear your thoughts.